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The Odyssey
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| Part No: | 0140268863 |
| Manufacturer: | Penguin Classics |
| MFG Part: | |
| Customer Rating: | 4.0 / 5.0 |
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- ISBN13: 9780140268867
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Robert Fagles's translation is a jaw-droppingly beautiful rendering of Homer's
Odyssey, the most accessible and enthralling epic of classical Greece. Fagles captures the rapid and direct language of the original Greek, while telling the story of Odysseus in lyrics that ring with a clear, energetic voice. The story itself has never seemed more dynamic, the action more compelling, nor the descriptions so brilliant in detail. It is often said that every age demands its own translation of the classics. Fagles's work is a triumph because he has not merely provided a contemporary version of Homer's classic poem, but has located the right language for the timeless character of this great tale. Fagles brings the
Odyssey so near, one wonders if the Hollywood adaption can be far behind. This is a terrific book.
If
The Iliad is the world's greatest war epic, then
The Odyssey is literature's grandest evocation of everyman's journey though life. Odysseus's reliance on his wit and wiliness for survival in his encounters with divine and natural forces during his ten-year voyage home to Ithaca after the Trojan War is at once a timeless human story and an individual test of moral endurance.
Translated by Robert Fagles
Introduction and Notes by Bernard Knox
| Some thoughts about The Odyssey | 2009-10-03 | 5 / 5 |
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I am not going to join in the debate on translation. I read the Fitzgerald a long time ago and enjoyed it very much. I just finished reading Fagles' translation and was completely enthralled. Do not listen to anyone who tells you that one translation is closer to Homer (in some way which they rarely explain). Just find the one that grabs you by your reader's neck and pulls you in.
The Odyssey is essential, charming and occassionally astounding. It's main characters are people who we recognize, who we sometimes understand and who sometimes are bizarrely foreign. I want to talk about some of my reactions to the book. In many ways, this review is more for people who have already read it. I would love some knowledgeable comments on the points I want to discuss.
There many things about the book to puzzle over and ponder. Bernard Knox brings up one of the puzzles in his very useful introduction. I am talking about the whole issue of Odysseus' renown or fame. Many times throughout the book, either Telemachus or Penelope explains that the fact that Odysseus has disappeared is a problem. It seems almost as if it would be preferable to know that he died gloriously on the fields before Troy. The fact that his fame does not have a known ending seems to not only put Penelope in a difficult position vis-a-vis the suitors but to somehow diminish Telemachus in the eyes of the world. Telemachus in order to begin to gain his own renown has to be grounded in the renown of his father, Odysseus. And Odysseus, in the eyes of the world, is now a man without a stable renown. It is almost as if the Greeks saw the fame of an individual as we see their personality- it is a guide to their behavior and gives stability and meaning to all they do.
Then there is the occassional shock of how the women are viewed throughout the book. Whether it is Helen referring to herself as a whore or the way that Telemachus talks to Penelope or his hanging of the maids or Odysseus being more than willing to stay with Circe for a year it is obvious that this is a deeply male world. By the way, that hanging is worth long consideration. These maids were little kids when Odysseus sailed off to Troy; they may well have had no memory of him whatsoever. The suitors have been acting with criminal disregard in the house for years. The maids may have been seduced or raped or somewhere inbetween. Their punishment is a slower, more torturous death than that of the suitors. And, yet somehow, the book gives the impression that this was justice served.
And finally there is the character of Odysseus himself. He seems incapable of seemingly walking into any situation without first putting everyone in sight to some sort of test. This culminates in one of the last books where he views his father, Laertes, for the first time in twenty years. The piteous state of Laertes causes Odysseus to burst into tears, than to immediately engage in internal debate whether or not to test him, which, of course, he does. For what? For being appropriately distraut over the death of his wife and the disappearance of his son for twenty years?
See what I mean about the characters being both familiar and strange in their psychologies?
But for me, this is heart of the value of the book. We are all individuals, all human, all born in a culture and in history. The varieties of ways that the human, the individual, the cultural and the historical can mix in one person is not infinite. It may not even be inordinate. But there are wide and wild variations. The Odyssey places that conundrum right in front of us in the course of a wonderfully exotic and enticing story. It is not for nothing that Odysseus is referred to many times as the man of twists and turns. He is not just a schemer. He himself is a puzzle, one that has bewitched and befuddled our cultural tradition for centuries. One that has befuddled me for the past two weeks. Again, I cannot recommend highly enough that you worry not about the translation issue and focus which translation is the most readable to you. Or maybe get several and read them at different times. And then write me a comment to explains your understanding of the issues I bring up or some of your own. |
| Readable rendition of the Odyssey. | 2009-10-01 | 5 / 5 |
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| It seems that the biggest problem with many Homer readers is boredom. That's a pity, since the Odyssey was written a very long time ago, and is still widely considered a pretty ingenious congee of the ancient mind. It has been translated many a number of times. This particular translation is very readable, and doesn't bore you, well it didn't bore me. So you can get to know the Odyssey without any unnecesary/hard-to-understand Victorian era florishes that were peculiar for some of the earlier translations. I hope that some of the younger viewers will come to enjoy this undispitable classic of the world literature. |
| don't be fooled | 2009-06-09 | 1 / 5 |
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The kindle edition is linked to the Fagles translation, but that is not what you will get. The Pope translation is what you will get for kindle -- not at all the same thing!
Patricia |
| Great Look at a Soldier's Mindset in the Ancient World | 2009-05-18 | 4 / 5 |
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| I personally preferred The Iliad, but this still gives in invaluable look into the mindset of a soldier in the Ancient World. Odysseus is not all that heroic when viewed through a modern lense, and that's part of what makes the work so interesting. Nevertheless, I think the story lags for about a hundred pages after Odysseus returns home -- although it might be too much to expect what was originally an oral story to get to the point. However, when the plot does pick up again, it really picks up -- with an extremely gory scene should strike most modern readers as extremely disturbing. Overall, I have no choice but to recommend this -- it's just to0 important not to pick up. |
| Utterly charming | 2009-04-25 | 5 / 5 |
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In his book "The Joy of Reading", Charles Van Doren had this to say of Fagles's translation:
"Translations of both epics by Richard Lattimore are said to be closer to the Greek than most others but perhaps as a result they are not easy to read. A more passionate version of The Iliad by Robert Fitzgerald seemed preferable when it appeared thirty years ago. But none of those, in my opinion, can be compared with the translations of both poems by Robert Fagles that were published at the end of the last century. His Iliad is powerful, almost overwhelming, his Odyssey utterly charming, and I recommend them to anyone who wishes to read--or reread--Homer's two great epics. I can't imagine any reader not being transported by Fagles into Homer's magical world." |
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