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Anamardoll, I think you misunderstood what I meant about the Greeks. There's was a very different culture from ours; one might call it alien. But we live in a multicultural world and I think it's a good thing to be able to take in the cultural details and differences while also seeing the common humanity. If our world is to pull though its many problems, we need to find that common humanity.
Reading the classics introduces us to different ways of looking at the world and dealing with life's problems. I don't think we should be so confident about our own culture as to suppose that if humans are still around in a couple of thousand years' time they won't look back on us with some misgivings and even contempt.
Of course I agree about Clytemnestra. Our 21st-century take on her story can provide an interesting basis for a modern novel. Have you come across the Canongate Myth Series? I really enjoyed Margaret Atwood's Penelopiad, which was part of the series.
Our take on that story is one of the many reasons for reading the stories. Reading this sort of thing isn't like reading a piece of modern genre fiction; it's a bit more gritty than that. It surprises, horrifies and challenges us. The Iliad, in particular, is definitely strange. By the time we come to read it, we may have a sketchy idea of the myth and would expect it to start with Paris, the three goddesses and Helen. Instead, it plunges into the middle of the Trojan War and is about Achilles' monstrous sulk. I think it's an interesting question to consider whether an ancient Greek audience would have sympathised with Achilles, the greatest Greek hero, or thought he was behaving badly. That raises the whole question of men's "honour" and what it means. This is still a live question today, with so many so-called "honour killings".
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