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    The Iliad
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    The Iliad
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    The Iliad
    Ebook506 pages8 hours

    The Iliad

    By Homer

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    About this ebook

    The world’s greatest war novel...
    If Homer’s ODYSSEY is, as many have maintained, “the world’s greatest adventure story,” then The ILIAD can justly be called “the world’s greatest war novel.” The terrible and long-drawn-out siege of Troy remains among one of the classic campaigns and the heroism and treachery of the combatants have been unmatched in song and story.
    W. H. D. Rouse's “plain English” translation here is the best and nearest contemporary English equivalent to the epic that Homer’s audience heard at their banquets.
    “Dr. Rouse’s admirable ILIAD has the same qualities of a swiftly moving novel in which the language is essentially that of the present day... This is certainly the version for those who want to know what Homer is about.” - The Times Literary Supplement
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherReading Essentials
    Release dateFeb 21, 2020
    ISBN9781773238340
    Author

    Homer

    Although recognized as one of the greatest ancient Greek poets, the life and figure of Homer remains shrouded in mystery. Credited with the authorship of the epic poems Iliad and Odyssey, Homer, if he existed, is believed to have lived during the ninth century BC, and has been identified variously as a Babylonian, an Ithacan, or an Ionian. Regardless of his citizenship, Homer’s poems and speeches played a key role in shaping Greek culture, and Homeric studies remains one of the oldest continuous areas of scholarship, reaching from antiquity through to modern times.

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    Reviews for The Iliad

    4/5

    5,212 ratings115 reviews

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    • 4/5
      At long last! The Illiad by Homer DIfficult to rate a literary epic. However, the entire book takes place in the 10th and last year of the Trojan War. Achilles’ wrath at Agamemnon for taking his war prize, the maiden Briseis, forms the main subject of this book. It seemed as if there were a lot of introductions to characters we never hear from again. The word refulgent was used dozen of times. All in all I'm glad I slogged my way through this. The novelized from of Song of Achilles was more satisfactory to me than the Illiad. I read the translation by Caroline Alexander because that's the one the library had. 3 1/2 stars 604 pages
    • 3/5
      The Iliad takes place in the ninth year of the Trojan War. Achilles avenges the death of his loyal companion Patroclus by killing Hector, son of King Priam.
    • 4/5
      Media and language have shifted innumerably before, and will in the future, I imagine... the smart phone is just a stone skip of time. Nevertheless, I find the idea of reading ancient greek literature on a kindle app on a smart phone really amusing. Homer basically accomplished what I imagine one of his goals was - to immortalize the heroics and feats of the warriors and document the destruction of Troy for all time. Yet for all that, the Iliad reads like a game of football with the line of scrimmage moving back and forth and the Greeks and Trojans alternating between offense and defense. At first the 'well greaved Greeks' were winning… but now Hector 'of the glancing helm' has turned the tide and most of the Greek heroes are wounded and stuck in sick bay…. and then the tide turns again at the whim of Zeus. There is quite a lot of 'this one killed that one, and another one bit the bloody dust'. There are more creative ways to kill someone with a spear than I ever imagined. Some of the details are actually fairly gory. What's confusing, I find, is that at the moment of each death Homer tells the life story of the slain, or at least the vital information such as where they were from, their lineage, and who their wife was. There's a lot of familiar names and it's interesting to see them all in one place here since they are somewhat more ingrained in my head from elsewhere. Like Laertes (thank you Shakespeare) or Hercules (thank you Kevin Sorbo) or Saturn (thank you GM). There are the other random lesser gods or immortals like Sleep (no thanks to you Starbucks) or Aurora (the borealis is on the bucket list).Homer barely mentions the scene or uses descriptions at all unless it directly relates to the battle. Apparently the only such things worth recording was when the battle was at the Greek ships or Trojan city wall or if the gods were yammering away on Mount Olympus. Descriptions are fairly short and uniform and there is a lot of repetition. I heard on RadioLab that Homer did not use any instance of the color blue and some thought he may have been color blind. I did find, however, two instances of blue - one as "dark blue" and one as "azure" -- though never "blue" by itself. RadioLab gets a bunch of details wrong frequently anyway, which is really neither here nor there. One thing I found interesting is the idea and extent of how involved the Greek gods/immortals were in the lives and fates of the mortals. To the point where there are teams of gods aligned loosely for or against the Trojans. This was completely excised in the movie Troy, which I watched as I neared finishing reading this. I had no interest in seeing the movie when it came out but, figured why not. I was actually impressed with how much Hollywood got right in Troy - but of course my expectations were low to begin, thinking it would be a mixed-up and mushy story. I think the biggest things they told differently was how they treated women characters (nicer than Homer) especially Briseus. Also, Patroclus' relationship with Achilles was changed, and as I mentioned, there was no depiction of the gods. Plotwise, the movie included the Trojan horse episode, which is not actually in The Iliad (it's related in The Aenid, by Virgil). Apparently my memory from elementary school did not serve me well because I was expecting to read about the Trojan Horse and didn't believe what I was reading in front of me when the book ended without it! Even went downloading a few other versions and snooping around online to verify. Just goes to show me that my preconceived notions are not always right! And that things get muddied up when stories and retellings merge. Nevertheless, a lot of the detail and direct actions and even dialogue of the characters in the movie did come straight out of the book, so someone clearly was familiar with it, which was a pleasant surprise.
    • 5/5
      I love The Illiad only a little bit less than The Odyssey, the other epic poem attributed to Homer. Together the two works are considered among the oldest surviving works of Western literature, dating to probably the eighth century BCE, and are certainly among the most influential. The Illiad deals with just a few weeks in the last year of the decade-long Trojan War. As the opening lines state, it deals with how the quarrel between the Greek's great hero Achilles and their leader Agamemnon "caused the Akhaians loss on bitter loss and crowded brave souls into the undergloom."So, essentially, this is a war story. One close to three thousand years old with a mindset very alien to ours. One where unending glory was seen as a great good over personal survival or family. One where all felt that their ends were fated. And one with curiously human, or at least petty, gods. Some see the work as jingoistic, even pro-war, and I suppose it can be read that way, but what struck me was the compassion with which Homer wrote of both sides. We certainly care for the Trojan Hector as much as or more (in my case much more) than for the sulky and explosive Achilles. For the Trojan King Priam as much or more (in my case much more) than King Agamemnon. Homer certainly doesn't obscure the pity, the waste, and the grief war brings. And there are plenty of scenes in the work that I found unforgettable: The humorous scene where Aphrodite is wounded and driven from the field. The moving scene between Hector and his wife and child. The grief Helen feels in losing a friend. The confrontation between Priam and Achilles.This is one work where translations make a huge difference. Keats poem "On Chapman's Homer" is all about how a translation opened his eyes to "realms of gold" in The Illiad he had not appreciated before. I was forced to read Homer in high school (I suspect the Lattimore translation) and hated it as boring and tedious. Maturity might have helped change how I felt on reread--but I had my own "Keats Experience" when I discovered Robert Fitzgerald's translation. I've never read the Fagles translation some reviewers are recommending, but you might want to look up various translations to see which one speaks to you before embarking on a full read.
    • 4/5
      Homer's epic poem about the war between the Greeks and Trojans requires no review. However, Stanley Lombardo's translation deserves high praise. Lombardo brings the poem to life. In some places the language is gorgeously poetic and evocative as he describes the sea or a sunrise, and in others it is horrifically blunt describing a spear crashing through someone's skull and grey matter oozing out. While Homer's narrative meanders a bit, Lombardo manages to build in tension from the moment Patroclus puts on Achilles armour to the moment where Hector and Achilles finally battle. Lombardo's work is a great translation that really brings the poem to life for a modern audience.
    • 4/5
      As much as I love the Greeks in general, the Illiad is never as good a read as the Odyssey mostly because it's 80% horrible violent fighting and despair at a neverending war and then 20% interesting characters, speeches, and god/mortal interaction. I'll admit, I always end up doing a fair bit of skimming. The emotional resonance and epic descriptions are still as strong as the Odyssey, it just doesn't have the same fluid narrative. And then there's the fact that hearing how hundreds of people die in excruciating detail over and over again might be a good lesson against glorifying war, but it's just depressing. Personally, Achilles is just less likable a character. The really enjoyable part of this book is the relations between the gods and the mortals and the question of the inevitability of Fate.
    • 3/5
      The Iliad was o.k., but I kept expecting it to get better. It was so repetetive that I found myself getting bored.The plot went something like this:The Achaeians are taunting the Trojans.The Trojan hero is taunting the Achaeian hero.Athena has decided to intervene for the Achaeians.Apollo has decided to intervene for Troy.The mortals whine and Zues forbids the gods to intervene.The gods whine. Everybody whines.On and on it went. It was interesting in parts, but, frankly, it reminded me too much of a modern football game, or of groups of little boys taunting each other all the time.I stayed with it because I kept hoping it would get better, especially since I loved The Odyssey. Also, it was something that I felt I should read, since it's the foundation of so much Western literature.I kept waiting to read about the Trojan Horse, or about the injury to Achilles heel.I did enjoy some parts. Especially when Hera was nagging Zeus. It gave me a good chuckle.As much as I disliked The Iliad, I love The Odyssey. It seems to me to have been written by an entirely different person, even though the translator is the same.
    • 5/5
      Brilliant.
    • 4/5
      At long last! The Illiad by Homer DIfficult to rate a literary epic. However, the entire book takes place in the 10th and last year of the Trojan War. Achilles’ wrath at Agamemnon for taking his war prize, the maiden Briseis, forms the main subject of this book. It seemed as if there were a lot of introductions to characters we never hear from again. The word refulgent was used dozen of times. All in all I'm glad I slogged my way through this. The novelized from of Song of Achilles was more satisfactory to me than the Illiad. I read the translation by Caroline Alexander because that's the one the library had. 3 1/2 stars 604 pages
    • 3/5
      First, I was cheated, since the only thing I know about the Trojan war is that it was won by the Greeks using the "Trojan Horse" and that Achilles was killed by being shot by Paris through the ankle. Neither of these episodes are in the Iliad! I was surprised that it was just a snapshot (about a month) of the ten-year long war. It seemed to end somewhat abruptly, but I read somewhere that the Iliad is focusing on Achilles, and his fall (and the struggle of the Greeks) through his pride. If I remember right, this is a common Greek theme, the hero’s tragic flaw that ruins him. Through this lens, the timespan of the Iliad makes more sense though I wish it would have at least continued to the death of Achilles for some closure.Another common Greek theme is that of our fate being fixed, which is evident for many characters throughout the book. Sometimes it may take the form of Zeus forbidding the gods to interfere so that the predestined fate is not tampered with, and sometimes it is much more literal, where the gods do interfere, creating a fog or whisking someone off the battlefield. I always knew that the gods quarreled along with mortals in the Iliad, but I didn’t realize that they would be quite so vindictive—or also quite so physically involved, getting out on the battlefield and getting wounded!I read the translation by Pope, which I thought was very good. I can’t verify its authenticity, but Pope did justice to the Iliad in his word choice. I noticed another review mentioned that the word “refulgent” was used over and over in the Caroline Alexander translation—it’s used continuously in Pope’s! Pope did mention in his introduction that the Iliad can be repetitive at times, and that he chose to keep the repetition in for authenticity’s sake. I think I like that better. I guess I am the kind of person that, if I had to choose, I would prefer more authentic to easier-to-read. Some of the most tedious parts for me were the listing of all the characters, where they came from and who their parents were. All to promptly kill them off in the next paragraph. I admit I did some skimming over the lists of people. Some of the best parts, however, were the myriad ways that Homer came up with to describe someone dying and their body giving up the ghost. He was most creative. Some even made me laugh out loud. What I don’t want to admit is that the most valuable thing about reading the Iliad is that know I understand the references that other authors make to the Iliad. Just started reading Anna Karenina and they references specific scenes from the Iliad -twice- in the introduction. Now I know what they are talking about! And I can (sort of) understand what they mean when they are comparing Tolstoy to Homer.
    • 3/5
      A king offends his strongest ally in the middle of a war.Good. It's very repetitive, but its interesting.
    • 4/5
      The Iliad beings in the ninth year of the Trojan war and the Greeks laying siege to Troy's capital. The 24 book story covers about a seven week period that sees the Greeks beaten back to where their ships are laid up, enduring slaughter at Trojan hands because their hero Achilles refuses to fight; he's angry that Agamemnon took the Trojan woman he'd selected as his prize. Not until Achilles' battle buddy Patroclus is killed (in Achilles' armor) by the Trojan hero Hector does Achilles rise to fight. When Hector dies, we have a good sense that Troy won't be long either.Homer's Iliad and the Odyssey are oft referenced as a pair, but it's always the Odyssey that ends up assigned reading in American junior high and middle schools. They're both long (epic!) but I assume teachers pass on the Iliad due to the amount of violence and perhaps fewer "teachable moments." The Iliad is probably one of those 'must reads' in the profession of arms, especially for infantry. I would assign it to any elected official overseeing or directing military activity. The war between Greeks and Trojans isn't just a human affair, rather the gods of Olympus are ever meddling, sometimes influencing and at other times outright spiriting their favorites out of the field of battle to spare their lives. The gods are capricious, given to their own passions, and prone to change their minds, so they frankly bear strong resemblance to politicians if one wants to relate it to real life. It's a reminder that there are always two conflicts going on, one on the battle field and one back in the halls of government; they don't always combine well.I'm unable to vouch for the quality of the translation in terms of remaining true to the Greek, but Robert Fagles deserves much credit for turning it into beautiful, modern English epic poem. The usual complaints against the Iliad are the instances of repetition and a fathomless well of detail when it comes to describing mortal combat with spear, sword, and the occasional rock stoving a skull in. As much as the Iliad glorifies manly virtues in war (like courage, bravery, camaraderie) it also showcases its horrors (the violence, fear, and waste) to the same degree. One comes away with the feeling at the end: why did we bother with all of this? What did we gain? Can we even quantify what we lost, or is it immeasurable? Overall, a long read, but worth the epic journey from page to page, book to book.
    • 5/5
      Better than the movie! Once you get the rhythm it sucks you in like a time machine. Amazing.
    • 3/5
      Important in the history of literature and classical Greek thought.
    • 3/5
      Stanley Lombardo's translation of Homer's Iliad is wonderful and very readable, better evoking the grittiness and rage of warfare than most other translations. I think of it as the "Vietnam War version of the Iliad." However, there are also parts where Homer's humor shines through, particularly when the Greek warriors are ribbing each other.Though the translation is excellent, I only got through about half of the book. The plot moves quite slowly, and the long lists of characters and backstory become tiresome. Also, there also is a lot of conversation between the various warriors, which illuminates Greek values (such as what makes for heroism or cowardice) but does not advance the storyline. Parts can get repetitious. I preferred the Odyssey, which I read in the Robert Fagles translation.
    • 4/5
      Finally reading one of the cornerstones of Western literature! I was surprised to find the story circumscribed from what I had thought; it only covered the last month and a half of the war: anger of Achilles through burial of Hector. Massively boring until Book 9. Descriptions of fighting and killing were more gruesome and graphic than many modern novels. It was difficult to tell who is speaking, since the speaker used very long dialogue and spoke in paragraphs. I know it's a poem and originally meant to be recited, but I wish it were divided like a novel. I discovered some incidents I didn't realized happened since I had read summaries or retellings. At Book 19 began the really familiar incidents--death of Patroclos, entry of Achilleus into the war, his killing of Hector in revenge for the death of Patroclos, Priam's pleading for Hector's body. The death of Patroclos seemed to influence and overshadow subsequent action. I never realized the importance of Aias [Ajax?] and he was the only one not given divine help as the other characters. The chariot race and funeral games section was fantastic. Fascinating how human the gods and goddesses were; how they took sides and tried to manipulate the action, often with shape-shifting. I can see where Virgil chose Aeneas as HIS hero, since Aeneas was one of the few Trojans left alive or not carried off into slavery. I certainly did appreciate the glossary [subject index]. I referred to it often while reading. I read Lattimore's translation, which I didn't like much at first but it grew on me. I'm eager to try Fagles, since I liked his Aeneid.
    • 3/5
      I'm reading this for English, but it's really good. I've got a background in Greek mythology, though, which helps me understand a lot of the stuff going on, and I've got a really out-there vocabulary. Only read this if you can keep up with Old English and if you've got at least basic knowledge of the Greek myths. Once you get into it, it's really interesting. The worst part of it is the way Homer stops in the middle of a battle and tells somebody's life story, just to kill him in the next stanza. That really aggravates me. Homer's a little long-winded, and I reall don't think this'd ever get published if it wasn't valuable for it's historical importance. It's just not that interesting.
    • 5/5
      Confrontation upon confrontation (with some love scenes thrown in) - between man and god, between man and man. A rather incestuous story about what seems to obssess us even to this day. I love Lattimore!
    • 5/5
      Homer is the tradition of epic storytelling and reading it in Spanish is enjoying it on a whole new level.
    • 4/5
      Media and language have shifted innumerably before, and will in the future, I imagine... the smart phone is just a stone skip of time. Nevertheless, I find the idea of reading ancient greek literature on a kindle app on a smart phone really amusing. Homer basically accomplished what I imagine one of his goals was - to immortalize the heroics and feats of the warriors and document the destruction of Troy for all time. Yet for all that, the Iliad reads like a game of football with the line of scrimmage moving back and forth and the Greeks and Trojans alternating between offense and defense. At first the 'well greaved Greeks' were winning… but now Hector 'of the glancing helm' has turned the tide and most of the Greek heroes are wounded and stuck in sick bay…. and then the tide turns again at the whim of Zeus. There is quite a lot of 'this one killed that one, and another one bit the bloody dust'. There are more creative ways to kill someone with a spear than I ever imagined. Some of the details are actually fairly gory. What's confusing, I find, is that at the moment of each death Homer tells the life story of the slain, or at least the vital information such as where they were from, their lineage, and who their wife was. There's a lot of familiar names and it's interesting to see them all in one place here since they are somewhat more ingrained in my head from elsewhere. Like Laertes (thank you Shakespeare) or Hercules (thank you Kevin Sorbo) or Saturn (thank you GM). There are the other random lesser gods or immortals like Sleep (no thanks to you Starbucks) or Aurora (the borealis is on the bucket list).Homer barely mentions the scene or uses descriptions at all unless it directly relates to the battle. Apparently the only such things worth recording was when the battle was at the Greek ships or Trojan city wall or if the gods were yammering away on Mount Olympus. Descriptions are fairly short and uniform and there is a lot of repetition. I heard on RadioLab that Homer did not use any instance of the color blue and some thought he may have been color blind. I did find, however, two instances of blue - one as "dark blue" and one as "azure" -- though never "blue" by itself. RadioLab gets a bunch of details wrong frequently anyway, which is really neither here nor there. One thing I found interesting is the idea and extent of how involved the Greek gods/immortals were in the lives and fates of the mortals. To the point where there are teams of gods aligned loosely for or against the Trojans. This was completely excised in the movie Troy, which I watched as I neared finishing reading this. I had no interest in seeing the movie when it came out but, figured why not. I was actually impressed with how much Hollywood got right in Troy - but of course my expectations were low to begin, thinking it would be a mixed-up and mushy story. I think the biggest things they told differently was how they treated women characters (nicer than Homer) especially Briseus. Also, Patroclus' relationship with Achilles was changed, and as I mentioned, there was no depiction of the gods. Plotwise, the movie included the Trojan horse episode, which is not actually in The Iliad (it's related in The Aenid, by Virgil). Apparently my memory from elementary school did not serve me well because I was expecting to read about the Trojan Horse and didn't believe what I was reading in front of me when the book ended without it! Even went downloading a few other versions and snooping around online to verify. Just goes to show me that my preconceived notions are not always right! And that things get muddied up when stories and retellings merge. Nevertheless, a lot of the detail and direct actions and even dialogue of the characters in the movie did come straight out of the book, so someone clearly was familiar with it, which was a pleasant surprise.
    • 4/5
      A cornerstone of Western literature that remains hugely influential. Read it for that reason, and because the poetry is still enjoyable enough to be read aloud with panache. The story itself is mostly a catalog of slaughter with very little human drama, although the interaction between the gods and the human characters is fascinating and tragic.
    • 3/5
      Stephen Mitchell translates a classic better than any action flick made in the past 10 years.
    • 5/5
      Two things I learned from this:
      - Translation is everything. Fagles isn't perfect, but he moves quickly and easily - not too stilted or weird - and he doesn't skimp on the blood and guts.
      - Introduction is awfully important. Bernard Knox is a new hero of mine; this intro is widely and correctly considered a classic piece on Homer.
    • 3/5
      I'm actually not sure which translation of this I read, but what fun. I studied this in class in high school and the teacher did an excellent job of bringing in other sources to explain the allusions and make it more compelling.
    • 3/5
      The translation is a little dated
    • 3/5
      Most people halfway conversant with Literature (with a capital L) are familiar with the basic story of The Iliad—but halfway conversant doesn't mean we've read it. As one of those people, I've always felt slightly guilty about my lack of firsthand exposure to this great poem, and so I welcomed the chance to listen to it on audiobook. At 18 hours (including the introduction), it was a bit of a commitment, though fascinating to think that I was experiencing the poem as its ancient audience did, with someone reciting it aloud. Though there are many battle scenes and speeches, the main event in the poem is the death of Patroclus and the ensuing combat between Hector and Achilles, culminating with the high emotion of Priam's humble but daring request for his son's body. The Iliad ends with Hector's funeral, before the Achaeans leave their fateful wooden horse for the downfall of Troy, and the characters stand forever poised on the edge of their fate. We know what's coming, of course, but they never reach it in this piece of the larger tale. I found the gods to be some of the most fascinating characters in the story. They are all deeply invested (for whatever reason) in the outcome of the battle, with some favoring the Trojans and others the Achaeans. It's astonishing to what lengths they are willing to go to get their desired result. Interestingly, when they appear to mortals they have to wear the form of a human; they can't show themselves as they are. (Presumably the humans couldn't handle it.) Many of the gods are in fierce competition with each other, and their motivations seem very human: jealousy, anger, annoyance, selfishness, self promotion, etc. They scheme endlessly and fight among themselves, cowed and controlled only by the overwhelming might of Zeus. Near the end of the poem their fighting actually turns into physical confrontation, as they begin punching each other in their anger. So we have deities who are hugely powerful and majestic, but who act just like flawed human beings. They just happen to have supernatural powers. It's an interesting framework. In some ways the human characters are just puppets in the hands of the gods. The gods can trip you up in a chariot race, fill your heart with either cowardice or battle lust, deceive you by taking the semblance of a trusted councilor, cow you into obedience with threats, pull you out of battle to heal your wounds, snap your bowstring at just the wrong moment, whisk you away from certain death in single combat (so you stay alive and your honor is not impugned, conveniently), and engage in any amount of manipulation, deception, and outright coercion to get what they want. And yet... with all this control the gods exercise (and the humans acknowledge), I still have to wonder who is really controlling whom. Why do the gods care so much what happens? Some of them even wonder about this themselves, talking about the fleeting lifespan of pathetic humanity and asking why they are investing so much energy in creatures so insignificant. And yet they continue to involve themselves in the decisive events of the times. Are they afraid of becoming irrelevant? Is their desire for worship so overweening? The Iliad really is about war; all life is a battle and even the best and bravest can die horribly in it. Death in a thousand forms is described for us—death by spear to the brain, by spear up through the buttock into the bladder, by a spear to the liver (with the liver falling out of the gaping wound), by a spear through the eyes, by arrows, by skulls cracking and brains exploding inside your helmet, by being hit by a rock, etc. The battles rage for most of the poem and we see every kind of pep talk a commander can give, every flavor of taunt an enemy can yell, every victory and every crushing defeat. Homer describes the joy of battle and its terrible sorrows. His impartiality has allowed the poem to be interpreted in many different ways over the centuries, with some considering the poem an anti-war diatribe, with others (famously Alexander the Great) viewing it as a celebration of the courage and heroism displayed in war. Everyone has a backstory. We'll be at a pivotal point, someone's making a speech that will decide the army's course of action, and he launches into a long tale about, say, his father's exploits or something similar. Once I got used to the device, I grew to like it; these backstories are like bonuses, little pockets of story that enrich the larger history. But they do take a little getting used to.I didn't like the introduction by Stephen Mitchell, or his translation. First off, Mitchell reads his own introduction, and a more insipid, effeminate, weak, monotone voice can't be imagined. It seemed he was even boring himself. And it went on for two CDs! It didn't really tell me anything interesting, either. I should have just trusted my own English-major training and experienced the poem for myself, unhampered by Mitchell's extremely obvious observations. And his translation is distressingly dumbed down. The Iliad is supposed to be an epic... and Mitchell translates it to a fatuous modern parlance that almost makes the heroic content sound comical. In a letter, J. R. R. Tolkien once demonstrated how ludicrous it is to express heroic sentiments in modern slang and clichés, rewriting Théoden's archaically flavored speech about his desire to die on the battlefield to frame it in modern terms. The example is actually quite funny, and vividly demonstrates that heroic sentiments cannot be put in modern terms; we may have the vocabulary, but our words just aren't wired for it. And the astute reader senses the disconnect at once. Mitchell's modern take on the legend is disappointing, and I'm all out of patience with the back cover blurbs that claim he has "given fresh energy and poetic force" to the work. Not so much. Render it with an eye to the poetry and the distance of it, and you'll do better.Alfred Molina does the best he can with Mitchell's weak rendition of the poem, and reads it more like prose than poetry (which is probably a good choice). It was such a relief to hear his rich voice after the nasally tones of Mitchell.Though this version of the epic is not something I would recommend, I'm glad to have listened to it and gained firsthand exposure to its characters and themes. I'm sure that in the right hands the translation would lend power and grace to this perennially influential work, but I was able to enjoy it, even as it was. I would have rated it more highly had the translation been better. Eventually I'll probably look into a different translation; I've heard good things about the translations of Alexander Pope and E. V. Rieu. Any other recommendations are welcome!Thank you to Audiobook Jukebox and Simon & Schuster Audio for the opportunity to review this audiobook.
    • 3/5
      I decided not to finish reading this. There were parts I was thoroughly caught up in and loving, but then they were followed by sections with the gods interfering and being a nuisance. The human drama and description of battle was terrific, but the gods ruined everything the humans were about to achieve. I don't have the patience to work through it at this time of my life, and so decided I would move on.
    • 2/5
      What exactly was the point? War sucks? Yeah, we already knew that. Really depressing, unrelenting testosterone-ridden crap.
    • 4/5
      Quite the epic adventure. I love The Iliad, but it sure is long and tedious. All those battle scenes get old. And all that wailing in grief.But despite all the repetition, it really is good. Lots of bickering gods, vengeful heroes, and, well, wailing.
    • 4/5
      The Iliad is a mixed bag. It is the very wellspring of Western culture, for good and for bad. The storied Olympian gods and heroic mortals who participated in the Trojan War are still alluded to in the written word three thousand years later. But the brutal behavior of those same gods and mortals in that war are also memorialized in the six hundred pages of Homer's epic.The verse translation by Robert Fagles reads very well — like a novel, in fact. The rhythm, the beat is prominent, and presumably if you took the time to read it aloud, it would be powerful indeed. Despite this, The Iliad is not an easy read thanks to the almost one thousand names and epithets of characters and places about which the action takes place and through which that action is conducted. Many of these names are very familiar, some vaguely familiar, but most by far are new to us. The Fagles edition blesses us in this department by providing a pronouncing vocabulary which gives a brief identifying statement about each one. Without this or something like it, The Iliad would be a bewildering swirl of confusion to the modern reader. The Introduction, notes and maps are also helpful.We all know the story of The Iliad — or at least we think we do. Surprisingly to me at least, after nine years of the siege of Troy by the Achaeans, it only covers a brief period of 45 days, and within that the bulk of the poem takes place over six days and nights of intense climactic fighting in which the greatest heroes on both sides are killed. A few of the most famous are left standing: Aeneas, will eventually be the lone survivor of Troy who will go on to found Rome; Odysseus famously takes another twenty years to reach his home in Ithaca; and Achilles, who has slain Troy's greatest hero Hector, is destined beyond the confines of The Iliad to be killed by Paris, the culprit who stole Helen from Menelaus and started the entire conflict to begin with.There are no spoilers here. The destinies of the great and near great are announced early and often throughout the pages of The Iliad. The power of the poem lies not in suspense but in the drama of battle. That drama is conveyed through the driving verse which honors its heroes in the process of butchering them. Battles wax and wane with the rhythm of the poetry. The great Homeric similes, sometimes piled on top of each other, churn and froth with soaring images. Here is an example; italics highlight the "like … so" pattern:"Achilles nowlike inhuman fire raging on through the mountain gorgessplinter-dry, setting ablaze big stands of timber,the wind swirling the huge fireball left and right—chaos of fire—Achilles storming on with brandished spearlike a frenzied god of battle trampling all he killed and the earth ran black with blood. Thundering on,on like oxen broad in the brow some field hand yokesto crush white barley heaped on a well-laid threshing floorand the grain is husked out fast by the bellowing oxen's hoofs—so as the great Achilles rampaged on, his sharp-hoofed stallions trampled shields and corpses, axle under his chariot splashed with blood, blood on the handrails sweeping round the car,sprays of blood shooting up from the stallions' hoofsand churning, whirling rims—and the son of Peleus charioteering on to seize his glory, bloody filthsplattering both strong arms, Achilles' invincible arms."What sets off the episode of The Iliad is a microcosm of the whole arc of the Trojan War itself. The war occurred because Paris, a prince of Troy and a guest at the home of Menelaus, stole Menelaus's wife Helen and spirited her off to Troy together with a vast amount of spoils. Most of the battling within The Iliad occurs without the aid of Achilles who ironically has been humiliated by the brother of Menelaus, warlord Agamemnon, who insists on taking the beautiful Briseis from Achilles for daring to challenge Agamemnon who has behaved badly in capturing the daughter of a priest of Apollo and refusing to give her back, thereby causing the god Apollo to shower down a plague on the Achaeans. Thus The Iliad boils down to an epic tale about men fighting over women!Agamemnon at the beginning of The Iliad is not an attractive figure. Toward the end, Achilles' great friend Patroclus is killed by Hector and that finally brings Achilles into action, particularly as the Achaeans seem to be losing and Agamemnon sees the error of his ways and agrees to return Briseis to Achilles.When The Iliad is reminiscing about the great deeds of one hero or another, it is quite affecting. A great deal of mythology is encompassed here, and the jealousies and machinations of the Olympians behind the scenes are both amusing and annoying.But the battle scenes sometimes amount to a catalog of killing and brutality that go beyond the pleasurable. And while the poem as a whole makes for compelling reading, the blood and gore take it over the top. Compared with The Odyssey, it seems much more primitive in its motivation and unrelenting gratuitous violence. I am glad I read it, and I acknowledge its importance in the literary canon, but it is not one of my favorite reads. Because I personally have a distaste for this level of bloody mindedness doesn't mean it isn't worth reading. Everybody really should read it, and all congratulations go to Robert Fagles for his excellent translation.