The Iliad
by Homer
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Book Summary Information
Author: HomerBrand: Workman Publishing Group
Narrator: Derek Jacobi
Translator: Robert Fagles
Edition: Music CD
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Format: Abridged, Audiobook, CD
Published: 2006-08-17
ISBN: 0143059289
Publisher: Highbridge Audio
Book Reviews of The Iliad
Book Review: Abridged, but Excellent - and great fun, too
Summary: 4 Stars
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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