Customer Reviews

The Raid

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

 

 

Eickhoff manages to transform one of the great epic poems in Western literature into a solidly-written novel. What it loses in poetic form it makes up for in immediacy. Not for the delicate of sensibilities, but a good introduction to the piece for those who have a hard time dealing with poetry in translation.

Eickhoff's works are all very well done. This work is no exception. He has taken the Celtic epic the Tain and dissected the work, giving it a proper and detailed treatment in telling the tales of Cuchullain, the Hound of Ulster, the single most important hero in Irish myth/history. I recommend getting all these books in the Ulster Cycle in hardback form because you will want to keep these and display them, then reread them again in a few years. Excellent work.

This wonderful book deserves to be on everyone's shelf. The story of the Cattle Raid of Cooley is translated and retold here in novelistic form to great effect. This story ranks up there with The Iliad and Beowulf as one of the great epics of the world.

This is much better than some of the author's other translations. His attempt at poetry are extremely poor however. Because of the author's tendancy to put in literary filler, this book, while more enjoyable than many other translations, should be read with an other more literal translation so the author's stereotypes and oversexed inserts can be easily picked out from the original. For example, in the original King Allil doesn't have much character development but it's clear from what is said that he's a great warrior, good king, etc., but this author makes him out to be a coward with ulcers, in spite of the fact that he is still called a great warrior and all.