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    The Odyssey
    The Odyssey
    The Odyssey
    Audiobook12 hours

    The Odyssey

    Written by Homer

    Narrated by Norman Dietz

    4.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    The adventures of Odysseus have stood in the center of classical literature for centuries. Although countless scholars have studied and translated Homer's epic poem, each person who encounters The Odyssey for the first time is unfailingly startled by the excitement, drama, and contemporary nature of its remarkable hero. The Odyssey is the sweeping story of a great warrior who must wander the world for years after the Trojan War. But it is also an intensely domestic tale of the loving husband who returns after a long absence, joining forces with his faithful wife to defeat those who would destroy their enduring union. Little is known of Homer's life, but this much is certain: he sang for a living. Long before The Odyssey appeared on the page, it was recited over and over to listeners eager to be entertained. Prepare now to be drawn into a vivid ancient world where the voyages of Odysseus and his fight to regain his rightful place at home stand out with stunning clarity in this lyrical narration by Norman Dietz.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateJan 31, 2014
    ISBN9781440798054
    Author

    Homer

    The identity of the composer of the Odyssey and the Iliad is a matter of some speculation. The ancients believed it was a bard called Homer, although they disagreed about biographical details. It was commonly thought that he lived on Chios, an island off the west coast of Turkey, some time between 1100 and 700 BC, probably closer to the latter. Traditionally portrayed as blind, he is said to have composed the Iliad, the Odyssey and the Homeric Hymns, a series of choral addresses to the gods.

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    Reviews for The Odyssey

    4.5/5

    126 ratings78 reviews

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    • 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!

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      The greatest of all ancient Greek works is spellbinding. Fagles' prose is lean and muscular, giving a grit and immediacy to his adventures. Loved it when I read it in high school, love it still today. As relevant today as it was nealy 3000 years ago.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      I have nothing new to add, of course. Homer sings for our time too- what more is there? Gods and heroes and regular humans all jumbled up together and humanity is unchanged down all the years. This translation is lovely, by turns sonorous and stirring but always compelling.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      I'm glad that my library had this as an audiobook - I think it made me like the tale much more. Had I read it in paper the style would just make me bored and quit but the story fit well in an audio format.

      The writing style was mediocre and much repetitions to make the reader remember that it was Athena in a different shape etcetera. I wouldn't have liked this style at all in paper form. But it's heart-warming, thinking that someone back in the ancient days wrote this, that the humans had the same reactions and feelings back then. And the story in itself is a good adventure tale.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      Preview…If you’re looking for a crash course in ancient Greek mythology, there is perhaps no better choice of reading material than the exciting epic poem “The Odyssey.” The details of Odysseus’ heroic journey home from the Trojan War were kept alive through oral tradition for hundreds of years before Homer ever set pen to parchment—which means every detail works together to weave a fascinating and rhythmic tale.Athena, goddess of wisdom, is on Odysseus’ side. Unfortunately, Poseidon, god of the sea, wants for his destruction. Every time Athena helps him gain some ground, Poseidon finds a way to introduce new difficulties to our hero. Odysseus faces angry gods, lustful goddesses and princesses, tempting sirens, the deadly Scylla and the Charybdis, the haunted underworld, the cursed cattle of the sun, a hungry Cyclops and oh-so much more.When he finally returns home, more than 10 years after the war’s end, he finds that a group of hostile suitors have taken over his palace in Ithaca. They are all vying for his wife Penelope’s hand; ultimately whoever she chooses will be made the new ruler. The suitors also have secret designs to murder Odysseus’ son, Telemachus, thus removing their last remaining obstacle.Penelope, the faithful wife, has through a variety of tricks and stalls been able to put off choosing a groom thus far. Will Odysseus make it home in time to save his family and the kingdom? Even if you already know how the tale ends, it’s so exciting getting there that you won’t want to pass up the opportunity to give “The Odyssey” another look or to read it for the very first time.You may like this book if…you like Greek mythology; you enjoy epic adventure tales, you like stories written in verse; the thought of gods meddling in the lives of mortals appeals to you; you’re intrigued by fantastic elements; you’re looking for something different than much of contemporary literature; you like reading books for free online.You may not like this book if…you don’t like stories that couldn’t really happen; poetry annoys or confuses you; it bothers you that the male gods can take on lovers whenever they want but when Calypso wants the very same thing she isn’t allowed to have it; you don’t like how Penelope remains faithful for so many years but Odysseus engages in a string of love affairs.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 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.
    • 5/5
      You must read a Robert Fagles' translation. Fagles makes the story come alive. Enjoy!
    • 5/5
      I'm not sure, but I think this was the edition I read & liked the best - I've read several over the years. I liked the 'full' or 'best translated' versions & the highly edited versions the least. There's a happy medium in there. The full versions have a lot characters & stuff going on that doesn't add to the story & just confuses me. When edited too much, the story loses its flavor. The story line, plot, can't be beat. Much of the motivation of the characters seems weak or over-used, but that's only because it is the great-granddaddy of so much of our current literature, of course.
    • 5/5
      I read the Odyssey in college (don't remember what translation) and even struggled through bits in Greek in a first-year language class, but I never got what the big deal was. I didn't like Odysseus--raised as I was in a cowboy ethos I took his celebrated cunning as a kind of weakness, believing that a true man delat directly and simply with everything.Some decades later, I am much more sympathetic. Scarred, bruised and broken in places with a head often barely screwed on, I've come to value a little forethought more than I ever did when younger, and come to sympathize with Odysseus' tormented wanderings and to celebrate his eventual triumph profoundly.Fagles' translation is true to the story, readable yet retaining the loftiness of spirit so crucial to the unfolding of the story. I'll be returning to this many times, I think.
    • 5/5
      Perhaps the proof of a classic is that upon reading it one says: I can see why that's a classic. Whether one man or a compilation of storytellers actually wrote this tale, it clearly does well in its role as the first epic and a fundamental tale of early Greece. The struggle is man against god and man against man. It brings out the relationships felt between the early Greeks and their gods in a way none of the shorter myths possibly can. I have always heard of strong parallels between Christian stories and the Greek myths, but have never seen the comparisons as strong as here. Odysseus plays the role first of David, condemned to wander and suffer one setback after another because of the disfavor of Poseidon. And yet upon his return to his own land, the analogy transfers to the role of Christ, with Odysseus returning at a time unknown, with his prophecying it, and clearing his house of the wooers of his bride. He also tests the nature of each man and maid, slaying those untrue to him. Other events of note: his entrapment with Calypso, his leaving and being cast to the shores of the land of Alcinous, the Cyclops, the Lotus-eaters, the men turned to swine, the visit to the edge of Hades (and speaking with relatives, friends, and foe), the Sirens, the return to his own land, his ruse as a beggar, and the slaying of the wooers.
    • 5/5
      Experienced an unplanned event while traveling? Or feel like you are living through an epic of misfortune that will not end? Or just having a really bad day? If you answered yes to any of these questions then rush to your shelves and re-read a chapter of Odysseus’ travails on his way home. [Pause for you to finish reading chapter]. OK, deep breath, now your problems don’t seem so bad, do they? Recommended for all adventurers who need more perspective.
    • 4/5
      This particular edition translated by Robert Fagles is by far the best translation that I have come across. This edition really makes it easy to enjoy the epic tale while other translations sometimes lets the reader muddle through the language barriers. I have read this for undergraduate level as well as reading this for pleasure this wins my 4 stars in both categories.
    • 5/5
      Truly a masterpiece of its time. It is a must-read for anyone interested in Ancient Greece and in Greek Mythology. I've alternated between reading the Oxford World's Classics Edition and listening to a Scribd Audiobook; both mediums are excellent. The poetry is magnificent and the story is inspiring! I loved it :)
    • 4/5
      I got E.V. Rieu's prose translation because I wanted to absorb the story as easily as possible. Perhaps a verse translation would have been easy too, and perhaps I missed out on certain things by going for this version, but in any event, it did the job very well indeed; easy to read, gripping and with flashes of humour (some of it probably unintentional, but that doesn't matter much).
    • 4/5
      Still a classic translation although there are several more recent.
    • 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.
    • 3/5
      I'll never read it all, so I'll cheat and use David Bader's haiku version from One Hundred Books in Haiku (Viking 2005):The OdysseyAegean forecast –storms, chance of one-eyed giants,delays expected
    • 2/5
      if only circe had turned the men into guinea pigs...i might have liked this more
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 5/5
      An epic tale with all kinds of different elements and that exists and works on many levels beyond the obvious, it is rereadable for generations (obviously). To look into the allusions alone would be a major work. Fitzgerald's translation is the only one that should be bothered with. As an oral tradition transcribed, I highly recommend reading it aloud. It may not be the easiest undertaking if you're not accustomed to reading this kind of work; take it slow, find a friend or guide to help you, and read it anyway. It's so important.
    • 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!
    • 4/5
      I've read this one twice for school and I really like it. Its all about life, and the struggle to find ourselves, and our way home.
    • 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.
    • 4/5
      The sea repeats. The day repeats. The night repeats. And home, home is the ultimate repetition.
    • 4/5
      Surprisingly, The Odyssey was not a part of my education in any form whether abridged or otherwise. When I set a goal to read more classics this year I decided, what better place to start to than one of the foundations of western literature!First of all, the translation by Robert Squillace is anything but poetic, but served as a good starting point for an Odyssey novice such as myself. The prose format made it easy to read and the endnotes provided necessary background information which was essential for my understanding as I have never had much of a background in Greek or Roman mythology. This story has it all romance, adventure, betrayal, manipulative schemes, and violence in abundance...let's just say, its epic! Odysseus, King of Ithaca, survives the Trojan war only to meet obstacle upon obstacle on his journey home to his faithful wife, Penelope. Along the way he and his men must battle a man eating Cyclops, the charms of Circe who turns Odysseus' men into pigs, the wrath of the Sun god and Poseidon the god of the seas, Calypso who makes Odysseus a prisoner of love and other wizards, sirens, and gods. In all it takes Odysseus 10 years to return to Ithaca only to find that his home has been plundered by suitors seeking his wife's hand in marriage.As a classic, it is easy to see how The Odyssesy affected the creation of such movies/books as: Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and Harry Potter. The Odyssey certainly deserves its place among classic literature for these reasons and its obvious entertainment value. I would be hard pressed to say that this was my favorite book to read, it did take me nearly 10 months to complete it after all, but it is one that I'm glad I took the time to read just for the background knowledge I acquired. As I read the epic, I found myself alternately amused and irritated with Odysseus who uses cleverness and intelligence to get him out of more than one scrape only to be led into another with his personality flaw of arrogance. The epic shows Odysseus' ability to manipulate his enemies and lead his men, but somehow miss all opportunities to return to his wife, who is forced to deal with the aggressive suitors. Despite the fantastic/mythical nature of the read, the humanness of Odysseus is ultimately the very aspect of the epic, in addition to his classical influence, that makes it worth the time to read. I can only imagine what this epic would be like to hear performed, how entertaining it must have been for its listeners!
    • 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.
    • 5/5
      The Odyssey is an epic tale of a war hero's struggle to reclaim his life after the final battle ends. There are elements of action, adventure, romance and just about everything in-between sewn into the plot. It has proven to be a timeless classic that will be enjoyed for generations to come. The excitement of the tale will hold the reader's interest from page to page, eagerly reading on to see what obstacles Odysseus and his faithful crew will face next in their journey. The Odyssey is a great example of greek mythology at it's finest, and will spark interest further into the genre.
    • 4/5
      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.
    • 3/5
      A thoroughly enjoyable, entertaining book..there is drama, action, romance, mythical creatures, magic, gods and goddesses, and many more. Its not just for those who love classics but should be read by everyone. Its worth the time and one gets to understand why people love the work of Homer so much