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Title: The Odyssey by Homer, Robert Fitzgerald ISBN: 0-89966-890-9 Publisher: Buccaneer Books Pub. Date: August, 1996 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.47 (34 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: An amazing tale
Comment: The Odyssey is an amazing tale of the travels of Odysseus and his crew after the Trojan War. His encounters with the Cyclops, sea monsters, Sirens, Gods, and ghosts create a tale larger than life. Mr. Rouse does an amazing job of translating the tale in a way that flows well and reads easily. My only complaint of this classic is the ending... in 1 1/2 pages things go from nearly a civil war to peace. It appears almost as if homer had not finished the tale before his death, and someone else added the ending just to finish the book. Aside from the ending, the entire book is a masterpiece of ancient literature.
Rating: 5
Summary: The wanderings and adventures of Odysseus.
Comment: This epic were required reading in the humanities course I took at U.C.L.A. in the mid-1960s. And, I've reread it a number of times since then. The prose translation I read was by Rieu (if you are interested in the verse translation, see the volume provided by Robert Fagles). "The Odyssey" is the epic poem of the wanderings of Odysseus trying to return to his home in Ithaca following the end of the siege of Troy. There are three basic threads in this epic: Telemachus' search for his father, Odysseus (Books II-IV); the wanderings of Odysseus (Books I and V-XIII); and, Penelope's struggles with her suitors (Books XIV-XXIV). All of these come together in the conclusion. "The Odyssey" begins in the middle of the tale (in medias res) when Odysseus request to leave Calypso on the island of Ogygia. Much of his wanderings are told as recaptulations of earlier events. Telemachus sets out from Ithaca to find his father; but he searches in vain at Pylos and Sparta. Odysseus has many adventures in his travels: battle with the warlike Cicones; an encounter with the Lotus-Eaters; the famous fight with the cyclops Polyphemus; a near shipwreak following the release of winds from a bag; a visit with the enchantress Circe who turns Odysseus' men into swine; talks with the spirits of the dead; escape from the Sirens; eluding Scylla and Charybdis, two sea-monsters lying between Italy and Sicily; the killing of the sacred oxen of the Sun; seven years with Calypso; another shipwreak; rescue by King Alcinous; and the final arrival on Ithaca. This is one of the great classics of literature and evry college student should be required to read it. I've always felt that until recently when I discovered that, at a local Middle School, it was required reading for eighth graders! Now, I think that all High School graduates should have read it.
Rating: 5
Summary: 4 words : Classic for a reason
Comment: There's a reason that The Odyssey and The Illiad are considered classics in the most complete sense, and in reading the two I was blown away time and time again in seeing why. Credit must also be given to Rouse for a brilliant translation that gives the words of Homer a fluidity most translators lack.
As a novel, The Odyssey reads well as a great tale picking up where The Illiad left off; full of rich detail, beautiful imagery and an incredibly elaborate mythology that one needn't be familiar with to understand. I was worried beforehand about knowing so little about Greek Mythology but Homer incorporates exactly enough information of the Gods to provide insight to the characters and traditions of their culture necessary to understand the story, while teaching you about them along the way. There is an abundance of reference and connection with religion, culture and traditions (actually, as you read you'll find a lot of modern words or expressions that originated from the text) to be studied at length, but the story is also excellent as a stand-alone tale if you don't want to analyze it.
The plot is that of Odysseus, after the Battle of Troy (described in The Illiad), who is stranded on an island as his house and family are plagued by ignorant men who are slowly consuming his wealth and resources while awaiting his thought-to-be-widowed wife's decision on which of them she will marry. As his much-abused young son comes of age, he is set upon a journey by the Gods to find his father and restore his household to proper order. The tale is weaved around this and lined with themes of love, loyalty, honour and revenge in such a way that no author I've read has even come close to. Homer is perhaps comparable to Shakespeare only in the sheer breadth of his scope, but surpasses him in his intuition for storytelling.
If you genuinely like to read but haven't read this yet, buy it now (after The Illiad, of course) or get it from the library. Considered to be the first Novel, you're reading a piece of history, a dead society, and an amazing tale as well.
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Title: The Iliad: The Story of Achilles by Homer, W. H. D. Rouse ISBN: 0451527372 Publisher: Signet Pub. Date: August, 1999 List Price(USD): $5.95 |
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Title: The Iliad by Homer, Anton Lesser, William Cowper ISBN: 9626340622 Publisher: Naxos Audio Books Pub. Date: September, 1995 List Price(USD): $19.98 |
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Title: The Odyssey (Cliffs Notes) by Stanley P. Baldwin ISBN: 0764585991 Publisher: Cliffs Notes Pub. Date: 22 May, 2000 List Price(USD): $5.99 |
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Title: Romeo and Juliet (Oxford School Shakespeare Series) by William Shakespeare, Roma Gill ISBN: 0198320256 Publisher: Oxford Press Pub. Date: November, 2002 List Price(USD): $7.95 |
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Title: Anthem: 50th Anniversary Edition by Ayn Rand, Leonard Peikoff ISBN: 0451191137 Publisher: Signet Pub. Date: August, 1996 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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