The Iliad
by Homer
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Publisher: Highbridge Audio
Salesrank: 190134
List Price: $36.95
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Customer Reviews:
Brilliant and Moving Translation: Great Performance (2008-02-09)
The action is gripping, and the passions of the gods and mortals move us in Fagels’s fine translation. You feel as if you knew these people. This performances of Derek Jacoby and Maria Tucci has brought this tale to life.
I know other versions of this story: Gustave Schwab’s GODS AND HEROES, which was read to me when I was young and which I read to my daughter; Richard Latimore’s translation, in the edition illustrated by Leonard Baskin, a beautiful book. Robert Fagels’s translation is simply the best.
Listen to this performance if you want to capture the mad rush and the rich human feelings of it all. I have listened done so six times, many of these while climbing stairs at the gym. Also buy and read the book. As reviewers note, the cuts made in this abridgment are extensive. Reading the book will give you the full picture.
Robert Fagels’s translation of THE ODYSSEY is superb as well, and the performance by Ian McKellen is very different from Derek Jacobi’s ILIAD, though equally compelling.Listening to Homer (2007-08-26)
Robert Fagles translation of The Iliad is amazing. I really enjoyed Sir Derek Jacobi’s reading presented here on these disks. My only problem with this product is that the book has been abridged. I wanted to purchase this item because I feel that it’s important to HEAR the words of Homer spoken. This epic poem has been passed down through the generations by word of mouth, so it’s best to HEAR the words spoken. I suggest listening to the audio recordings while reading the book. These audio recordings are wonderful but there’s way too much missing. Penguin Books should of shown Robert Fagles translation (and Homer) more respect.
The second chapter for instance is missing the last section often called, “the catalogue of ships.” This is the part of the story where Homer lists all the Argenian armies which participated in the Trojan conflict. Okay, sure - it’s sort of a boring section of the story. Still, it’s an important part of the book! Possibly, one of the most historically significant sections of the story. This entire section has been cut from the audiotapes! The list of ships, which goes on and on, illustrates the vast army which was gathered by Agamemnon for the battle. You need to illustrate the overwhelming force the Trojans were facing to fully comprehend the battle.
Anyway, I enjoyed the recording, but I just wish that Penguin Books would have presented an option to purchase an unabridged version of Robert Fagles translation. Be prepared to read the parts of the book not covered by the tapes. You should also rent some dvd documentaries on the Trojan War. It really helps flesh out the impact of the poem. Homer rocks!
Sir Derek Jacobi’s masterful reading is pure pleasure (2007-07-01)
I recall asking a bookseller years ago if he had the Jacobi audio narration of The Iliad in his store. His response, “We don’t do audio. Bookstores are for books.” Fine and dandy. But The Iliad was an oral poem to begin with, and for those who want to hear it, regardless of having read it or not, there is no better place to start. Yes, it is abridged, but the choice of abridgement seems sensible, though I would have preferred the poem in its entirety. Another reviewer refers to Jacobi, a mentor of Kenneth Branaugh, as the greatest living Shakespearean actor. Though there are many fine Shakespearean actors currently performing around the world in dozens of fascinating roles, it is easy to imagine that Jacobi is one of the finest. His reading of Homer’s ILIAD is intense and riveting and a must for fans of the poem in English. PS: Check out Jacobi in his most brilliant performance as the lead in I CLAUDIUS (available on DVD and VHS) I, Claudius
N.B. : this Robert Fagles translation/Derek Jacobi narrated audio version is also available on AUDIO CASSETTE The Iliad (Classics on Cassette)
Sir Ian McKellen’s very fine narration of Fagles’ translation of The Odyssey in an unabridged CD The Odyssey by Homer and audio cassette recordings The Odyssey (Penguin Classics)
Sir Derek Jacobi’s narration of Allen Mandelbaum’s translation of The Odyssey is available in abridged CD or audio cassette versions The Odyssey
The brilliant actor/director/writer/narrator Simon Callow’s unabridged reading of Robert Fagle’s new translation of Virgil’s Aeneid is another must-have for audio classics fans. The Aeneid
Too Much is Cut (2007-06-14)
Where is Book X? One of the most exciting and heroic stories is cut from the reading: the night raid by Odysseus and Diomedes. Although the reading is well done, the absence of so much of the poem destroys the original intent. Pass on this one.
Also, Penguin Press is misleading in that Jakobi is not the sole reader. There is a woman who reads as well. It sounds like this one was pieced together. A shoddy job really.Abridged, but Excellent - and great fun, too (2007-06-14)
The Iliad was meant to be heard rather than read. It’s a cliche, but it’s true. So an audio version of the Iliad can be a great thing; rather than just a secondary version of a published book, it can be in some ways a purer representation of the original work. This recording is an (abridged) reading by Derek Jacobi of Robert Fagles’s best-selling 1990 translation. I’ll deal with three different aspects of this product separately: the translation, the performance, and the abridgement.
THE TRANSLATION (5 stars):
Judging a translation is a hard thing to do, and a lot of it comes down to personal aesthetic preference. Remember, all translations are paraphrase, and each can capture different facets of an original but none can capture all of it. This is particularly true of poetry, where much of the artistic content of the original is not only in the meaning of the words, but the sound, shape, and rhythm of the words themselves in the original language. What many translations of the Iliad lose, regardless of their literal accuracy, is the feel of Homer’s verse - its directness, the concreteness of its language, and above all the headlong momentum of the whole thing. Homer’s hexameter verse is propulsive, pulling the hearer (note: not the reader) forward with an unstoppable 15,000-line drumbeat that leaves you breathless. (Well, it leaves me breathless, anyway — your mileage may vary.) Fagles captures this feeling magnificently in direct, confident, robust English. True, Fagles is not always literally accurate in the translation of specific words or epithets, but he expertly recreates the vigor of the piece. Richmond Lattimore’s excellent translation (The Iliad of Homer) is closer to Homer in capturing some of the subtleties of wording, and is rigorous in its fidelity to the text, but the Fagles translation is my favorite for sheer heart-pounding excitement. The warrior spirit of the Iliad comes crashing through this translation undiluted and without apology.
THE PERFORMANCE (4 and a half stars):
Jacobi gives a spirited performance, with a forceful, fiery delivery well-suited to the heroic bombast of the battle scenes and the emotionally-charged clash of strong personalities. Achilles’s offended pride, Hector’s valiant but headstrong dedication to duty, Agamemnon’s arrogance, and Paris’s weasly self-serving faux contrition all come through vividly. My only criticisms of Jacobi’s performance are these: while well-suited to the larger-than-life elements of the story, Jacobi can occasionally be too bombastic in a few of the more intimate moments. In addition (and this is admittedly a bit of a nitpick), I feel that he disregards the meter a little too much. As I mentioned above, the drumbeat of Homer’s verse is a key aspect of its artistic appeal. Fagles chooses a loosely iambic meter which is not intrusive, but imparts a definite rhythm; at times, Jacobi all but ignores this and might as well be reading prose. There’s no need for a bouncy Dr. Seuss-style delivery, but a bit more recognition of the rhythmic flow of the English version would suit me better. (This is, of course, a matter of taste.) Ian McKellen’s (unabridged!) reading of Fagles’s Odyssey translation (The Odyssey by Homer) is a contrast here: McKellen unobtrusively finds the rhythm of each line in a powerful (and a bit more textured) performance. These criticisms are by no means severe — Jacobi’s performance is excellent.
THE ABRIDGEMENT (3 stars):
Yes, as others note, this reading is abridged (approximately half of the text is left out), and a lot is unfortunately lost. When originally released on cassette in the early 1990s, the producers were probably skeptical of the sales potential of a 13-hour recording of an ancient Greek poem, and so hedged their bets with an abridgement. But both the print and recorded versions of Fagles’s Iliad were surprising bestsellers. Happily, the publishers did not make the same mistake with Fagles’s Odyssey, released in 1996: Ian McKellen’s reading of that poem is unabridged (and glorious).
In this recording of the Iliad, most of the key episodes are preserved - for example the initial disagreement between Achilles and Agamemnon, Hector’s return to Troy, Patroclus’s death, Hector’s death, and the final meeting between Achilles and Priam. Others are sadly missing. Some of the excised bits are obvious choices (the catalogue of ships in Book II is mercifully skipped over), but others are harder to bear. The biggest loss for me is the funeral games for Patroclus, but most lovers of the Iliad will find some favorite moment or another gone.
But while the cuts are deep, they are fairly clean. Entire, unbroken blocks of text (ranging from dozens of lines to whole books) are removed en masse, rather than a line here and a line there; there is (thankfully) no resorting to paraphrase or condensing lines. Further, the excisions are well-marked: all words coming from Jacobi’s mouth are directly from Fagles’s translation; missing sections are bridged with summarizing narration read by a different narrator.
While the cuts are unfortunate, they do not generally detract from the high quality of the listening experience. For those who know the Iliad well, think of this as a terrific “greatest hits” version of the poem. Enjoy the parts that are here, and don’t pine too much for the missing bits. You can always go back to the text for those.
J. Van Hoose
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