was little more

than a boring catalog.

A plot, by contrast, is what the Iliad has.

For all its great length, the poem is precisely about what is proposed in its famous opening line as its subject matter.

The wrath of Achilles, its origins, its enactment, its consequences.

So too the Odyssey, whose concomitant episodes all refract what it, in its famous opening line, purports to be about.

The man of many turnings who wandered wide.

I'm making you another seashell necklace, like the ones I used to make you when you were a boy.