Customer Reviews

Odyssey

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I purchased this to accompany the class set of "The Odyssey" for my 8th grade Reading students. I thought the reading was excellent, and my students loved hearing it aloud, as it is meant to be enjoyed. It helped their comprehension immensely-they rarely had questions when listening, while they asked numerous questions when trying to read alone. There are a few places where the book and the cd do not match exactly, but it's never more than one word at a time. The introductions are, however, often not quite accurate-the information is not always with the proper chapter. The information is correct, just misplaced.

I used the audio version of Stanley Lombardo's Odyssey with college sophomores, without a written version, to try to capture the oral nature of the original experience. The students loved it, and our discussions were very good; different, but not less precise, than with a written text. I've also used Ian McKellen's audio version of Robert Fagles' translation. Lombardo reading Lombardo was better: I liked Lombardo's rapid, concrete American storytelling. Highly recommended.

This product can lead to a waste of time and money if you are not careful.

It is a difficult product to review. The subtraction by addition of Susan Sarandon generally starts out with all the wrong ideas. Her contribution is screechy, preachy and inartistic.

It is also exhausting and irritating to listen to a translation when someone thinks that Anglo-Saxon profanity adds anything to a work that was not first written in Anglo-Saxon profanity.

The product packaging, finally, is out of date because it is awkward to add in an iTunes digital/music database system.

Lower costs by not spending the money for a CD version, and download at a lower cost. Perhaps in a downloaded format it will also be easier to shed the useless appendage of the Sarandon commentaries -- which give a tacky "Bull Durham Effect."

Mr. Lombardo has a decent translation, but he is also far too amateur at voice and diction to read his own text. His voice is strained and flat. Much poetry is sacrificed to the delivery.

There are better versions of this classic by other authors. So, look around before buying this one.