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Homer's The Iliad and The Odyssey: A Biography
Homer's The Iliad and The Odyssey: A Biography
Homer's The Iliad and The Odyssey: A Biography
Audiobook6 hours

Homer's The Iliad and The Odyssey: A Biography

Written by Alberto Manguel

Narrated by Michael Prichard

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

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About this audiobook

No one knows if there was a man named Homer, but there is little doubt that the epic poems assembled under his name form the cornerstone of Western literature. The Iliad and the Odyssey-with their incomparable tales of the Trojan War, Achilles, Ulysses and Penelope, the Cyclops, the beautiful Helen of Troy, and the petulant gods-are familiar to most people because they are so pervasive. They have fed our imaginations for over two and a half millennia, inspiring everyone from Plato to Virgil, Pope to Joyce, Dante to Wolfgang Petersen. In this graceful and sweeping addition to the Books that Changed the World series, Alberto Manguel traces the lineage of these epic poems. He considers their original purpose, either as allegory or record of history; surveys the challenges the pagan poems presented to the early Christian world; and traces their spread after the Reformation. Following Homer through the greatest literature ever created, Manguel's book above all delights in the poems themselves, the "primordial spring without which there would have been no culture."
LanguageEnglish
Release dateFeb 5, 2008
ISBN9781400173938
Homer's The Iliad and The Odyssey: A Biography
Author

Alberto Manguel

Internationally acclaimed as an anthologist, translator, essayist, novelist, and editor, Alberto Manguel is the bestselling author of several award-winning books, including A Dictionary of Imaginary Places, with Gianni Guadalupi, and A History of Reading. Manguel grew up in Israel, where his father was the Argentinian ambassador. In the mid-1980s, Manguel moved to Toronto where he lived for twenty years. Manguel's novel, News from a Foreign Country Came, won the McKitterick Prize in 1992. In 2000, Manguel moved to the Poitou-Charentes region of France, where he and his partner purchased and renovated a medieval farmhouse. Célébrité internationale à plus d’un titre — il est anthologiste, traducteur, essayiste, romancier et éditeur — Alberto Manguel est l’auteur du Dictionnaire des lieux imaginaires, en collaboration avec Gianni Guadalupi, et d’une Histoire de la lecture, entre autres succès de librairie. Manguel a grandi en Israël où son père était ambassadeur de l’Argentine. Au milieu des années 1980, Manguel s’installe à Toronto où il vivra pendant vingt ans. Il reçoit le McKitterick Prize en 1992 pour son roman News from a Foreign Country Came. Depuis 2000, Manguel habite la région française de Poitou-Charentes, dans une maison de ferme du Moyen-Âge qu’il a achetée et remise à neuf avec son compagnon.

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Reviews for Homer's The Iliad and The Odyssey

Rating: 4.125 out of 5 stars
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  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    This book is a timeless epic (and an actual epic, not in the way the word is overused anymore). The language of Homer is down to earth and not flowery or difficult to read or understand. The characters are relatable to some degree; one quickly realizes the superstitions of today are deeply rooted in ancient cultures.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    First-ever volume bought of Homer in translation (and along with Vergil's 'Eclogues'). The translation is old-fashioned, and altho' my favourite is Richmond Lattimore's peerless version I'm still fond of this one ~ the daddy of all those black Penguin Classics which now adorn my shelves!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I have read several versions of The Odyssey ranging from ones designed for collegiate readers to ones designed for early readers, and frankly I like them all. I have long been a fan of this particular story for all its colorful characters and life lessons. I think that the parallel story lines of Odysseus, Telemachus, and Penelope offer a variety of perspectives for any reader.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    It is difficult to read and review a book like this. To read because I can’t help but view it with my 21st century sensibilities in place and to review because I’m sure that I missed elements of importance because I don’t have a classical background. But since a lot of people will approach this book in exactly this way, I’ll try to organize my thoughts.Let me get this out of the way – yes I was trying to fit each episode into O Brother, Where Art Thou? the whole time. Most don’t fit. Like…who exactly where the Hogwallops? And the ladies in the stream…were they Sirens or the girls who helped Odysseus when he washed up in the river on Ithaca? And just what was Baby-face Nelson supposed to represent? Ha! So I guess the Coens took a few liberties with their bong hits.Oh and another thing I’ll get out of the way – ancient Greek men are insufferable. I’m aghast at how little they thought of women. The table in my dining room has more say over its destiny than a woman did in ancient Greece. They treat their dogs better. Penelope’s fate was so maddening because she had no say in it. The assholes eating her out of house and home had a perfect right to do so apparently, and neither she nor Telemachus could do a thing about it. And here I thought ancient Roman women got the short end of the stick…at least they got to eat in the same room as the men. Bah! Weak-minded humanity. Renders ½ its population as inert property while it slaughters the other. Men are weird.Ok. That’s over now. I’m still mad about it, but what can I do? So the story itself went in a way I didn’t expect. Telemachus gets going first and we see him granted warm welcomes in the houses of both Nestor and Menelaus. The thing that really struck me here was how naive the ancient Greeks seemed to be. They accept strangers on the face of things and don’t even ask their names before giving gifts, new clothes, baths, money and ships with men and provisions to further their journeys. Weird. No wonder they found Odysseus highly tricky for a simple ploy like the horse at Troy. These days subterfuge is just an accepted part of any conflict and just daily life half the time. Anyway, we get some of Odysseus’s story from Nestor and Menelaus and not directly from Odysseus as I thought we would.And the parts of the story I thought would be big deals and go on forever were treated with just a few lines and then – zip – they were done. The Sirens are a perfect example. That episode gets a lot of press and artwork devoted to it and it hardly lasts a minute with nothing of import happening at all. Again, not what I expected. There is, however, a lot of repetition of baths and anointing with olive oil and the rosy-fingered presence of dawn. Boy Homer ground that metaphor to death. The broad back of the sea or the fish-giving sea was another. But I guess it became more of a refrain for the bards who told this story again and again.The wind-up took forever with lots of extraneous detail and elaborate lies to cover up Odysseus’s true identity. The whole time Odysseus was disguised as a beggar I was grinding my teeth with wanting to get to the ass-kicking. I mean, I don’t care what made up crap you tell everyone, just get on with it. Eventually, we get it, but like everything else he does, Odysseus takes his time. For a man who wanted to get home really fast, he spent a lot of time farting around…like spending all that time with Circe. Oh sure he really wanted to see Ithaca again. And it’s the same with the ass-kicking, he strings it out as long as possible. Finally everyone is dead and we think he and Penelope will just rush into each other’s arms and fade to black. Not so. More lamentations, disbelief and foot-dragging.Anyway, it’s an interesting story and an enlightening one. I learned a lot about how the Greeks viewed their world and how helpless they really felt. So much shit just rolled downhill. Injustice heaped on injustice with a full complement of excuses. Cranky, childish and mercurial gods at the top, women and slaves on the bottom.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A standard text for high school classrooms, the Fitzgerald translation, rewritten in prose form, provides an accessible version of Homer's The Odyssey. Without question, this page-turning adventure acts as a model for storytelling, as Homer likely captured in riveting manner the attention of his local audience wherever he traveled. Set up in media res, the gripping narrative takes readers through the wandering years of Odysseus, a Greek soldier-king, who had fought in the Trojan War. With hubris, the cocky hero manages to enrage Poseidon who punishes the mere mortal through a series of obstacles where he is unable to get back to his homeland of Ithaca to be with his wife and son. Even after reading the classic epic several times, I am always impressed by Homer's use of imagery as illustrated in the passage when Odysseus pokes the eye out of the baby cyclops Polyphemus: "Eyelid and lash were seared; the pierced ball hissed broiling, and the roots popped." Wow! This is enough for any student to lose an appetite before lunch break.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I've always loved the Odyssey. Odysseus isn't my favourite hero -- he spends far too much time being tricksy for that. But I always enjoyed the stories.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I read The Iliad in Richmond Lattimore's translation and far preferred his style to that of Fagles. So while I found this sufficient to enable me to read the entire work at last, it did not move me as the first work did.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Audible didn't mention who the translator was but when I input the first line into Google I found it linked to Augustus Taber Murray on Wikipedia.I have been trying to find for years a version of the Odyssey that I liked as much as I do most translations of the Iliad. In this reading of an obscure translation, which I listened to while I was working, I finally found what I wanted. I love action and fantasy and I had always thought that was the best reason to read this work. This time, I was more impressed by the character of the heroes and their women: their code of honor, their hospitality and generosity, their adaptability to the decrees of fate or the operation of chance, their competitiveness, their cruelty to men, women, and children, their loyalties and betrayals. I've read that the Odyssey was the first great adventure story but I think one could say that it was the first psychological novel. Charlton Griffin was terrific when he read the narration and the men's voices. I always imagined that Homer's warriors spoke like this. He wasn't at all convincing when doing the women's voices. I wish Audio Connoisseur had used a woman narrator.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Just finished listening to the unabridged audiobook of The Odyssey, translated by Samuel Butler (no relation to Gerard Butler) and read in rich, rotund diction by John Lee. Who is, of course, English. I don’t remember when I first heard the story of Odysseus’ journey home to Ithaca; seems as if I’ve always known it.In my 20s,I heard and fell in love with Monteverdi’s Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria (which sounds inestimably more luscious in Italian than English:The Return of Ulysses to his Country) from the Met with baritone Richard Stilwell as the wily hero and mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade as Penelope. The joyful babbling of their ecstatic reunion duet brought out the humanity of the characters.And I used to read Tales from the Odyssey by Mary Pope Osborne to my youngest daughter. She is still the only one who shares my enthusiasm for this classic.End of long intro…..The Odyssey can be enjoyed on many levels. It’s a great yarn about a shrewd soldier/king making his perilous (and tardy!) way home after the Trojan War (by the way, it was Odysseus who thought up the Trojan horse). It’s also a wide-ranging allegory about the often perilous journey of life. It abounds in psychological and spiritual archetypes. There’s something for every kind of reader.As for Odysseus himself, he seems to lie for the sake of lying, is boastful and reckless. His very name means “he who causes pain or makes others angry.” Early on in the story, having outwitted the cyclops Polyphemus, Odysseus and his men make their escape by boat. When he judges them to be out of danger, Odysseus does a “nyah-nyah” boasting chant to the cyclops who of course tears the top off a mountain and hurls it at the boat. This causes an enormous wake whose waves draw Odysseus’ boat back to shore! The sailors row like mad to get away from the shore. When they are at a safe distance, our wily hero starts up with the “nyah-nyah” chant again! His poor men beg him to stop.In the Iliad, it was all manly soldiers fighting other manly soldiers to recover the prize trophy wife, Helen. Conservative, stylistic, a time already ancient when Homer sang of it . By contrast, the Odyssey looks to the future, reflecting a new culture currently stable enough to become introspective. Odysseus’ journey home is populated by women/goddesses and monsters. No all out war any more, army against army, face-to-face combat. Rather the enemy becomes singular, hidden in caves or in the bodies of beautiful women or “lotus-eaters”. While completely enjoyable on a literal level, the story is also leading the listener, as all good stories do, into the realm of the inner life. It seems to me that few could identify with Achilles or Hector or Helen. However, we are all Odysseus and Penelope and Telemachus in one way or another. Homecoming can be almost anything: love,death, faith, consciousness. Likewise waiting. Back to the story…..The women want to sleep with Odysseus and the monsters want to eat him. The monsters ultimately succeed in devouring his crew leaving the ageing soldier to finish the journey alone. Polyphemus, Calypso, Circe, Scylla and Charibdis, the eponymous Mentor, Poseidon, and Athena make this a mythological all-star story. But for me, none of them can rival Penelope in character and depth. She is the other half of the “wily” Odysseus and I think that we can extrapolate much about her from what is said about him. She is the modern “Helen”:the kidnapped trophy wife appropriate for the old militaristic nation becomes the faithful wife and mother who waits 20 years (!) for the return of her husband. It only requires one man, Paris, to steal Helen away (she seems to have been agreeable to the idea). Yet an invading mob of suitors cannot coerce Penelope into abandoning her absent husband. Helen’s is “the face that launched a thousand ships”; Penelope holds herself in readiness for one ship only. Her waiting is not in the least passive however. Her husband’s goal is to reach home; Penelope’s goal is to keep her property and marriage intact until Odysseus returns. This demands skill and cunning equal to her husband’s. I felt entertained and enriched as I listened to The Odyssey on my drive to and from work (for about 2 weeks). Narrator John Lee brings a virile sound to Homer’s lines. You can almost hear him enjoying the story as he reads. I highly recommend this way of experiencing The Odyssey; it is an oral work designed to arouse the intellect through the sounds of precisely chosen words. I can’t think of a better way to enjoy it!10 out of 10!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The tribulations of the wily Odysseus making his way home after the Trojan war to his wife Penelope in Ithaca. An excellent translation for today's reader with a masterly introduction by the classicist Bernard Knox. "So they traded stories, the two ghosts standing there in the House of Death..." As Ted Hughes wrote, "Just the right blend of sophistication and roughness it seems to me."
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Agreed with the reviewer who said the Fagles translation has phrases that don't quite fit because they seem too modern...but Lattimore is terrible. If you want good translations of both the Iliad and the Odyssey, Samuel Butler is masterful; he uses the Roman names for the gods (as was the norm in late-19th Century and early-20th Century British writing) but in no way does it change the tale or the quality of the narrative. For a middling translation of the Iliad, not nearly as good as Butler or as bad as Lattimore, Robert Fitzgerald is decent.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Condensed version of the incredible epic, though Odysseus does not loose his luster even in Spanish. He continues to be a hero you wish to see home, but know he has many flaws that he needs to work on.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Before now, I'd only read portions of this that were assigned in high school and college. Reading the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series (see book 55) inspired me to read it from cover to cover. It is a great classic book, but the repetition of things (Odysseus' story was retold to many people) drove me crazy and I thought Odysseus was never going to reveal his identity and confront the suitors. Now I need to reread The Iliad. I'm going to try to read at least one classic book each summer.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    If you've never actually read the Odyssey, you must take a shot at this translation. 16,000 lines of poetry may seem daunting, but Home is the source, the ur-source, of most of Western fantasy literature. You need to read this excellent translation to really understand the story, and dispel the various accretions that movies and TV have glopped on.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Rather unusual Swedish translation of Homer's Odyssey. It was on display in the window of an antiquarian bookseller, and as I was going to the annual meeting of the Swedish-Finnish James Joyce Society, it was … destiny.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I'm sure this is a great book for those out there who love classics and stuff like this... but it just wasn't for me.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I won't say too much about the actual story. Everyone already knows that stuff from freshman English and general knowledge of myths and literary tropes. It has monsters and heroes and true love and coming of age and an awesome scene with a trick arrow shot and 3 guys against the world. Give it a try if you haven't looked at it since you were 15.

    I'm not sure I had ever read the whole Odyssey before. In any case, I now have heard the whole thing performed by Ian McKellen. I suppose Homer on audio book is about as close as I'll get to the original, unless someone can point me to someone who does the audio book in ancient Greek... McKellen's narration was great, but I bought the book to listen to while driving, and it put me to sleep. The story was really quite exciting, even if it did drag on a little when Odysseus was planning his suitor revenge. I guess we skipped that part in 9th grade English. But Gandalf's voice seemed to be more suited for bedtime stories than distracting me from traffic jams. I know what I'll be listening to when I can't get to sleep though.

    The translation, by Robert Fagles, was excellent. There were some places where I was like "that seems really colloquial" but then I was glad because it really was easy to understand. I would use this translation if I ever needed to read Homer for some reason.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This was not at all what I expected. I had steeled myself to reading a long flowering epic poem that would be repetitive and impossible to understand. Instead, I found this to be surprisingly readable and even more surprisingly interesting. A few things really helped me on my journey. I was reading and listening to this book using the Fagles translation which is narrated by Ian McKellen - excellent! I also listened in parallel to Elizabeth Vandiver's lectures about The Odyssey. There are only 12 lectures, but she adds so much background to the story that it added the depth and perspective I needed to make this a very enjoyable read.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Boring. I'd suggest giving O Brother Where Art Thou a chance instead. But thats just me. They poor our a few to many libations I thought. It gets a little boring.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Robert Fagles once again preserves the timeless nature of the human spirit in Homer's The Odyssey. Odysseus portray the the endurance of the human spirit against all odds. Although Odysseus is favored by the gods for his wit and courage, he is damned by Poseidon to roam the seas for 10 years before reaching his beloved home of Ithaca. During these ten years Odysseus encounters many entertaining conflicts and characters. The Odyssey accounts for the greek heroes famous journey and struggle to finally have peace at his home.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    My knowledge of classical literature and mythology is sadly lacking. The main reason I decided to tackle The Odyssey is because I want to read Ulysses and I gather that a passing acquaintance with this work will make that experience more meaningful.Listening to Ian McKellen reading the Robert Fagles' translation made me regret my lack of education in the classics. I have no way of assessing the merits of Fagles' work, but I would love be to be able to read this epic poem in the language in which it was written and not feel that I was missing most of its cultural, social and political context.Given my lack of familiarity with Greek mythology, it was interesting to realise just how much of the story is imbedded in my consciousness, from Penelope unravelling her weaving to put off her suitors, to the story of the Sirens, to the Cyclops. This is but a small indicstion of the importance of this epic to Western history and literature.Overall, I found The Odyssey more interesting for what it represents as a primary source of Western literature than for the characters or the plot. Odysseus is not exactly a hero for modern times: he may be a master tactician and warrior, but he's also a consummate liar, a rapist, a plunderer and a murderer. The other characters don't have a lot going for them either, at least not in contemporary terms. However, in spite of having an instinctive reaction against the Odysseus' behaviour and the horrific violence contained in the text, I still found it compulsive listening. I loved the non-linear structure and the rhythm of the language. In addition. I was fascinated by the involvement of the gods in the affairs of human beings: directing their actions, subverting their plans, punishing them and performing the odd makeover to assist them to achieve their ends.Ian McKellen's narration was - unsurprisingly - excellent. However, the sound quality of the audiobook left a bit to be desired. At times it was blurry and the volume was variable. While I would have benefited from the introduction and endnotes in a good text edition of this work, listening to an epic poem almost certainly written to be read aloud was for me the best way of tackling it. At some point I'd like to read a well annotated edition in order to learn what my ignorance led me to miss.How can I not give five stars to a literary work which is still being read and discussed thousands of years after it was written?
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Classic high school read. Abridged version may be needed. Great to teach archetypes. 
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This epic I never did try to read as a teenager, but I knew that it too would come someday just as the Iliad would. This epic took longer to read than the Iliad, but then the translation of the Iliad I read had some books taken out for the sake of the readers. This translation by Fagles didn't cut anything out. I really enjoyed this translation. I've heard others praise Fagles as a wonderful translator and I have to agree. This myth is also an outstanding one. It really personifies the Quest Pattern we now-a-days link to many books. This is another epic I would love to listen to as well, so we'll see if I can get my hands on another good translation.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I had attempted to read The Odyssey once before and failed miserably. Since then I've learned just how important the translator is when choosing to read ancient classics. I'm happy that I found a different translation to try which made this a much more enjoyable and engaging read. Given that the story comes from a time of oral tradition I decided to try out the audio book, which I think was the right idea but the wrong narrator for me. More on that below.For anyone who doesn't know, The Odyssey was written by Homer somewhere around 800 BC. The epic poem relates the story of Odysseus and his trials on his return journey home after the Trojan war. For such a simple premise, the scope is vast. It has a little bit of everything (magic, monsters, gods, suitors, shipwrecks, action) and touches on so many themes (violence and the aftermath of war, poverty, wealth, marriage and family, betrayal, yearning for ones home, hospitality) that is is easy to see why this poem is so important and how it has inspired many stories to this day. One of the best and worst parts about this version was the introduction to the poem. The intro goes into great detail about the controversies about the poem's origins and dives deeply into the poem's many themes. This was great for someone who already knows the story and wants to learn more before getting into Odysseus's tale. For those that don't like spoilers, it's best if you skip the introduction and read/listen to it after you're done with the poem. Fair warning for audio book listeners - the introduction is roughly 3.5 hours long and I was definitely getting impatient to hear the poem long before it was done.I listened to the audio book narrated by Claire Danes. This has really driven home that I need to listen to a sample of the narrator before choosing my audio books. Claire does an adequate job when reading the descriptive paragraphs but just didn't work for me when it came to dialog. All her characters, male and female, sounded the same and were a bit over done so it was a challenge to keep who was speaking apart. She is going on my avoid list for future audio books.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I first read this book back in middle school and have loved it ever since.

    The story (in case you don't know), follows Odysseus fresh from the Trojan War as he tries to get home to his lovely wife and son, Penelope and Telemachus. Adventure ensues.

    I personally like that the Odyssey is about cunning not necessarily strength. Odysseus relies much more on mind than muscle, a tendency that his many adventures showcase. he uses his brains to get out of the sticky situations he finds himself in and doesn't always go to the "easy" route of just stabbing everything with his sword.

    Plus it has some of the best writing ever, in my opinion of course, such as this quote when Odysseus and Penelope are re-united:

    "Now from his breast into the eyes the ache
    of longing mounted, and he wept at last,
    his dear wife, clear and faithful, in his arms,
    longed for as the sunwarmed earth is longed for by a swimmer
    spent in rough water where his ship went down
    under Poseidon's blows, gale winds and tons of sea.
    Few men can keep alive through a big serf
    to crawl, clotted with brine, on kindly beaches
    in joy, in joy, knowing the abyss behind:
    and so she too rejoiced, her gaze upon her husband,
    her white arms round him pressed as though forever.”



    I love this book, and I think that everyone should read it at least once.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    It's good to meet classics in person after being distant acquaintances who know one another just well enough to nod in passing. Now I can shake The Odyssey heartily by the hand when I meet it in other stories, hail-well-met. And meet it in other stories I will, this revered grandfather of the revenge story and the travelogue. Besides being a classic, The Odyssey is a fascinating tale in its own right of strange wonders and awful dangers, of the faithful and the faithless, of wrongs committed and retribution meted out. Odysseus, Achaean hero of the Trojan War, has been ten years fighting at Troy and another ten making his way home. Imprisoned by a nymph, shipwrecked, lost, waylaid — Odysseus, beloved of some gods, is hated by others. Meanwhile at home in Ithaca, many have despaired of his coming, including his wife Penelope and son Telemachus, who now suffer at the hands of Penelope's suitors, leading men of the Achaeans who wish to possess her. Odysseus will never return, they say, as they sit in his house eating and drinking up all his wealth. Telemachus is just a young man and cannot prevent their ravages. The situation is indeed desperate, as Penelope, worn out with mourning Odysseus, begins to accept her fate to become another man's wife. Once I got used to it, I loved the repetition of certain phrases and descriptions: "long-tried royal Odysseus," "discreet Telemachus," "heedful Penelope," "clear-eyed Athena," "the gods who hold the open sky," "rosy-fingered dawn," "on the food before them they laid hands," and more. It reminded me that I was hearing a poem (I listened on audiobook) and that it was originally memorized by the bard, not read off the page. The repetition is comforting. It was easy to fall into the rhythm of the story and the archaic language, surrendering to the storyteller's art. I find the interplay between the gods and men so interesting. I don't know if The Odyssey is an accurate picture of ancient Greek theology and I don't want to draw too many conclusions from what was understood even at the time to be mythological. But I had a similar experience listening to The Iliad — the gods are great and powerful and all that, but they are so very involved in human affairs, almost as if they can't bear to be left out... why should Athena care so much whether Odysseus ever gets home? Why is it that human affairs so concern the councils of Olympus? I suppose the simple answer is that these stories were made up by humans and since the thing that interests us most is ourselves, we can't imagine gods who aren't likewise fascinated.I listened to an older translation by George Herbert Palmer and I'm glad I did. My experience of The Iliad was marred by the fact that it was a modernized translation, the latest and greatest supposedly. But all that really means is that it was dumbed-down for lazy listeners, to the point where some of the heroic moments almost became comical in our modern parlance. No thank you! I'm no expert in translation, but this one presented no jarring moments of disconnect between the style and substance, and I thought it fitted the subject matter very well. The reader of this particular audiobook, Norman Dietz, has a low, smooth, calm voice that I quickly learned to like. This is an excellent story that never slackens its pace or lets you stop caring what happens to its hero. Don't be intimidated by its status as a classic — all that means is that it's a good story that has stood the test of time, delighting its hearers both in ancient days and now. I recommend it!
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A soldier returns home ten years later than expected.2.5/4 (Okay).There are some really good parts near the end. Most of the book is tedious.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I love this book. Lattimore's grasp is huge and the story is immortal (of course). One of the primordial epic stories in which we interact with the gods. The most rosy-fingered story ever told in its *best* translation. The story has everything -- including lots of sex. "It is hateful to me to tell a story over again, when I has been well told." After reading it in starts and fits, over the course of many years, it is finally finished -- "let the rest be hidden in silence."
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    815 The Odyssey: The Story of Ulysses, by Homer translated by W. H. D. Rouse (read 13 Aug 1965) Frankly, I read this because I figured everybody should have read this. I read it right after reading the Iliad. Over the years I had read parts of this, but I have no specific memory of being overly moved in the reading. Nor can I make any meaningful comment on the merit of the translation. This translation was published first in 1938
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Can't go wrong with the Odyssey. I've probably read this ten times by now, it never gets old and I always find new things I missed before.