The Odyssey

by Homer

Other authorsBernard Knox (Introduction), Robert Fagles (Translator), Grahame Baker (Illustrator)
Paperback, 1998

Status

Available

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Publication

London : The Folio Society, 1998.

Description

A Greek epic tells of the adventures of the hero Odysseus during his perilous and protracted journey home from the Trojan War.

Media reviews

In this interview, we discuss how her [Wilson's] identity as a woman—and a cis-gendered feminist—informs her translation work, how her Odyssey translation honors both ancient traditions and contemporary reading practices, and what Homer meant when he called Dawn, repeatedly,
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“rosy-fingered.”
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4 more
The New York Times
(Emily Wilson translation): To read a translation is like looking at a photo of a sculpture: It shows the thing, but not from every angle. Like every translator, Wilson brings out some features more clearly than others. But altogether it’s as good an “Odyssey” as one could hope for.
Kirkus Reivews
Sing to me, O muse, of the—well, in the very opening line, the phrase Wilson chooses is the rather bland ‘complicated man,’ the adjective missing out on the deviousness implied in the Greek polytropos, which Robert Fagles translated as ‘of twists and turns.’ Wilson has a few favorite
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words that the Greek doesn’t strictly support … More faithful to the original but less astonishing than Christopher Logue’s work and lacking some of the music of Fagles’ recent translations of Homer; still, a readable and worthy effort.
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New York Times
Occasionally he expands to seven beats or contracts to three (as in the third line above)...The verse idiom of the 20th century does not allow poets to create a grand style, but Mr. Fagles has been remarkably successful in finding a style that is of our time and yet timeless, dignified and yet
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animated by the vigor and energy essential to any good rendering of this poem. ... This book is a memorable achievement, and the long and excellent introduction by Bernard Knox is a further bonus, scholarly but also relaxed and compellingly readable. Mr. Fagles's translation of the ''Iliad'' was greeted by a chorus of praise when it appeared; his ''Odyssey'' is a worthy successor.
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THE LOS ANGELES REVIEW OF BOOKS
'Tell me about a complicated man.' So this new Odyssey begins ... this single verse introduces both her take on the work’s hero and a poetics of reduction that she observes rather ruthlessly in order to make a poem that matches Homer’s line for line ... The result is a lean, wiry Homer, shorn
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of his more ornamental features. In this she is consistent, even to a fault ... to her credit Wilson knows how to craft her lines in the most flexible way, including a number of those ridiculously named 'feminine' endings ...
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User reviews

LibraryThing member LisaMaria_C
Rereading this I can't believe I once found Homer boring. In my defense, I was a callow teen, and having a book assigned in school often tends to perversely make you hate it. But then I had a "Keats conversion experience." Keats famously wrote a poem in tribute to a translation of Homer by Chapman
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who, Keats wrote, opened to him "realms of gold." My Chapman was Fitzgerald, although in this reread I tried the Fagles translation and really enjoyed it. Obviously, the translation is key if you're not reading in the original Greek, and I recommend looking at several side by side to see which one best suits.

A friend of mine who is a classicist says she prefers the Illiad--that she thinks it the more mature book. I love the Illiad, but I'd give Odyssey a slight edge. Even just reading general Greek mythology, Odysseus was always a favorite, because unlike figures such as Achilles or Heracles he succeeded on his wits, not muscle. It's true, on this reread, especially in contrast to say the Illiad's Hector, I do see Odysseus' dark side. The man is a pirate and at times rash, hot-tempered, even vicious. But I do feel for his pining for home and The Odyssey is filled with such a wealth of incident--the Cyclops, Circe, Scylla and Charybdis, the Sirens--and especially Hades, the forerunner of Dante's Hell. And though my friend is right that the misogynist ancient Greek culture isn't where you go for strong heroines, I love Penelope; described as the "matchless queen of cunning," she's a worthy match for the crafty Odysseus. The series of recognition scenes on Ithaca are especially moving and memorable--I think my favorite and the most poignant being that of Odysseus' dog Argos. An epic poem about 2,700 years old, in the right translation it can nevertheless speak to me more eloquently than many a contemporary novel.
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LibraryThing member atimco
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
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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!
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LibraryThing member steve.clason
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
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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.
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LibraryThing member elfortunawe
This was my first reading of The Odyssey— it wasn't what I expected. Having seen bits and pieces of various adaptations— especially the 1997 miniseries, I took a head full of images with me into the reading. But the real thing bears little resemblance. It is more various. The emphases are
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placed differently. It has a greater scope. In every way it surprised me. I now feel compelled to read the Iliad

Richard Lattimore has given the poem a very Anglo-Saxon character with the high flown language of his translation. It reminds me of Seamus Heany's Beowulf, only with less alliteration. I have no idea if this accurately represents the character of the original, but in itself it's praiseworthy.
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LibraryThing member Bookmarque
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
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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.
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LibraryThing member edgeworth
It’s impossible to objectively judge a story like this. It was written three thousand years ago, in a world populated by people whose beliefs, values, attitudes, and outlook on the world were so fundamentally different from our own as to make them utterly alien. Furthermore, I was reading a story
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that had been translated through two different barriers: from Ancient Greek to English, and from poetry to prose.

It’s very verbose, very complex and very tedious. As I was reading, trying to penetrate the Greek names and long-winded sentences (look, I know what happens when someone gets drunk, you don’t need to feed me some meandering anecdote about a centaur that had too much wine) I was really only gaining a sort of vague outline of what was going on. And if that was the case I may as well have been reading the plot summary on Wikipedia.

Oh, right, an outline of the plot. You should know parts of it. Odysseus is trying to return home after going to the Trojan War, and it takes him twenty years because, well, he lives in dangerous times. It’s told in a convoluted, non-linear way that begins in media res and relies heavily on second-hand tellings and flashbacks, which is not at all endearing to a reader who is not enjoying himself in the first place.

All the stuff that’s really well-known and at least somewhat interesting - the cave of the Cyclops, the isle of Circe etc. - takes up about 20% of the book, while the rest is all concerned about whatever his wiener son Telemachus is doing back home, or what Odysseus himself does when he returns (two thirds of the way through the story).

Odysseus is a shitty leader who makes a lot of bad decisions, gets all his men killed and has his head shoved firmly up his own ass, constantly telling people how great he is at everything. He also has a pretty warped moral compass; for example, upon arriving home, after he bonds with Telemachus by slaughtering the 108 suitors who had been trying to woo his wife, he discovers that several of his housemaids had been having sex with the suitors during the TWENTY GODDAMN YEARS they’ve been there. I know, unthinkable, right? Odysseus is so infuriated by this that he orders them killed. As they are herded into a courtyard, weeping piteously, Telemachus speaks up, and for a minute I thought there was going to be some kind of sanity, but apparently young Telemachus, no doubt stroking his chin in deep thought, is concerned that the housemaids aren’t being punished enough, and orders for them to die in a slow and painful method. Then he and Odysseus cut a dude’s wang off and feed it to the dogs. You see what I mean when I talk about what different attitudes these people had.

So, to sum up, is the Odyssey an excellent tale for its time? Yes.
Is it an excellent tale for a modern reader? No - it hails from an incomprehensible culture, and our tastes are tailored to our own.
Is it worth studying for a student of literature? Yes - but do yourself a favour and google a synopsis.
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LibraryThing member BookWallah
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
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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.
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LibraryThing member jnwelch
Emily Wilson's translation of The Odyssey is my third; I read Robert Fagles' and Stanley Lombardo's before this. You can't go wrong with any of them - Fagles' is lyrical but modern, Lombardo's is admirably plain-speaking and fast-paced, and Wilson's is swift, smart and exciting. But Wilson's is my
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favorite now, and the one I'd recommend to someone dipping in for the first time.

Caroline convinced me to read Wilson's introduction, and I'm glad I did. It's a corker. She explains The Odyssey this way:

"We encounter a surprising range of different characters and types of incident: giants and beggars, arrogant young men and vulnerable old slaves, a princess who does laundry and a dead warrior who misses the sunshine, gods, goddesses, and ghosts, brave deeds, love affairs, spells, dreams, songs, and stories. Odysseus himself seems to contain multitudes: he is a migrant, a pirate, a carpenter, a king, an athlete, a beggar, a husband, a lover, a father, a son, a fighter, a liar, a leader, and a thief. He is a man who cries, takes naps, and feels homesick, but he is also a man who has a special relationship with the goddess who transforms his appearance at will and ensures that his schemes succeed."

As she says, this isn't the usual hero who saves the world or "at least changes it in some momentous way"; instead, "for this hero, mere survival is the most amazing feat of all". The story raises

"important questions about the moral qualities of this liar, pirate, colonizer, deceiver, and thief, who is so often in disguise, absent or napping, while other people - those he owns, those he leads- suffer and die, and who directly kills so many people."

This complexity is what continues to fascinate me, and has led me through three translations and re-reads.

What is so outstanding about this translation?

"The Odyssey is a poem, and it needs to have a predictable and distinctive rhythm that can be easily heard when the text is read out loud. The original is in six-footed lines (dactylic hexameters), the conventional meter for archaic Greek narrative verse. I used iambic pentameter, because it is the conventional meter for regular English narrative verse - the rhythm of Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Byron, Keats, and plenty of more recent anglophone poets . . . my translation sings to its own regular and distinctive beat.

My version is the same length as the original, with exactly the same number of lines. I chose to write within this difficult constraint because any translation without such limitations will tend to be longer than the original, and I wanted a narrative pace that could match its stride and Homer's nimble gallop."

I can't speak to the original, but hers certainly has stride and nimble gallop. She also leans toward simplicity of language, "in a style that echoes the rhythms and phrasing of contemporary anglophone speech." She notes that "stylistic pomposity is entirely un-Homeric". Occasionally (rarely, really) this results in what to me is an odd word choice, e.g. carrying weapons in a "hamper" - really? But overall it succeeds beautifully.

Some examples:

At a light touch of whip, the horses flew,
Swiftly they drew toward their journeys' end,
on through fields of wheat, until the sun
began to set and shadows filled the streets.

Helen, on the events in Troy:

The Trojan women keened in grief, but I
was glad - by then I wanted to go home.
I wished that Aphrodite had not made me
go crazy, when she took me from my country,
and made me leave my daughter and the bed
I shared with my fine, handsome, clever husband.

Circe confronting Odysseus:

"Who are you?
Where is your city? And who are your parents?
I am amazed that you could drink my potion
and yet not be bewitched. No other man
has drunk it and withstood the magic charm.
But you are different. Your mind is not
enchanted. You must be Odysseus,
the man who can adapt to anything."

Odysseus and Athena are natural partners. As she says,

"To outwit you
in all your tricks, a person or a god
would need to be an expert at deceit.
You clever rascal! So duplicitous,
so talented at lying! You love fiction
and tricks so deeply, you refuse to stop
even in your own land. Yes, both of us
are smart. No man can plan and talk like you,
and I am known among the gods for insight
and craftiness."

He is such a liar! And it's so deeply engrained that he lies even when he doesn't need to. But his lies always carry a greater message: "His lies were like the truth/ and as she listened, she began to weep."

If you haven't read The Odyssey before, you probably know the basics of the story by osmosis. But that's nothing like experiencing this ancient yet so modern story. Emily Wilson has brought an intelligence, rhythm and excitement to it that to me is the best yet. Have some fun reading an old classic; it's a treat.
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LibraryThing member julie10reads
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
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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!
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LibraryThing member keylawk
At the very dawn of authentic history, some 1000 BC, the Greeks were chanting out the poems of Homer throughout the Aegean. And ever since. And the sooner anyone join in, continuously, the better.

Little of Homer is known, be he man or she woman. So often, Founders are shadowy, from dim beginnings
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great lights. By the time their import is comprehended, they themselves are gone. And perhaps all creative work is marked by many minds. Into the Odyssey much is infused. It is a mass of history, legend, myth, ideals, manners and modes and matured. Nothing, nothing about it, is primitive or undone.

Compared to the Iliad, the Odyssey is more even in style, conformed to plot, and harmonious in presentation of characters and events. [ix] Its unity is conspicuous. The plot assumes the ten-year Trojan War ended with the victors returning to Greece laden with plunder. All but one.

For another ten years, Odysseus (Ulysses to the Romans) wandered the seas and islands whose lord he had offended. Poseidon here plays like an instrument all the circumstances over which mind must struggle, elements and afflictions, forces living and natural. This theme of mind over matters is passed to us from the Greek genius.

The poem has a natural division into two parts. The first 12 books relate the homeward journey--at sea, among the islands and peoples, gods and phantoms. The 12 books of the second part give the report of the recovery by Odysseus of his kingdom, at home. The struggle entirely shifts from the enchanted to the human, from the voyager sea to the castle in Ithaca. The tension is now dramatic rather than incidental. This part has a sustained psychological power bearing on the final catastrophe--the slaughter of Penelope's suitors. A unifying theme of the work across both halves is eating -- unlike the Iliad which has constant fighting, the Odyssey is a series of banquets and occasions to dine.

Which leads me to this observation: The dominant forces in the poem are women. The men who appear are admirable in ways women admire: Odysseus, known for his wisdom and resourcefulness, and others -- Telemachus, Eumaeus, Antinotis, Laertes, and Eurymachus-- strong, loyal, bearing responsibility. But for the entire odyssey, Athena is the prime mover. The nymphs Calypso and Circe are most formidable, and Ino and Leucothea most resourceful. When Odysseus meets the dead in Hades, there are as many women as men.

In the Ithacan household, women are conspicuous and equal figures, and even the handmaid Melantho has a strong part. In short, woman is the equal comrade, respected, appreciated, looked to. The women of Homer's time did not live in isolation, nor in the thrall of a king. Harems were never characteristic to the Greeks. Helen sits in the hall with Menelaus, Arete in the hall with Alcinotis, and of course, Penelope has her run of the castle unattended, as is Nausica with her maids in the country. [xxiii] All are treated with dignity and major roles. Women have lost in the intervening ages what they once had.

As to style, similes are common, metaphors rare. [xxiv] The thing and that with which it is compared remain two, separate, as in life. There is a "child-like" quality in this story-telling. And, with this ancient tale, no "spoiler-alert" can be given: The Ending is Wonderful!

This iteration contains Questions and a Pronouncing Vocabulary.
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LibraryThing member sjclance
Finally finished The Odyssey translated by Robert Fagles. Definitely more readable than Lattimore's translation of The Iliad. However, for me, readable does not equal better. Some passages were translated with phrases that were just too modern and made my flow of reading stop because it didn't
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quite fit. While I admit that Lattimore was difficult to read, I liked to be able to stop and think about a passage and wonder what it might mean and maybe even look up the background of a phrase. Different translations for different readers. If you have to get through the book and know what it is about go with Fagles. If you want to stop, think and research, go with Lattimore. Beyond all that, the story of The Iliad and The Odyssey are each enjoyable in their own way. The Iliad has grusome battles but these are lightened up with the way the Gods are portrayed. The Odyssey, with the travels of Odysseus, made you realize how many of these adventures you have already heard throughout the years. As an aside, while I was reading The Odyssey, I just happened to start reading Tom Jones by Fielding and read in the preface that The Odyssey was very much in Fielding's mind when he wrote Tom Jones.
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LibraryThing member clothingoptional
Don't read this book - listen to it. Epic poetry is meant to be recited...
LibraryThing member headless
This review is of the translation, not of Homer's great song. Fagles domesticates, flattens, Americanizes at every turn. To get a feeling of the high poetic sweep of the original Greek, compare this with Robert Fitzgerald's version, which really sings.
LibraryThing member jwhenderson
Sing to me of the man, Muses, the man of twists and turns
driven time and again off course, once he had plundered
the hallowed heights of Troy.

Here we are once again, with the poet imploring the Muse to sing her song about the adventures ensuing the the fall of Troy. Having just finished rereading
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The Iliad which told of the rage of Achilles and the Trojan War, I find The Odyssey a much more congenial book, seeimngly modern in structure and outlook, even as it tells of events before the beginning of history as we know it. It tells the journey of Odysseus on his way hhome from Troy, a journey that takes him ten years. Odysseus is a man who, according to none other than Zeus, "excels all men in wisdom," (1.79). Odysseus has offended Poseidon, the god of the seas, by blinding his son Polyphemus the Cyclops; and, Poseidon, in retaliation has driven Odysseus off-course and delayed his return home to Ithaca. Athena rouses the rest of the gods and takes up Odysseus case. It is thus that we find Athena going to Ithaca and, in the form of Mentes, helping Odysseus' son Telemachus as part of her plan. We also meet Penelope, the wise and patient wife of Odysseus, who has been fending off the suitors who have been pursuing her in Odysseus absence. Telemachus tells Athena: "And mother . . . she neither rejects a marriage she despises nor cn she bear to bring the courting to an end -- while they continue to bleed my household white."(1.289-91). The situation is untenable and calls for action. With Athena's assurance that his father is still alive, Telelmachus may take the necessary action. We find ourselves in a very different kind of poem than The Iliad, but one that promises suspense and excitement. Key themes that appear and will reappear as we continue include the idea of the heroic journey, both for Odysseus and Telemachus, and the growth of the character of Odysseus, who is described by Athena as he endures his captivity under Calypso's power:

But he, straining for no more than a glimpse
of hearth-smoke drifting up from his own land,
Odysseus longs to die . . .
(1.69-71)
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LibraryThing member JoseArcadio
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
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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.
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LibraryThing member JaneAnneShaw
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!
LibraryThing member StephanieDDunn
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
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well as reading this for pleasure this wins my 4 stars in both categories.
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LibraryThing member datrappert
There are certainly some great episodes in the Odyssey, but after the incredible intensity of the Iliad, I found it somewhat tedious, and it took me a long time to finish. I liked Lombardo's translation of the Iliad very much, so I assume the fault is not his.
LibraryThing member Carmenere
Haha, who am I to rate Homer?! So funny!

In my opinion, Homer's work is a beautiful love story, Shakespearean before there was a Shakespeare.
My beef is the tediousness of Odysseus' trials and tribulations but that's just a matter of opinion. In the 21st century, we desire expedience but something
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has to be said about the titillating slowness of 750 BC.
The Greek gods, popping in and out, are amusing and entertaining. Humans, mere mortals, are puppet-like to their will. Hmm, but are they really?
Odysseus's journey somewhat mirrors our own. In that way, the novel/poem is adaptable to every age and thus makes it a classic for the ages.
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LibraryThing member desultory
I've got the E V Rieu translation - a bit stodgy. It makes Homer sound like he went to an English public school. That can't be right.
LibraryThing member Zoes_Human
The Odyssey is well worth reading not only to experience a story that has so heavily influenced Western literature, but also because, as appalling of a hero as Odysseus may be, it's a fun story. In all its extravagance, it set the standard for epic adventures.

I cannot recommend Emily Wilson's
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translation enough. It is beautiful and fluid. She maintains a poetic rhythm yet the language is modern and clear. It's worth the extra time to read it out loud so you can truly savor the language for both its flow and the way it captures the sentiments of the characters.

For those with several Odysseys under their belt, I would still recommend this version, if for no other reason than to read her introduction. Her analysis of the story is brilliant.
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LibraryThing member Sean191
What can I say? The Oddysey is one of the first thrillers, actions, adventure, love and horror stories all rolled into one. That being said, it's a great work, not just for being an ancestor of modern works, but for being a great work even in comparison. This particular version could have done
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without the editor's extended information in the back - or I suppose I could have done without it, rather than scholarly, it seemed pretentious.
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LibraryThing member TobinElliott
As with The Iliad, I find myself once again shocked at the disparity between what I remember reading forty years ago in high school, and what actually transpires.

For instance, I would have bet a lot of money that the death of Achilles and the entire Trojan Horse thing were both detailed toward the
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end of The Iliad. Obviously, I know now that I would have been wrong and would have paid out a lot of money.

Similarly, after completing that book, I seemed to have remembered that no, those two scenes were near the beginning of The Odyssey, perhaps in the first two or three books (of the 24 in total), then all but the last book or two (so, maybe 19 or 20 books) would have detailed Odysseus' long trip home. And I would have sworn he left Troy and all the various delays totalled to another decade before he got home. And that he basically burst in just after his wife Penelope offered up the whole string-my-husband's-bow-and-shoot-an-arrow-through-a-dozen-ax-heads thing.

So...no death of Achilles scene—though we do meet up with him later on in Hades—and the Trojan Horse deal gets a very brief mention. But Odysseus spends most of that decade hanging with Calypso, and only spends three years getting home.

My god, no wonder humans are such lousy witnesses. I was so off on all of this.

As for the actual story itself, it was good, and I enjoyed reacquainting myself with the adventures of Odysseus, but overall, I found this one to be much more repetitious (I think we get Penelope's story of weaving a shroud by day and unspooling it by night at least three times), and overall a little less fun. Maybe it was the lack of shenanigans by all the gods, with only Calypso, Poseidon, and Athena getting any significant air time.

I still believe both these books are an essential read, and I will be also diving into Virgil's The Aenied...and might even follow that up with Beowulf. Have a bit of a taste for these epic tales right now.
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LibraryThing member jpsnow
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
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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.
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LibraryThing member Greatrakes
I recently read The Iliad, also in a translation by Fagles, and I was disappointed with The Odyssey. The stories that make up the book feature many of the gods and monsters familiar from Greek mythology, but it seems a far less majestic work, more a rattle-bag of tales published to cash in on the
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success of The Iliad! Still, it has Cyclops, Sirens, giant cannibals, horny Calypso and the lovely Scylla, so there is much to enjoy.

Odysseus spends much of his time recounting his story to halls full of nobles who give him shelter at various points on his ten year journey. The nobles spend all their time drinking, feasting, playing games, standing on their dignity and raiding each other. The glory of The Iliad, is that is the kings and their retinues are fulfilling their real purpose, it is their intensity that makes the drama of the siege of Troy and makes that book so magnificent. The nobles at peace are an unattractive bunch.

For me, the most interesting part was Odysseus' visit to the underworld, the Greeks believed in an afterlife and it gave them a very good reason to stay alive, the underworld isn't very pleasant.
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Language

Original language

Greek (Ancient)

Other editions

The Odyssey by Homer (Paperback)
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