Read as a part of my initial foray into completing the Great Books of the Western World. I had read parts of it in high school but it had been a long time.Obviously the importance of this work in the overall history of literature cannot really be overstated. In terms of the actual content, the story is compelling and kept the interest well enough. The one major critique is that it is quite a formulaic plot. Taking place within the battle at Troy, the story ebbs and flows between descriptions of one side advancing or succeeding in battle, only to have the battle change due to the intercession by a god or gods. Probably the most redeeming quality in the whole thing is that I have learned all of the major gods in Greek mythology and their Roman counterparts. "'We everlasting gods...Ah what chilling blows/ we suffer - thanks to our own conflicting wills - / whenever we show these mortal men some kindness.'"Fate. War. Honour. Violence. Duplicity. Deception. Vengeance. Love. Death. The Iliad is an incredible, unstoppable, irreducible, irrevocable experience. Never before have I sat reading in such an enthralled, fascinated, revolted, scared, thrilled and enamoured way. While I have Chapman's editions, Fagles' free verse editions lend so much feeling and atmosphere which, I think, cannot be created for the modern reader in reading Chapman's strict and rigid, albeit stunning structures. The notes, maps, and introduction add depth and insight into Homer's world, and Fagles' translation is a pleasure to read, at turns making me smile and laugh, at others to admire simply his level of scholarship which beguiles but doesn't blot the page with his fingerprints, and stirs emotions with a swift and subtle strength that is just breathtaking. Athena is a badass. Nestor is a bae. Achilles and Patroclus. I can't. I just can't.
What do You think about Ilíada (2000)?
All of that reading and the story of Troy is left incomplete. What a waste of time.
—harshi
Technically a re-read since I read this two years ago, but whatever.
—Goosejammer
Fagles is by far the most readable of modern English translations.
—Christina
good book. pretty much standard for all Homer books.
—kantazaspam
