“The Idiot and the Odyssey: Walking the Mediterranean” is again being used as a school textbook. Veteran teacher Jim Owens is including it as part of the curriculum in his humanities/critical thinking class for 200 seniors at Gainesville High School in Florida. Students read “The Idiot,” and were entertained by the author, in November 2011 and current classes are scheduled to meet him later this month. They will also discuss the contents and photos in “The Idiot and the Odyssey II: Myth, Madness and Magic on the Mediterranean” that will be published online on Valentine’s Day 2013.

“This contemporary viewpoint on a classical theme is an inspiration for students to embrace learning as a real-life action adventure,” said Owens, who has been teaching for over twenty years. “The students love the book because it is vastly informative and the author’s candor is always amusing, often hilarious, frequently shocking and constantly insightful. It inspires them to travel and, more incredibly still, it inspires them to read.”

“How could it not appeal to young adults to read about trekking through a nudist colony in France, falling off a cliff in Morocco, cutting through a field of marijuana and sharing many of these off-beat adventures with his son?” Owens continued.

Teacher Jim Owens with “The Idiot”

For the second year, The Idiot will chat with five different classes in Gainesville to respond to questions about his first book and describe “The Idiot and the Odyssey: Myth, Madness and Magic on the Mediterranean.” The sequel takes him another 4,401 kilometers around the world’s largest inland sea and concludes when he swims the Hellespont and marches through Troy to Izmir in Turkey. During the latest walking adventure The Idiot accomplishes twelve tasks given to him by the sorceress Circe, who turned Odysseus’ crew into swine. These include: a visit to the dead in the Underworld and a session with the Oracle at Delphi, a week listening to the Sirens on the Amalfi coast, a night sleeping with Helen of Troy in the Peloponnese, a search for the Cyclops’ cave in Sicily, some spiritual guidance from the monks at Mount Athos in Greece and a meeting with the gods at the top of Mount Olympus.

“How often do students get a genuinely enjoyable textbook and also meet the author?” concluded Owens as he and the class savored a 600-image slide show of The Idiot in Italy, Malta, Greece and Turkey.

Text and Pictures: Joel Stratte-McClure

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About Joel

Joel Stratte-McClure has been a global trekker since the 1970s. He lived in France for over 30 years, working as a journalist, before he turned his attention to a unique life-time-project of walking the shores of the Mediterranean. The first 4,401 kilometers are explored in his inspirational and entertaining first book "The Idiot and the Odyssey: Walking the Mediterranean." The next 4,401 kilometers are covered in the gods-filled sequel, "The Idiot and the Odyssey II: Myth, Madness and Magic on the Mediterranean,” published on Valentine's Day 2013. The last 4,401 kilometers will be discussed in the last book of the trilogy currently entitled "The Idiot and the Odyssey III: Alexander the Great Walks the Mediterranean."