What's up with these crazy Greek epics?

What a group of characters these Greek gods and goddesses are cast in The Iliad!  

A quick refresher before we begin, epics begin in medias res which simply means in the middle of the action (as opposed to the beginning).  

In short (very short), the story begins with Agamemnon, leader of the Greeks, taking the brave and awesome warrior Achilles' "war prize", which refers to the woman Briseus who Achilles won in one of the battles during the Trojan Wars.  Achilles is super pissed off about this and speaks with his mother who talks to Zeus (Zeus apparently owes Achilles' mother a favor) and together they hatch this plan to lead Agamemnon into Troy without the help of Achilles thus letting the Greeks suffer many defeats until Achilles re-enters the fighting and shows what an invaluable warrior he is.  Of course, the way that this happens is pretty whacky.

First, Zeus sends a "lying dream" to Agamemnon that is a false vision of he and his men conquering Troy.  Really, a lying dream?!  I love it!   Achilles is part of Agamemnon's army...so, I ask, doesn't their failed attempt at Troy ALSO hurt Achilles?  And I am answered with a resounding "duh. that is exactly the point."  Okay, moving on.

For the better part of the narrative (up until Book 18 of 24) Achilles is too angry with Agamemnon to fight in the battles against the Trojans, so he is just hanging out in the ships pouting while his buddies are getting killed in battle.  Achilles' best friend, Patroclus (whose relationship many people refer to when talking about the perfection of male friendship), is killed in battle in part because Achilles isn't fighting. What the hell?!  It feels like one long temper tantrum, and I do not empathize at all with Achilles and his need for revenge (or what is undoubtedly called his "moral dilemma").  

I do realize that The Iliad's lasting legacy as a foundational text in Western history automatically makes me sound trivial to call it a temper tantrum.  But what I'm interested in sharing here is the real experience of reading an epic text like this.  From my perspective, it's also hard to invest myself in a story in which women are prizes and part of the pillaging and battle swag stolen by winners of a war.  

So, seriously, what is this mess?!  I am no expert on Classical literature.  In fact, I'm a really poor reader of these works, which is one of the reasons I don't particularly enjoy reading them.  I'm reading The Iliad simply because I'm figuring out what it means to be a professional student and reader of literature.  I see a great value in having read certain works that have become tropes in other literature, and thus, I'm reading The Iliad.  Anyway, that's my disclaimer which is meant to affirm that this post is purely my personal response to the process of reading this story and NOT a critical assessment of this work.  

Typically, I hate to write things about my original perception of a book out of a fear of not being learned enough or a serious enough reader.  However, lately I am acknowledging that not all important literary works register as important on the first reading.  I want to get comfortable with the fact that there are many things that one doesn't enjoy the first time s/he is reading them or that I may even find myself unable to take the work very seriously at first.  The last thing I want to happen as I work toward a career in academic teaching, writing, and research is to lose a connection with the discomfort of the reading process when reading something that is not simply meant for my personal enjoyment, enrichment, or edification. 

This text has been a good reading experience because for all of the things that annoyed me about the plot, I did appreciate the saturation of emotion.  After all, it is usually an emotional attachment to something that produces the most heroic and un-heroic acts in The Iliad, like Achilles not fighting with his men because he feels he has been humiliated by Agamemnon and then defeating Troy's most formidable warrior (Hector) in response to his best friend's death.  

Overall, I must say a decent read.  And perhaps more than that, a good effort in discipline toward learning to engage and grapple with a text that I have feared having to read.  It really wasn't so bad, and in fact, when I compare this to the mundane and annoying tasks at my previous job that I had to do whether I wanted to or not, this was way more motivating and interesting work.