What 📔book are you reading right now?

[Deimos]

Its disgusting when people don't eat them the right way.

Sure is...those people should be made to eat glass....😈

 

[Ent]

1) Why was there glass "at the forest edge"?
2) Deimos only has strong feelings about some things, such as the right way to eat Oreos (take them apart first 🙂.)

1) - Men had been by. The best thing to do with an empty bottle is, of course, to break it so it's dangerous, and leave it for others to deal with.

2) - Good. (What's an Oreo? j/k.)

 

[Vorondil]

break it so it's dangerous

3 stitches taught me that.

 

[Deimos]

You give Ent encouragement to give it another go..!

I read the Iliad and the Odyssey in alternating years; the Iliad one year and the Odyssey the next year. I have done that since 2011.
(Obviously I think there is something in both those works that merits a re-read or two....so, go for it! 🙂 ...
Oh, and I have the Lattimore translations for both...no "Jack and Jill" gag-me rhyming, thank you very much)

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

I'm not sure who the translator is, the book publisher is Collins Classics. The one thing I find strange is that all the gods have Roman names instead of Greek, which seems a bit odd.

If it's this one:

It's by Barry Powel -- at least according to Amazon, who are not always to be trusted.

Harper's has a newer one, BTW:

 

[Deimos]

If it's this one:
View attachment 21962
It's by Barry Powel -- at least according to Amazon, who are not always to be trusted.

Harper's has a newer one, BTW:
View attachment 21963

Was not aware of this...but then, with the other good translations already out there, I don't pay much attention to more recent releases.
I will have to check this out...thanks

re: the Barry Powel translation (or whoever did it), it's the rhyming thing that makes for two strikes against it (actually three strikes in my book).
That alone causes me to advise against it.
But for others, well, it may be just the sort of thing for those who like that sort of thing. 🙄😄

Just read some [Amazon] reviews of the C Alexander translation.
The only ones I gave any consideration to were by folks who had read other translations by the "Big 3" mentioned above.
Alexander either came close to or just passed the others.

I'll quote one reviewer (who doesn't know Greek) : So in summary (and remember: no Greek), I think the spectrum from most accurate to most readable goes Lattimore, Alexander, Fagles, Fitzgerald.

Ent may want to read the Alexander translation as the most frequent comment about hers was it is "lively."

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

You have to be careful with Amazon reviews -- for several reasons -- one being that they tend to throw reviews of different things onto the same list. I've noticed this with Iliad, for example.

 

[Deimos]

You have to be careful with Amazon reviews -- for several reasons -- one being that they tend to throw reviews of different things onto the same list. I've noticed this with Iliad, for example.

Oh...OK...Well, Ent can look up reviews there or elsewhere and make his own evaluations.

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

It does look as if everyone there was talking about the right book. But if you just Google "Iliad Amazon" . . .

 

[Deimos]

It does look as if everyone there was talking about the right book. But if you just Google "Iliad Amazon" . . .

I googled: Caroline Alexander Iliad translation

 

[Ent]

at least according to Amazon, who are not always to be trusted.

WHAT...????? 🤣

 

[Ent]

Ent may want to read the Alexander translation as the most frequent comment about hers was it is "lively."

We must not be 'hasty', which 'lively' sounds dangerously close to.
Should Ent choose one, he will go with the top recommendations of Deimos the Universal.

 

[Deimos]

We must not be 'hasty', which 'lively' sounds dangerously close to.
Should Ent choose one, he will go with the top recommendations of Deimos the Universal.

😬...hasty is scary, lively is scary, exciting is scary....heck, scary is scary

 

[Vorondil]

It's by Barry Powel -- at least according to Amazon, who are not always to be trusted.

That's the one.

 

[Vorondil]

I might actually wait until I can get a better translation of the Iliad, because having finished 2 chapters I have still have no idea what's going on.

 

[Deimos]

I might actually wait until I can get a better translation of the Iliad, because having finished 2 chapters I have still have no idea what's going on.

First thing to know...it starts in medias res... literally '"in the middle of things" , meaning, in the middle of the story.

That is, you, the observer (reader) has just come upon the Greeks in their encampment.
They have already been fighting the Trojans for about 10 years.
They plunder small towns on the coast of Asia Minor for food, livestock , and per normal for the times, women.
On one of these raids, their "Commander in Chief" (Agamemnon) carried off the daughter of a priest of Apollo.
The priest tried to buy her back, but A. refused to give her up, so the priest prayed to Apollo, who heard him and sent a plague among the Greek armies.

To end the plague the Greek chieftains (maybe a dozen or so) persuaded Agamemnon to give the girl back., which he grudgingly does.
But she was a prize ( a"spoil" of war) and so as not to lose face (he being the C-in-C and a king in his own country), Agamemnon demanded, and got, Achilles' "prize", Briseis.
So now Achilles is dishonored. And he is by far and away the best warrior among all the Greeks, and his army of Myrmidons the best fighters.
So he vows that until Agamemnon returns his "prize" he will no longer fight.
All the chieftains know that there is no way they can win this war without Achilles and his warriors.

So that is the situation as the story opens, and the opening lines are (in the Lattimore edition):

Sing, goddess, the anger of Peleus' son Achilleus
and its devastation, which put pains thousandfold upon the Achaians.

I don't know if a better translation will help you understand the story going forward, but it can't hurt.
Go here for a brief synopsis of each chapter.
Also it might help to read a synopsis of the Iliad , just so you recognize all the main players, men and gods both.
The gods take sides... and "you can't tell the players without a program". So find thee a brief write-up on the story.

(And if someone here says, " Well then why not just read the synopsis and forget reading the whole Iliad? It would be faster."
Would anyone here suggest that someone just read a synopsis of LOTR or the Silmarillion or the HoME and just forgo reading the actual works themselves? ...Nope... didn't think so. )

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

Or just watch the movies? 😁

still have no idea what's going on.

.it starts in medias res... literally '"in the middle of things" , meaning, in the middle of the story.

It might help if you consider that LOTR begins the same way.

 

[Iminye]

I am reading The Fall of Gondolin. I am making slow progress because I keep stopping to look up the history of the characters.

 

[Elbereth Vala Varda]

Rereading LoTR and reading Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.

 

[Maedhros_Nelyafinwë]

Rereading LoTR and reading Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.

I love Pride and Prejudice! It's still relatable even to this day! Like the part where Elizabeth chews out Darcy for standing around in a corner and not dancing, when there aren't enough gentlemen? I can't tell you how many swing dances I've been to with that EXACT problem.