The Odyssey [Hardcover]

Homer (Author), Robert Fagles (Translator), Bernard Knox (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 1996

This translation of Homer's poem recounts the great wanderings of Odysseus during his ten-year voyage back home from Ithaca after the Trojan War.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Robert Fagles's translation is a jaw-droppingly beautiful rendering of Homer's Odyssey, the most accessible and enthralling epic of classical Greece. Fagles captures the rapid and direct language of the original Greek, while telling the story of Odysseus in lyrics that ring with a clear, energetic voice. The story itself has never seemed more dynamic, the action more compelling, nor the descriptions so brilliant in detail. It is often said that every age demands its own translation of the classics. Fagles's work is a triumph because he has not merely provided a contemporary version of Homer's classic poem, but has located the right language for the timeless character of this great tale. Fagles brings the Odyssey so near, one wonders if the Hollywood adaption can be far behind. This is a terrific book.

From Publishers Weekly

Robert Fagles's 1990 translation of The Iliad was highly praised; here, he moves to The Odyssey. As in the previous work, he adroitly mixes contemporary language with the driving rhythms of the original. The first line reads: "Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns/ driven time and again off course once he had plundered/ the hallowed heights of Troy." Hellenic scholar Bernard Knox contributes extensive introductory commentary, providing both historical and literary perspective. Notes, a pronouncing glossary, genealogies, a bibliography and maps of Homer's world are included.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 541 pages
• Publisher: Viking Adult; 1st edition (November 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670821624
• ISBN-13: 978-0670821624
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.5 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (151 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #123,153 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

168 of 190 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars An arty, odd translation. And where are the epithets?, May 16, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Odyssey (Paperback)

Most reviewers love this translation, but after reading it, and comparing it to others (and to the Greek), I don't see why. It claims to be modern and energetic, but in fact its language is quite odd and hard to read -- excessively jaunty, with word order distortions entirely uncharacteristic of Homer. One wonderful thing about Homer is the smoothness and straightforwardness of his sentences. That's completely gone in this translation.

In addition, Fagles radically distorts one of the distinctive features of Homer's verse -- the repetitive and famous epithets: "wily Odysseus", "much-suffering godlike Odysseus" etc. Many of them are just gone, but others are transformed beyond all recognition. The repeated formula "polumetis Odysseus" ('resourceful Odysseus'), for example, which ends 68 different lines in the Odyssey, turns out (by my count) to receive 48 different translations, only 12 of which have the form Adjective+Odysseus! Fagles did this on purpose: he wanted a modern-sounding text. If you like it, fine. But don't think this is a translation of the Odyssey! It's something between a translation and a retelling, and (in my view) a clumsy one at that.

70 of 77 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Epic achievement, October 7, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: The Odyssey (Hardcover)

Since you ask me, you word-hungry Amazonians,
How I came solate in life to the end of a tale
That schoolchildren read in comicbooks,
A tale that is one of the sturdy legs
Of the table on which our culture rests
Since you ask, I will tell you, and gladly, too.

My journey started, though you grin in disbelief,
In ninth-grade Latin class, where "Ulysses"
Duped the cyclops by calling himself "Nemo."
Then a deep sleep fell over me,
And I knew no more Homer, not in Greek or Latin
Or English or even the strange tongue
Of the network miniseries, while Sun
Drove his blazing chariot round Earth
One hundred hundred times.

In this sleep I wandered the world of letters,
Homerless but unable to avoid the homeric:
Achilles' heel, the Sirens' song,
Calypso, the Trojan Horse, and swinemaking Circe--
Crouched like Scylla, aswirl like Charybdis,
Threatening cultural death to epic ignorance.

At last I found my literary Tiresias,
The New York Times Book Review.
I shook from this seer the name Fagles,
And so guided, I made my way home at last,
Through a translation that rings of a heroic time,
A time when men were stronger and grander than we,
When women were more beautiful,
And when, granted, sexual equality wanted
A few millennia's labor;
But even so, a rendering as modern
As anything DeLillo, new god of the underworld,
Or the infinitely jesting Wallace
Can lay before us.

The best, in fine, of both worlds, an epic worthy
Of the blind bard and of his heroes, his heroines,
And the deathless denizens of Olympus.

38 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An excellent book., June 19, 2001

By 

Frank Bierbrauer (Cardiff, Wales, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Odyssey (Paperback)

As noted on earlier reviews these two, the first "The Iliad", and now "The Odyssey" have become the translations read for pure enjoyment. No longer does one `know' of the classics but never read them, now we read them too. Thankfully, Robert Fagles has produced a translation worthy of the original sense of Homer's great poem. It captures well the suffering and tragedy Odysseus went through in his journey full of trials and tribulations from the great ogre, the Cyclops, to the beautiful Calypso and finally one of his greatest tests, the suitors seeking his wife's approval after 20 years absence from his homeland.

As usual the introduction by Bernard Knox (NB my earlier mistake in the review on The Iliad) is highly informative and shows real depth of understanding of Homeric poetry, an invaluable aid in the full comprehension of the poem. In addition the extra maps of the Homeric word as well as a glossary of terms and a section detailing some of the characters in more depth provide an excellent background which may be missing in a non-classical education. Certainly this is the transaltion to use when teaching of classic poetry in schools since the child is captivated by the flow of the story and the fast pace which keeps one glued to the book, although not as pacy as The Iliad it is a different sort of story. Unlike the Iliad which is replete with battles and war, The Odyssey is the story of a journey and is of a different tune. I once tried to read an earlier translation of The Odyssey a few years ago and found it stuffy and staid, this is no longer true of Fagles work, were it only the case of other great classics. I felt throughout that Fagles kept to the aura of the original even when substituting more modern expressions for the older ones eg "holding nothing back" is obviously a modern phrase but it captures what the poem is saying and that is what is important ie capturing the poem as a whole. This has been ably achieved. An excellent book.