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sowalsky's review against another edition
5.0
Revisiting this after 40 years was eye-opening. It's got a good beat, and I can impale my enemies through the throat to it. Does this work represent the cradle of Western civilization? Or does it represent the cradle of toxic douche-bros such as Wagner, Hemingway, and John Wayne? Evidently, both can exist.
trainisloud's review against another edition
4.0
Don't mess the ocean, cyclops, the gods, or Odysseus. Be nice to strangers. Carry around an extra beggars outfit, just in case. Practice archery.
waxbiplane's review against another edition
5.0
This was really good, unsurprisingly. The translation was super readable and contained, without a lot of flourish. The notes at the beginning were really interesting and added a lot to the text itself. It seems fatuous to review The Odyssey, and yet here we are. I'm glad I finally read it.
steven_nobody's review against another edition
4.0
I really enjoyed The Odyssey, and I tried to hear it anew after knowing it for 40 years.
I'm surprised by a lot of things about The Odyssey after reading The Iliad. Mainly the style. First, it is far less bloody. The grossest it gets is the cyclops spewing wine and chewed up human flesh. Even when Odysseus kills the suitors, it is much more tame. He never once shoots a head off and the brains spin out. Also way less similes and less poetic, but it must have been wonderful to hear and recite, nonetheless - a man's night out with his best friends, his brotherhood. I can imagine them playing a drinking game based on the Dawn, as in "When young Dawn with her rose-red fingers shone once more the true son of Odysseus sprang from bed and dressed." Yamas!
Second surprise is what an adept liar Odysseus is. I'm now apt to agree with those who say he made up much of his fantastic voyage, especially since monsters are absent from the rest of the book. I got this idea from the Great Courses but that professor doesn't think he made that section up. She does talk about everyone who comes across Odysseus suffers in someway or very often dies. Friend or foe. I'm sorry for the Phaeacian princess getting crushed under a mountain (an implied fate). But I do wish there had been a lot more monsters.
The role of the gods is also greatly reduced from Iliad. Often it's just Athena making disguises for Odysseus though he could have done this himself, I think, since characters do so all the time in other literature. I do tip my hat to Poseidon for turning that Phaeacian boat and sailors into stone after they delivered Odysseus home safely; very impressive. I also am surprised The Odyssey is so less full of quotes I wanted to highlight. The book continues beyond the happily-ever-after reunion with Odysseus' much long-missed wife Penelope. Monteverdi was right to end his 1640 stage musical at that point. It's one of the earliest extant operas, and like the book it has many beauties but just none I want to hear out of context.
I'm surprised by a lot of things about The Odyssey after reading The Iliad. Mainly the style. First, it is far less bloody. The grossest it gets is the cyclops spewing wine and chewed up human flesh. Even when Odysseus kills the suitors, it is much more tame. He never once shoots a head off and the brains spin out. Also way less similes and less poetic, but it must have been wonderful to hear and recite, nonetheless - a man's night out with his best friends, his brotherhood. I can imagine them playing a drinking game based on the Dawn, as in "When young Dawn with her rose-red fingers shone once more the true son of Odysseus sprang from bed and dressed." Yamas!
Second surprise is what an adept liar Odysseus is. I'm now apt to agree with those who say he made up much of his fantastic voyage, especially since monsters are absent from the rest of the book. I got this idea from the Great Courses but that professor doesn't think he made that section up. She does talk about everyone who comes across Odysseus suffers in someway or very often dies. Friend or foe. I'm sorry for the Phaeacian princess getting crushed under a mountain (an implied fate). But I do wish there had been a lot more monsters.
The role of the gods is also greatly reduced from Iliad. Often it's just Athena making disguises for Odysseus though he could have done this himself, I think, since characters do so all the time in other literature. I do tip my hat to Poseidon for turning that Phaeacian boat and sailors into stone after they delivered Odysseus home safely; very impressive. I also am surprised The Odyssey is so less full of quotes I wanted to highlight. The book continues beyond the happily-ever-after reunion with Odysseus' much long-missed wife Penelope. Monteverdi was right to end his 1640 stage musical at that point. It's one of the earliest extant operas, and like the book it has many beauties but just none I want to hear out of context.
steven_nobody's review against another edition
5.0
In “The Iliad,” it’s all about people and gods, and there might be a quick mention of creatures like centaurs and sirens. It’s pretty odd that “The Odyssey” has lots of monsters but not many gods. They feel like different kinds of stories. I liked “The Iliad” a lot more this time around, and I think it’s because of the way Emily Wilson wrote it. It felt more like a regular story than a big, old poem.
whimsikl's review against another edition
4.0
Reread with Lattimore’s translation. A lot less archaic, a lot more poetic, but just as boring. Sorry Homer.
eleanorfranzen's review against another edition
5.0
I’d never actually read it! Isn’t that weird? It must be the case for quite a lot of people. The stories are so familiar from excerpted children’s versions and adaptations that we feel as though we have. Anyway, I think the primary thing to be aware of while you’re reading is the very different weight and pacing present in the poem. The first four books are about Odysseus’s son, Telemachus, who embarks on his own short journey to find out more about where his missing father could be; Odysseus himself doesn’t appear until book five, by which point he’s already lost all of his ships and companions to various disasters and is reduced to telling the tale of his adventures to the friendly Phaeacian court during books nine to twelve. (Interestingly, Doug Metzger suggests on his podcast Literature and History that these books are no more likely to be “true”, within the world of the poem, than any of the other lies Odysseus tells about his origins. I’d contest that, since much of that lying is done in order to protect himself upon his return to Ithaca, which is essentially an occupied territory, but I love the idea: we’ve only Odysseus’s word to say that the Lotus-eaters, Circe, Scylla and Charybdis, the journey to the underworld, the Cyclops episode, etc., actually happened at all, and he’s a notorious fibber.) They send him back home under escort in book thirteen, and the entire second half of the poem is about him regaining his property, murdering the men who’ve been harassing his wife, and Telemachus’s coming of age.
It’s known as an adventure/travel poem, but it’s very much more, I think, a poem about restitution, espousing a fundamentally socially conservative view of the world’s proper order. (It’s Tom Jones. Or rather, Tom Jones is the Odyssey. Hey!) For all that, it’s much more engaging to me personally than the Iliad was, perhaps because the emotional atmosphere is much more immediately identifiable for a reader who’s never been to war. Be warned: the final books are brutal. Margaret Atwood’s poem A Chorus Line neatly sums up the breathtaking hypocrisy of the murder of the maids (from one perspective; from another, of course—that socially conservative one the poem partakes of—Odysseus is merely ensuring that loyalty to his person and his dynasty, even when they’re not present, is the order of the day. Fascinating how that always seems to involve punishing women. I wonder if the housekeeper Eurycleia, who eagerly provides her returned master with the names of maids who’ve “behaved shamefully” in his absence, was a model for Aunt Lydia.) Anyway, the Oxford World’s Classics edition I read was translated by Anthony Verity and is, from a non-classicist’s perspective, excellent; you get a good sense of the original Greek’s use of repetition, but not so much so that it’s annoying, and thank God Verity does not attempt to match an antique meter or rhyme scheme. If you’re relatively new to antique poetry, I’d recommend this edition particularly: the end notes are also good and there’s a handy index of first names in the back.
It’s known as an adventure/travel poem, but it’s very much more, I think, a poem about restitution, espousing a fundamentally socially conservative view of the world’s proper order. (It’s Tom Jones. Or rather, Tom Jones is the Odyssey. Hey!) For all that, it’s much more engaging to me personally than the Iliad was, perhaps because the emotional atmosphere is much more immediately identifiable for a reader who’s never been to war. Be warned: the final books are brutal. Margaret Atwood’s poem A Chorus Line neatly sums up the breathtaking hypocrisy of the murder of the maids (from one perspective; from another, of course—that socially conservative one the poem partakes of—Odysseus is merely ensuring that loyalty to his person and his dynasty, even when they’re not present, is the order of the day. Fascinating how that always seems to involve punishing women. I wonder if the housekeeper Eurycleia, who eagerly provides her returned master with the names of maids who’ve “behaved shamefully” in his absence, was a model for Aunt Lydia.) Anyway, the Oxford World’s Classics edition I read was translated by Anthony Verity and is, from a non-classicist’s perspective, excellent; you get a good sense of the original Greek’s use of repetition, but not so much so that it’s annoying, and thank God Verity does not attempt to match an antique meter or rhyme scheme. If you’re relatively new to antique poetry, I’d recommend this edition particularly: the end notes are also good and there’s a handy index of first names in the back.
tholden97's review against another edition
4.0
Well briefed on The Iliad but never really on The Odyssey. Both remarkable works and hats off to the translator. Really enjoyed the epic poem style, tempted to try Dante. The story itself is good but our main chap spends so much time sat around feasting. Felt like I wanted to live more in the action and adventure parts of the journey. Probably a daft take but my own.