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Apr 01, 2018wyenotgo rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
Reading this spectacular saga reminded me once again why I love long-winded outrageous yarns. Surely this has to be the tall tale to top them all! No wonder parts of it have become the basis for countless films, operas, essays, poems over the centuries. Completely engrossing; and this translation is wonderful. Living in the western world it's impossible not to be exposed to some or many of the elements of this story in one form or another and I had paid several less than heroic visits in the past, stopping off at various ports along the way, led by a succession of troubadours beginning with Chapman taking up Homer's tale; but I had never finished the entire journey. None of those interpreters struck me as having captured the true spirit of the age or fleshed out Odysseus' persona as I had hoped. This time, I was happily swept along with Mr. Eagles all the way back to Ithaca. He captured the spirit and rhythm of the tale so well that I was at times tempted to rise out of my silent chair to declaim passages aloud; surely a great achievement when translating from ancient Greek to modern vernacular English. One is reminded at times that this began as an oral tale, more or less formally set in regular hexameter; accordingly, there are passages that repeat, almost like a refrain punctuating episodes in a long ballad. Far from holding up the progression as one might expect, these interludes serve to raise the tale off the printed page into the immediacy of a verbal performance. All it needed for full effect was the strumming of a lyre and the smell of the wine-dark sea.