The Odyssey (Penguin Classics)

Fagle's translation of the Odyssey is excellent as is Knox' knowledgeable foreward. During my life, I've read both the Iliad and Odyssey half a dozen times or more, by various translators, and regard Fagle's version as the best. I don't read Greek, ancient or modern, so, like most of us, I am unable to read the subtleties, glory and poetry of the original tales. I rather suspect, however, the Fagle's interpretation gets us close, indeed.

Every time I read the story...at different stages of my life...I read different things into the tale. This times, perhaps, I am more aware of the duplicity that is the very substance of the hero, Odysseus. Lies...complex, detailed lies...flow from his lips as easily and quickly as water poured from a flask. True, his lies usually serve a 'greater' purpose, but they are still lies...a fact of which gives Odysseus no problem.

Since reading the 'Iliad' and 'Odyssey' as a teenager, I've always been partial to the directness and overall simplicity of the 'Iliad.' Believability is also a factor. The Trojan War, some of the characters in it and some of the action details are almost certainly based in reality. The 'Odyssey', far lesss so. It seems to be a collection of out-and-out fables in which Odysseus is the primary player. Still....even fables may have echoes of the truth. Could Odysseus have been away from Ithaca for twenty years and would his wife have remained faithful all this time? Quite possibly.

The story of Odysseus' experiences with the goddesses, Circe and Calypso, are fascinating but, of course, fabulous. They also account for most of the time Odysseus spends on his long path home. This might be a fanciful way of dealing with reality. Odysseus may have been captured on his way home and held as a slave. This reality could definitely 'eat up' years of time but the Circe/Calypso stories are far more interesting and add to Odysseus' reputation as a very accomplished ladies man. Later, although, Odysseus has spent so much time as a virtual sexual slave to the goddesses, he happily recounts the adventures to his wife, Penelope. Penelope isn't offended. Afterall, her husband turned down goddesses and eternal blissful life, in favor of return to his wife of many years. It's one heck of a compliment.

There are a couple of other features that I noted that, again, may be rooted in reality. Twice, Odysseus lies that he is from Crete and that he led an unsuccessful attack on the peoples of the Nile Delta. A number of Egyptian accounts report accounts of attacks by 'The Peoples of the Sea'. Could the Achaean Greeks, in their black ships, have been some, or most, of the Sea Peoples?

Also, the death of Agammemnon, should also be noted. This may also be based on reality. Agammemnon, commander of all Achaean Greek forces against Troy, and King of Achaea's most powerful city, Mycenae, is slain by his wife and her lover. The motive is given as sexual infidelity and greed...greed for the throne of Mycenae. In the Odyssey we learn a fascinating 'detail'. Clytemnestra, Agammemnon's murderous wife, slaughters the slave-captive, Cassandra, on Agammemnon's just-killed body.

Hmmmmmm? Why would Clytemnestra kill a valuable slave? Cassandra, of course, was a Princess of demolished Troy and had been violently raped during the destruction of the city. Nevertheless, it would appear that Clytemnestra hated or feared Cassandra. Why? Probably the oldest reason of all...sexual jealousy. Cassandra's murder suggests that the REAL motive for Agammemnon's killing is quite different than usually represented. He may have preferred the company of Cassandra to that of his queen. Clytemnestra reacted with her well-known violence...a woman jilted.

Also, is it conceivable that the Queen, Penelope, could be held virtual prisoner in her own palace...for years...by 100 or so rampaging suitors? The answer must be 'No' but there are some interesting things to note. Odysseus' father, Laertes, would logically be King, but his son, Odysseus, IS King, which leaves a 20 year vacancy to the throne. We learn that Laertes, mourning over his lost son, lives in rags and poverty as a barely surviving farmer. Possible. Depression and/or mental illness. But why not Odysseus' son, Telemachus?

At the time the first suitors might have 'settled in' to pay court to Penolope and to eat up her wealth, Telemachus would have been underaged. The suitors, who would have become more arrogant and confident, would scarecely have Telemachus the opportunity to claim the throne. Still......it's a far-fetched tale.

Ron Braithwaite, author of novels...'Skull Rack' and 'Hummingbird God'...on the Spanish Conquest of Mexico

If you want to know about the translation, better read another review because I am no expert on translations of classic literature.

All I have to say, is that I sincerely relished every page of Homer's Odyssey. Literary experts (such as my English professors at college) may find fault or excellence in the translation, but for me...I was taken on an unforgettable and exhilarating literary adventure!

Truth be told, I could not put the book down! It was just refreshing to read a story that was so rich in content! For 10 dollars, you will get so much more value and worth from reading Homer's genius, than you will buying some clearance DVD. The words you read will wash over you and take you to places you never dreamt possible.

That is the beauty of good writing. Further yet, that is the beauty of classic literature!

...I'm not expert on translations, I'm just a college kid who, for the first time in a long while, got the ride of his life in an epic journey of heroism!

It wasn't easy, but I have to admit I had a great time reading Robert Fagles' translation of the Odyssey. I thought his translation offered just the right compromise between using "elevated language" and readability. Also, I liked the traditional verse format Fagles retained, even though the English version had no rhyme scheme or strict metric format found in the original. The shorter lines made it easier to read.

The 70-page introduction by Bernard Knox also helped quite a bit. It focused mostly on higher themes of the Odyssey, which was great. There are also excellent explanatory notes on specific lines at the end of the book. I read all these notes before I read that particular section to avoid flipping back and forth too much. I also kept a copy of Cliff's notes along side me, reading the upcoming chapter in Cliff's before reading the real text.

As I was saying, it wasn't easy, but the Odyssey and the Iliad are such basic texts that all this effort was well worth it. I still have a hard time accepting that the text was written in roughly 800 BC, yet the insight into what it's like to be human seemed so real. No wonder this edition was a best seller when it came out 20 years ago, re-inspiring movies and television shows.

Fagles' Iliad is next!

I had to read this for my Language Arts class, and this version was recommended by our teacher. I've read some reviews talking about its accuracy, but I'm not an expert on Homer's writings, so I wouldn't know too much about that.

Let me start off by saying that this book shipped very quickly, despite the fact that I chose standard shipping (5-8 days). It shipped in two. Also, this book is light and compact, so it's easy to carry around if you plan on bringing it someplace with you. The only complaint about this I have is that I like to keep my book in pristine condition, and the cover and pages are very thin. There is another version with the exact same translation but with thicker pages and a more rigid cover, which I would have got if I knew there was one. It's all based on preference, though.

Now on to the book. I am usually terrible at reading, but I will say this translation makes it easy and even pleasurable to read the story of Odysseus. Fagles does a superb job of translating the story into modern English so that it can be read with ease. Although it is a translation, it still keeps the structure of the Greek original, using a consistent meter. Fagles also adds other poetic elements such as alliteration to make reading this book more interesting and enjoyable.

All in all, if you need the Odyssey for a class, or you are just an avid reader hoping to find a readable translation of the Odyssey, this is for you. Translated so poetically and with vocabulary that in understandable, this is probably one of the best translations of the Odyssey you can get. (I still would recommend getting the harder paperback version though.)

I am what you would call a casual historian. I am deeply fascinated by the ancient world, as well as the history of literature and the evolution of storytelling. However, I am not inclined to learn Greek, and also understand that even the most universal of stories must be adjusted in order for succesive generations to be able to grasp them (and I am talking language choice, not 'dumbing down' of complex work). This doesn't merely apply to translation, but to what changing English readers over the decades can approach, as well.

Enter Robert Fagles' translation of THE ODYSSEY. I have not read any other translations of this work presently, but Fagles presents the epic in a clear, vivid style that allows contemporary readers to be introduced to the journey of Odysseus. It must be understood that translation from another language, as well as presenting a very old story, requires compromise. Fagles has been as true as possible to, what I understand from Fagles' postscript notes, the 'spirit' of Homer, while allowing it to flow smoothly to modern ears and eyes. No doubt a deeper appreciation of many aspects of Homer could be had with a different translation, but what it seems to me this translation excels at is levity.

What about all the fuss over the story itself for all this time? What I got as a first time reader was a passage into the ancient world and it's morals, values, and beliefs. The core of the Odyssey is there, as it always was. Odysseus is a very multi-dimensional character for such an early story; he is noble but sometimes wicked, proud but sporradicaly humble, quick to violence but also sharp and eloquent in speech. He can pour honey into a king's ear to gain favor, or provoke an enemy to draw first blood with a viscous verbal rebuttal. The structure Homer employs must also have been quite radical when first told to an audience; setting up both Odysseus' plight abroad and his family's trouble at home separately, then merging them together by the end. Parts of his journey are omitted as they happen, only to be filled in later as he recalls it to one of his hosts on the way home. It's no big deal today but think how risky this structure of story telling must have been at the time.

I would strongly urge anyone interested in Homer to begin with THIS translation. Other translations may have had greater success at getting across other beauties of the Greek text, but this is a moot issue if the reader becomes uninterested in the story if the reading is bogged with archaic English, thus turning them off to ancient works for ever (and I speak of the many casualties grade-school English teachers have mounted in using translations that the kids just can't get into at their reading level).

Fagles has done Homer a great service here; re-introduced one of the oldest stories in Western Civilization to a new audience (and admittedly, one that may only be beginning in it's appreciation of the classics). Die-hards will find bones to pick, that's a given. However, one has to start somewhere, and only after they are engaged by the story will they then want to branch out and see what previous translations' strengths are. I am trying to come across to both 'new-ancient' readers as well as the more clasically learned scholars who identify Homer with older translations. One need only look back to classmates' dismissal of shakespeare to see that a hard to grasp translation will sour a generation forever on a profound work. It is with that in mind that I call Fagles' translation a boon to those who are just discovering him. NOT to those who are presently followers. I consider anything that helps the cause of reading to be a help, not a hinderance to readers, but maybe i'm being obtuse.

this is an amazing book, with something for anyone. if you are interested in studying philosophy, you'll find it here. but, you can also read a great adventure story with fables and a love story written in. in that sense, this is a great translation; if you want to read this for the sake of entertainment, Fagles is a great translator. if you want to read for philosophical discussion, however, he might not serve your purposes. the thing you have to know about Fagles is, he often inserts adjectives and the feel of the entire story changes. so, if you want fidelity to the Greek words, try Lattimore. if you want fidelity to the Greek metrical sense, try Mandelbaum or Pope. and if you want fidelity to the Greek adventure epic, Fagles is your guy.

I haven't actually bought this item yet.

But I DID buy an item similar to it, or perhaps "bought" isn't the right word. I DID download, for free, a different translation of Homer's Odyssey for my Kindle.

I did that because I had started reading "Ulysses," by James Joyce, and I read somewhere that "Ulysses" is loosely based on "The Odyssey," which at that point I realized I had never read.

BY WHICH I MEAN: I suddenly realized that I had never read "The Odyssey," which is kind of a weird way to say it, now that I think about it. I mean, I KNEW all along that I had never read "The Odyssey," because, of course, I had never read "The Odyssey," so my brain knew that, knew that as an absence of fact that creates a fact.

Weird: Think about that. It is a fact that I never read "The Odyssey," but that fact is created solely by the complete absence of things. It's like dark energy, in my mind, or it would be if dark energy existed.

Which it doesn't. Dark Energy, like my knowledge of "The Odyssey" before I began reading "The Odyssey," didn't really exist, although like dark energy vis a vis the Universe, "The Odyssey" somehow had an effect on my consciousness. I knew things about it without necessarily knowing how I knew things about it -- things that belied the existence of that "fact," the "fact" that I had never read it.

So I didn't, then, know if I had read it, or portions of it, or if simply references to it throughout my life had made it seem as though I had read "The Odyssey," but when I picked up "Ulysses," and heard it was loosely based on "The Odyssey," I thought it would make sense to read both, in tandem, reading a portion of "Ulysses" and then a portion of "The Odyssey."

Maybe it makes sense. But it was not a worthwhile endeavor. NOT AT ALL.

Let me talk, for a moment, about why we care about "The Odyssey" at all:

I DO NOT KNOW.

Why has this poem survived?

Why do we bother translating and retranslating and re-retranslating and then downloading onto a Kindle a boring poem from 2,000 years ago?

Is it because we think it is a high point of poetry, a hallmark among its kind, THE Epic Poem to stand as the Platonic Ideal for all other Epic Poems?

Because if that's the case, then re-re-re-translating it all the time is probably a bad idea since it would stand to reason that if this is THE Epic poem when you translate it it's no longer that thing, any more than melting down the Venus de Milo and recasting it into the Venus de Milo would mean that the new, recast statue is THE Venus de Milo.

Actually, that's an interesting thought experiment, sort of a corollary to the Theseus' Ship idea. Suppose you were able to make a mold around the Venus de Milo, one which was so exact, down to the last micrometer or whatever the smallest unit of measurement you want to use is, and suppose then that you completely ground down/melted/etc. the Venus de Milo and then reformed it, using that mold.

Is it still the Venus de Milo?

I mean, it has to be, right?

Or is it?

About 63% of me says it's NOT the Venus de Milo, but I can't figure out why that would be, what bugs me about it.

But a translation isn't the same thing as a recreation. And now that I think about it, we do NOT think of a re-creation of some works of art as inferior while we do that for others. Consider:

Vincent Van Gogh paints "Starry Night," and you buy the painting. I buy a poster of the painting because I am cheap and/or poor. We both hang our copies on the wall. People will give YOUR copy more merit, won't they, even though, really, they are the exact same thing.

Now: Homer writes "The Odyssey," putting it in ink on parchment although if I remember correctly and I am sure I am not, given that I have no idea where I would have learned this, if I remember correctly "The Odyssey" was meant to be told, not read, it was an oral poem, not written down, although even as I think of that I think it must be incorrect because who could remember an epic poem word for word for word for word, for centuries? Supposedly, that happened with "Beowulf," too, another story I never read but know about a bit, but COME ON, do we really believe that happened?

Here are things I learned that I no longer believe:

1. I do not believe that there were ever velociraptors. That's probably for another day, but in a nutshell: I have a book from 1978 that does not mention velociraptors at all and yet after "Jurassic Park" came out scientists pretended they were a thing.

2. I do not believe that people back in the Olden Days actually were sitting around memorizing 300,000-word epics without any problems whatsoever and passing them on, VERBATIM to us a century or five later.

But anyway: suppose Homer writes "The Odyssey," putting it handwritten on ink on parchment and then you retype it and give it to me bound in a book, and we both read it. People would say we had the exact same experience, wouldn't they?

So looking at the Mona Lisa in a museum is deemed more "authentic" than looking at a picture of it on my laptop, while reading "The Odyssey" in a Penguin Classic Paperback is deemed the exact same experience as hearing it told by Homer, and why is that, I wonder?

We don't, for example, require that the original of a SONG be the only one people really deem "authentic." We can listen to an MP3 of a song and feel as though we are experiencing that song exactly as it was meant to be, and in fact, many people would consider the "original" of a song -- the live version or perhaps the musicians in a studio creating it -- to be inferior to the finished COPY.

Movies are always copies. We never see the original movie being filmed. Sometimes we see a play with the original Broadway cast, but think about this: by the time anyone sees a play, they are seeing a copy of a copy of a copy, because the actors have performed that play numerous times in rehearsal and dress rehearsal and so on. If you go see a play on the third day, are you seeing the ORIGINAL play? Or are you seeing a copy of the original? Which is more "authentic"?

These are all interesting concepts. You know what was NOT interesting? "The Odyssey." OH MY GOD is it boring. 90% of the words on the page are used to describe the food or a scene or the palace. Want a feel for what reading "The Odyssey" is like? Let me give you a quick recap:

-10,000 words about the scene.
-20 words about the action.
-10,000 words about the place-settings at the table where they are eating.
-Something about the gods.

That is "The Odyssey." I worked and worked and worked on this poem/book, getting 37% of the way through it, before giving up today, because honestly I've got better things to do than struggle through some 2,000 year old boring poem that amounts to "The Real Housewives of Ancient Greece." Where Odysseus isn't boring the listener to death with his stupid stories about being entertained by the Cyprian version of Riverdance, he is being stupid, like taunting the Cyclops. The people are amazingly dumb/trusting -- at one point, Odysseus sneaks invisibly into a palace and grabs a queen's knees, and the result is that the king treats him to a feast and a show... BEFORE ASKING HIM WHO HE IS.

That just doesn't make any sense.

So my original point remains: Why do we bother keeping this poem around? As an example of Greek culture? As a pointed lesson for people who dare to think that poetry should be entertaining or educational? ("OH YOU THINK SO? YOU LIKE POETRY? WELL TRY SOME OF 'THE ODYSSEY' ON FOR SIZE! WE WILL TEACH YOU NOT TO LIKE POETRY, AND IF HOMER DOESN'T WORK THERE'S ALWAYS EZRA POUND.")

I got duped into reading 37% of "The Odyssey" because I got duped into reading 35% of "Ulysses" by James Joyce, and in both instances I was gullibled by society into thinking these things were worth my while. They are not. Both books should be quickly consigned to the ashheaps of history, or, since I read them in electronic form, they should be consigned to "MySpace," where they can reside in ignominy with the cleavage shots and duckfaces of 2005.

I give this item zero stars, and that's only because I cannot take stars away from it.

ACTUALLY, I have to give this item 1 star, which means "I Hate It," because it turns out you cannot give something ZERO stars on Amazon. So I am giving it one star but only because I am being forced to do so by the gods.

I don't know how long it's been since you read The Odyssey, but the chanced are you skipped one or more of the twenty-four books that comprise the story. Since your last reading of the classic, there can be little doubt that you've come across countless references and allusions to the novel. You may be ready for a re-reading. Homer's cast of characters-from Polyphemus, the Cyclops, to Circe, the goddess of Aeaea, who changes men to swine, to Calypso, the other goddess-nymph who falls in love with Odysseus-are bound to bring back memories of your high school reading experience. You may find yourself longing for those days before cheesy pick-up lines, when men were men and flirted with women such as Nausicaa like this:

"Are you a goddess or a mortal? If one of the gods
who rule the skies up there, you're Artemis to the life,
the daughter of mighty Zeus-I see her now-just look
at your build, your bearing, your lithe flowing grace...
But if you're one of the mortals living here on earth,
Three times blest are your father, your queenly mother,
Three times over your brothers too. How often their hearts
Must warm with joy to see you striding into the dances-
Such a bloom of beauty...
I look at you and a sense of wonder takes me.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know it's a poem twelve thousand lines long. Put it at your bedside and read 300 lines a night and by the next issue of The Post, you'll be ready for The Iliad, too.

My freshman English class tackled The Odyssey, and we all relished it. The high-key adventure, the indomitable Odysseus, the history and culture of our adored Greek society, and the rich dialogue all kept us hooked. The curse of the Cyclops is still a monologue I fall back on, even three years later, because, I'm telling you, people nowadays just don't know how to cast curses! As a little recommendation to enhance the reader's enjoyment, read a little bit about the Trojan War before starting. For my class, we had a packet with the history of the war, beginning with the Choice of Paris and ending with the Wooden Horse. It helps with the understanding of the story and whets the appetite for Homer's epic.

I didn't particularly like Homer's Odyssey as a kid. I had to read it in 9th Grade English Honors, and then I had to read it again in Literary Humanities (Lit Hum) as a freshman at Columbia College. On both occasions the only thing I really enjoyed was reading about Odysseus and Calypso making love over and over again on her island. With a beautiful goddess eager to keep him by her side, I always wondered why Odysseus would ever want to go back to his wife and child in Ithaca.

What made me rethink my response, now that I'm in my late fifties, was a new book called READ TILL YOU UNDERSTAND: THE ENDURING WISDOM OF BLACK LIFE AND BLACK LITERATURE by Farah Jasmine Griffin. This was a very perceptive study of Toni Morrison's books, but the author also discussed the Odyssey at length. (Not very favorably.) And she told the tragic story of her father, a "high functioning heroin addict," who died young of a stroke after abusing his body for years with various illegal substances.

Now Professor Griffin dismisses Odysseus as "just another white male slaveowner," yet she frequently teaches the classics at Columbia. So why would this brilliant professor hate Odysseus so much? After much thought, I suspect it's not what the King of Ithaca did wrong. It's what he did right.

You see, Odysseus is a man who will do anything to get back to his wife and child. Yes, he is a deadly warrior, and a king. Yet most of all, he's a responsible husband and father. No monster can scare him out of going home, and no goddess can make him forget his family. And who has a problem with that? The daughter of a high-functioning heroin addict. Her father was not in Odysseus' league. And she knows it. And all she can do is play the race card and try to get Odysseus banished from the canon.

If it makes you feel any better, Professor Griffin, my father was an addict too. Except he was addicted to plain old cigarettes. I used to lie awake at night listening to him cough his lungs out. And I used to hate him because I knew he was too weak to quit. He was right in the next room, but really he was far away. And he was never coming home. So when I read the Odyssey, I just focused on Calypso. I just focused on the sex. I ignored how much that man loved his wife and son. I didn't want to hear it. I get how it feels to hate Odysseus and wish that people would stop lying about how wonderful fathers are. Because fathers always fail. But Odysseus tries harder than most.

And you can't blame a guy for trying.