I read the Iliad. And well, I suppose it what I was expected. It’s very slow and meandering with just event after event. There’s no real effort made to create a connection for the reader to be connected at all with either the plot with the characters. It’s really quite told in a distant way and as someone who is used to reading modern books which is really about being connected with the characters and the plot.

My first attempt to read the book I think was last year, but I didn’t get very far as it’s not the easiest read. However, after reading  The Song of Achilles, which I loved not too long ago, I thought I would pick this up again, now that the context is much clearer. Didn’t love it as much as The Song of Achilles, even though that novel is a retelling of this one but it mean I was able to follow this one along just fine even though there are so many names to keep track of and I was able to get through all of it.

Now, while I am reading a translated version of the text as unfortunately, I am not familiar with Ancient Greek, it is interesting to still look at some of the way this is worded. I found it oddly amusing that there was generally always some sort of description whenever a name of a character was mentioned. Instead of just saying Achilles, it was always something like, the son of Peleus, Achilles, or godlike Achilles. While it was almost funny at first seeing all the characters being introduced like this, it did start to get incredibly repetitive and annoying and in terms of modern writing, it is so unnecessary to provide an, albeit short description every time no matter how minor a character pops up.

This book, which is set during the last few stages of the Trojan War features a lot of battle sequences and as a huge reader of modern fantasy, the way that action is written as changed drastically. I honestly prefer the way action is written now, where a lot of the time it is quick tense sequences, largely from the character’s perspective and at how the reader really gets to feel the adrenaline pumping through them. Here, everything just sort of casually moves along and some elements are described in excruciating detail. It was certainly interesting to see at how many soldier’s names are listed but the truth was, was that I didn’t really care less. Even though there are these massive grand action sequences on an epic scale featuring literal gods, they weren’t written in a way that was actually exciting.

Now, I’m sure there are lots of elitists out there who would be like but but you don’t understand you uneducated swine. And sure, maybe I don’t. Maybe this is a genius piece of art and I simply cannot fathom at how brilliant it is. Or, maybe it’s something a white dude came up with almost 3,000 years ago and it’s time to move on to newer, more refreshing stories.

Naturally, Homer, or at least, the person we tend to think of as Homer wasn’t actually born hundreds of years later after the supposed Trojan War. I find it fascinating at how people, just over time, find it difficult to tell the difference between myth and truth and at how it is almost easier to accept that gods walked amongst us once and at how the truth happens to be bent when stories are passed down orally.

I perfectly understand at how important this story is in western literature, yet, as I found it to be overly slow and slightly repetitive, that from a modern standpoint, it failed to wow me. I get the value of this, yet if someone was to write like this now, where there is no character development, where the book is very repetitive and where the plot trudges very slowly along, it would be nowhere near as popular. A part of why this is still such a famous text is undoubtedly the fact that it was written so long ago.

Anyways, it was ok I suppose and now I can say I’ve read the Iliad. Was it worth it? I mean sure. Didn’t blow me away or anything, but I also didn’t except it to. 5.5/10

The beginning....

Rage — Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus’ son Achilles,
murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses,
hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls,
great fighters’ souls, but made their bodies carrion,
feasts for the dogs and birds, and the will of Zeus was moving toward its end. Begin, Muse, when the two first broke and clashed, Agamemnon lord of men and brilliant Achilles. . .

From the Introduction...

The most marvelous lines in the Iliad owe their unearthly, poignant beauty to the presence of violence, held momentarily in reserve but brooding over the landscape. They are the lines that end Book 8 and describe the Trojans camped on the plain, awaiting the next dawn, which will launch them on their attack on the Greek fortification.

"And so their spirits soared
as they took positions down the passageways of battle
all night long, and the watchfires blazed among them.
Hundreds strong, as stars in the night sky glittering
round the moon’s brilliance blaze in all their glory
when the air falls to a sudden, windless calm ...
all the lookout peaks stand out and the jutting cliffs
and the steep ravines and down from the high heaven bursts
the boundless bright air and all the stars shine clear
and the shepherd’s heart exults— so many fires burned
between the ships and the Xanthus’ whirling rapids
set by the men of Troy, bright against their walls."
(8.636-49)

These are surely the clearest hills, the most brilliant stars and the brightest fires in all poetry, and everyone who has waited to go into battle knows how true the lines are, how clear and memorable and lovely is every detail of the landscape the soldier fears he may be seeing for the last time.

===========

The synopsis....

Chryses, a priest of Apollo, whose daughter has been carried off by the Achaeans in one of their raids, comes to the camp to ransom her. But she has been assigned, in the division of the booty, to the king who commands the Achaean army, Agamemnon, and he refuses to give her up. Her father prays for help to Apollo, who sends a plague that devastates the Achaean camp. Achilles, leader of the Myrmidons, one of the largest contingents of the Achaean army, summons the chieftains to an assembly. There they are told by the prophet Calchas that the girl must be returned to her father. Agamemnon has to give her up, but demands compensation for his loss. Achilles objects: let Agamemnon wait until more booty is taken. A violent quarrel breaks out between the two men, and Agamemnon finally announces that he will take recompense for his loss from Achilles, in the form of the girl Briseis, Achilles’ share of the booty. Achilles represses an urge to kill Agamemnon and withdraws from the assembly, threatening to leave for home, with all his troops, the next day. The priest’s daughter is restored to him, Apollo puts an end to the plague, and Briseis is taken away from Achilles’ tent by Agamemnon’s heralds.

Zeus turns the tide of battle against the Achaeans. The Trojan leader Hector, son of Troy’s old King Priam, drives the Achaeans back on their beached ships, round which they are forced to build a wall and ditch. Achilles withdraws his threat to leave the next day; he will stay until Hector and the Trojans reach his own ships.

Patroclus goes into battle with Achilles’ troops, wearing Achilles’ armor. This is enough: the Trojans in their turn are thrown back. But Patroclus is killed by the god Apollo, Troy’s protector, and by Hector, who strips off Achilles’ armor and puts it on himself.

Achilles’ rage is now directed against Hector, the killer of his dearest friend. He is reconciled with Agamemnon, and as soon as his mother brings him a splendid suit of armor, made by the smith-god Hephaestus, he returns to the battle, and after slaughtering many Trojans, meets and kills Hector. He lashes Hector’s corpse to his chariot and drags it to his own tent; he intends to throw it to the dogs and birds of prey.

But the body has been preserved from corruption by divine intervention, and the gods now decide (not unanimously, for Hera and Athena object) to send a message to Achilles through his mother: he is to release Hector’s body for ransom paid by King Priam of Troy. Achilles agrees. his mother has told him, that his death is to come soon after Hector’s. He sends Priam safely back with Hector’s body to Troy and so, runs the last line of the poem, “the Trojans buried Hector breaker of horses” (24.944 in the translation). We know already that the death of Troy’s main defender seals the fate of the city and that, as Thetis told Achilles: “hard on the heels of Hector’s death your death / must come at once”

===========

The Illiad is about human flaws that lead to disaster---ego, violence and bloodshed, that we know only too well. And the gods do their best to make things worse. However, Achilles is depicted as the ideal aristocratic male hero.

==========

Simone Weil essay on the Illiad....

http://biblio3.url.edu.gt/SinParedes/...

Foolish me. I thought I was going to look at the different editions of The Iliad and choose the one most readable but did not reckon with the overwhelming beauty of the language and story. The truth is, it does not matter which edition you choose, so long as you read at least one. It is inevitable that you will find yourself drawn to the question of the most beautiful and complete rendition but you may (wisely) concede defeat at the beauty of each.

The Homeric epics are said to be the greatest stories, martial stories, ever sung or written of all time, so if for some reason they did not resonate for you in high school, you may want to revisit what your teachers were talking about. When they describe the death of a man in the full bloom of his strength looking like an flower in a rainstorm, head and neck aslant, unable to withstand the beating rain, we understand. I listened to the audio of Stephen Mitchell’s streamlined translation, and it was utterly ravishing and compelling.

The Iliad is one episode among many in Homer’s epics, and it may have been assumed that listeners of the original spoken performance would be familiar with all the players in this war. It is argued by some, including British scholar M.L. West, that The Iliad has had pieces added to it over the years. Stephen Mitchell follows West’s scholarship and strips out the extra passages, a notion expanded upon in a review of Mitchell’s translation by classicist Daniel Mendelsohn in The New Yorker (2011). Mitchell’s translation may be the most readable, the most listenable one in English. It is also the shortest. Mitchell also shortens the lines in English so that they have speed and momentum for an impressive delivery.

The recent (2017) Peter Green translation, begun when Green was nearly 90 years old, is similarly easy to read; Green tells us that he began in a relaxed attitude for diversion and completed the whole within a year. Colin Burrow reviewed Green's translation in the June 18th 2015 edition of the London Review of Books. Neither the writing or the reading of this version is anguished or tortured, and Burrow points out that Green was a historian but didn't allow that to obfuscate or weigh down the poetry.

The Green & Mitchell versions both retain a long recitation of those who prepared their ships to sail with Agamemnōn to Troy to bring back Helen, the wife of Menelaös. One imagines ancient listeners shouting when their region is named, much along the lines of the cheering section of a field game, when each player’s name is called. And later, as the blow-by-blow of the battle proceeded, one imagines each region cheering when mention of their leader is declaimed, though some died horrible deaths.

This is another reason to read this ancient work: We live and die not unlike one another, we who lived so far apart in time, and perhaps the ardor young men of today have for the sword and for fame will be doused by the utterly desolate manner of death recounted here, one in particular that I cannot forget: a spear through the buttock and into the bladder meant a painful and ugly death. However, it is true that Achilles chose fame over life, knowing that his exploits in Troy would mean his physical death but his fame amongst men would be sung for “thousands of years.”

One wonders how the ballad was delivered—in pieces or over a period of days—perhaps in sections by different singers? Caroline Alexander, after a lifetime of her own research into the Homeric epics argues in The War That Killed Achilles: The True Story of Homer's Iliad and the Trojan War that the work certainly required days to recite, and may have been performed in episodes. The length of the piece suggests the piece was once short enough to be memorized, leaving room for invention and modification as befits the oral tradition.

I wonder now which European language has the most translations, and do they sometimes dare to attempt translations from ancient Greek to, say, French, and then to English? It seems we have enough scholars understanding ancient Greek to give us satisfactory versions without resorting to piggybacked translations. An attempt was made by John Farrell in the Oct 30, 2012 edition of the Los Angeles Review of Books to untangle the English translations and sort them for clarity and poetry. Those of us who love this work will read them all, especially the fascinating introductions to each in which the scholars themselves wax eloquent about what they loved about it. Mitchell's introduction is especially accessible and impelling: I could hardly wait to get to the story.

I have read reviews of people who prefer Lattimore, Fagles, Fitzgerald, or Lombardo translations and all I can say is I’m not the one to quibble about great works. Daniel Mendelsohn "graded" four translations in the article discussing Mitchell's translation. It must be a curse and a blessing both (for one's self and one’s family both) to understand ancient Greek and to feel the desire to translate Homer. All the questions any editor/translator must address, e.g., spelling, which edition is ‘original,’ more poetry or prose, whether to render the translation literally or by sense…how exhausting the decisions, but how exciting, too.

In the end, whichever edition gives you the greatest access for your first attempt to breach the ramparts of this ancient work is the one to choose for a first read. The other editions will naturally come later, once you have the sense of the story, a few names nailed down, and have that deepening curiosity about the poetry and the beauty.

One last observation is that the men in this epic were mere playthings of the gods, gods that could be cruel, petty, jealous, and vengeful. These gods were helpful to individual men or women insofar as it helped their cause vis à vis other gods. There was striving among men, but most of the time human successes or failures had less to do with who they were than with who they knew. Was it ever thus.

I have now read The Iliad for the first time since my college days. I almost wonder if I actually read the whole book back then. It seems so different now, so much more all-encompassing, universal and timeless in dealing with men at war, issues of honor, duties of leadership, fate, individuals and community. Certainly the gods seem more petty and childlike than I remembered.

On this reading it is both more brutal and more beautiful than I expected; in that way I would guess it mirrors life. It also does seem relevant to the contemporary world these thousands of years later with the themes of honor, fate, love/hate, loyalty and fealty, leadership-good and poor, what is a true leader. I was also struck by the human-seeming nature of the gods. They had more power and immortality, but they were petty and, at times mean and spiteful. There also played games with human lives and destinies. Though they perhaps brought a vague order to human's lives, there was no nobility to their existence.

I likely will read The Iliad again before long (I already have a kindle copy of Catherine Alexander's translation for comparison). I enjoyed Fagles' translation very much and found his descriptive writing often beautiful, his war and battle scenes brutally clear.

All in all, I'm very glad I have finally returned to Homer's world.

.....................................................................................................

My original rating was 2* from my recall of reading a different translation while in college (?Lattimore) many years ago. I very much enjoyed Fagles' Odyssey and look forward to trying a new version of The Iliad as a more "mature" adult.

Hallelujah. It’s over. Well, at least The Iliad is, though the story continues in The Odyssey. I had forgotten how much the beginning of this epic sounds like a giant group of toddlers fighting over toys. These toddlers just happen to command warships and armies, and the toys happen to be women they view as war prizes. Frankly, it’s disgusting. If these idiotic “heroes” would just view women as actual people who can make their own decisions instead of pretty toys over which to wage war, every single event in this story could have been avoided. Had they just asked Helen who she wanted to be with and respected that decision, hundreds of lives would have been saved. The amount of bloodshed over the “taking” of this woman is just insanely wasteful, even if it’s fictional.

“Any moment might be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we're doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again.”

The gods are so incredibly petty. If Monopoly is the board game that ruins families, the gods of Olympus are playing something similar with cities and human lives. Men and women are literal pawns to them, game pieces and very little else. They claim to care about some of these people, but it’s a very shallow kind of care. Seriously, they’re terrible. And as 70% of Greek mythology is directly tied to Zeus’s inability to keep it in his toga and Hera’s rage over that fact, it can’t even be pretended that the gods cared about much outside of their own desires and fury.

“Hateful to me as the gates of Hades is that man who hides one thing in his heart and speaks another.”

Honestly, this is a cast completely comprised of hypocrites. All of these men deeply believe they commit a travesty against another person but is then surprised and horrified if something similar is done to themselves or someone close to them. For instance, if the whole war is occurring due to the theft of a woman (more on that above), then why on earth would you take the “prize” of your greatest warrior because you’re feeling slighted? How did you think that was going to work out for you? And if your heart is set on desecrating the dead body of said warrior’s bestie, who isn’t even fighting in the war because of the aforementioned lady theft, why on earth would you be shocked that he decides to not only finally engage in the war but that he’s out for your blood and intends to disrespect your corpse in the same ways? Seriously, people. What the heck?

“Let me not then die ingloriously and without a struggle, but let me first do some great thing that shall be told among men hereafter.”

These warriors are also insanely self-absorbed. To a man, every single one of them act as if their feelings are the only ones that matter. Their mourning is the only true mourning. Their rage is the only true rage. This is doubly true for the divine beings that populate the story, as stated earlier. I seriously cannot fathom being this level of selfish, and I sincerely pray that I never become this wrapped up in myself. If I do, some one please punch me in the throat and snap me out of it, will you?

“Why so much grief for me? No man will hurl me down to Death, against my fate. And fate? No one alive has ever escaped it, neither brave man nor coward, I tell you - it’s born with us the day that we are born.”

Unrelated to anything, but I could also go the rest of my life without hearing anyone else referred to as “god-like” or their speech referred to as “winged words.” Those terms were exasperatingly overused. However, there are some truly beautiful lines mixed into the free verse, and those almost made up for the repetition mentioned. I know both of these observations are subject to change based on which translation you choose to read. I bounced between the Caroline Alexander translation and the Robert Fagles translation, both of which were lovely.

“No man or woman born, coward or brave, can shun his destiny.”

I respect The Iliad. I know it’s among the earliest literary pieces we have, and that it paved the way for countless stories that followed. But, as with the times I read this epic in the past, whether in part or entirety, I just can’t enjoy something that makes me roll my eyes this hard or groan this often. That opinion is incredibly subjective, and I know many people who disagree. But the abundance of wholly preventable violence, and the lack of anything else to break up said violence, just isn’t at all enjoyable for me. Thankfully, The Odyssey comes after this, and I know that it’s far and above more entertaining. I may not care for the tale of the Trojan War, but Odysseus’s return trip is wild and I’m eager to dive back into it.

Another buddy read with TS!

You can find  this review and more at Novel Notions.

So: the siege of Ilium of Troy has been going on for nearly ten years, when Agamemnon angers Achilles - enough to make him not participate in the war - with the result that following battles are often dominated by the Trojans, with Hector particularly playing the hero's part. But at a certain point, something happens that may change Achilles's mind...

Read this 1946 Rieu translation, revised and updated in 2003 by Jones and another Rieu. At the start are the lists of the main characters in groups (some god-names are in English form, fe. Strife, not Eris), plus 5 maps; at the end is glossary and a list of omitted fathers' names. The introduction is spoilery; each chapter of the story itself comes with short plot description, and smaller side-titles are used within the chapter itself, which can be helpful if you're searching for a particular point in the chapter.

This story was composed c.700 BC, from oral tradition stories.
Only part of the whole 'Greeks go against Trojan's to get back one leader's wife' is given in this book, so it may feel a bit strange to see where it ends, before the whole story is truly finished, and before the war can be over. Achilles doesn't die yet, though he knows he will; Ilium is not yet conquered, nor has Aeneas yet barely escaped to be part of his own story that is Virgil's "Aenid". 4/5ths of the story happens in 4 days.

During the story one might find oneself changing one's mind about which sides deserves to be favored more more than once. And you may also find taking sides about which god(s) deserve reader's admiration and who doesn't. The gods in some ways act like humans (and can be wounded like them though they can't die), and in other times acting according to some god-logic and you may hate or like that. The humans in the stories may or may not realise they're being influenced by them, or they may notice gods putting pressure on them to act certain ways. How much of the story is true history is not certain, but there might be some memories of Mycenian/Minoan world in there.

The battles follow a certain battle when it comes to killings, and there's some good variety in what type of battles they are. People make wise or foolish moves during it (like the wealthy but foolish Dolon). Quite a lot of death are graphic and dark - eyeballs and innards and brains (o my) - and sometimes even the horses in the chariots do die (they also show their mourning, and on one occasion are able to talk). Sacrifices to gods are made and often, though they don't always work. I was also a bit surprised that there would be funeral games after the cremation of Patroclus, but I guess it was the thing to do at that time.
(I do think that there are two words I don't like in this translation - the use of 'bitch' and 'slut' - was this something chosen, something that was thought to be ok to translate like this during the time the original translation was done? What would Emily Wilson, who recently translated the Odyssey, say about this?)

Pasts are recalled, there is some flash-forward in telling what will happen in the future all of a sudden; and the POV sometimes switches from "he" to "you", which is interesting. The storyteller also calls certain people fools or innocents for believing things will go certain ways during the battle or elsewhere; during some people's deaths he might also tell of consequences of this for their families.
I was a bit surprised yet glad that among the place names that briefly appear is Athos in chapter 14 (just one of my areas of religious interest I read books about elsewhere).

I also had to check about lions in Greece, since they were used as an example for some actions and behaviors so many times, if they were common in the country back at the time of the composition of this book's story; (as quoted from Wiki): "In Greece, [the lions were] common as reported by Herodotus in 480 BC; it was considered rare by 300 BC and extirpated (eradicated) by AD 100."

So though the story itself is somewhat simple (Achilles' refusal and its consequences), it's far from boring, but perhaps that's because I've been reading it at the right time of my life. It's not an anti-war story, but it does show you all the moods that flow during battles, what deaths can be like, how exhausting, confusing, and frightening it can be, and how who's dominating the battle can change so fast. The story might end before the war is completely over, but what happens here has consequences, for both Achilles and Ilium... beautiful, horrifying and interesting, all the details and behaviors and actions and consequences - it's easy for me to see why this is such a good story and a classic. Now on to reading Odyssey...

Estuve mentalmente metida en la guerra entre aqueos y troyanos de agosto a diciembre. Al menos, no duró tanto como la verdadera (diez años en total). Ilíada es un poema épico extenso y arduo, repleto de descripciones de armas y combates, pero que compensa cada queja con unos pasajes sublimes y una naturalización de personajes que sorprende.

Breve reposición de argumento: Ilíada se concentra en la interminable ira de Aquiles, el mejor guerrero de los aqueos, a causa del robo de su botín, que incluía a Briseida. Por supuesto, en la batalla se va a sentir su falta, a pesar de que entre los griegos hay otros buenos guerreros. Mientras tanto, los dioses luchan en el Olimpo porque algunos protegen a los aqueos (Hera, Atenea, Poseidón) y otros a los troyanos (Apolo, Ares, Afrodita). Zeus inclina la balanza de la victoria porque tiene un plan que, obviamente, no voy a revelar. Podría decir que los veinticuatro cantos son temáticos y los mortales y los inmortales se reparten el protagonismo.

Por su composición oral, hay versos que se repiten muchas veces porque funcionan a modo de “repaso”, así que no tengo ningún motivo para quitar estrellas por eso. También se advierten incoherencias (pequeñas, pero incoherencias al fin) entre una acción A y una acción B, algo que sería imperdonable en un texto escrito. Sin embargo, las fallas no lo hacen menos perfecto. A mí me encantó igual. Hay historias muy ricas que se cuentan en mitad de una pelea (los oponentes hablaban mucho entre sí antes de matarse…), recuperaciones de mitos conocidos y no tanto, heroísmo, crueldad, desesperanza. Lo único que obstaculiza un poco la lectura del libro son las descripciones de las armas, las naves, los ejércitos y algunos combates cuerpo a cuerpo que aportan material para situarse espacialmente, por ejemplo. Y es muy bueno detenerse en ellas porque señalan aspectos culturales, históricos y sociales. El problema es que causan sensación de stand by, como si no fueran a terminar nunca. Afortunadamente, lo hacen. Una vez que se reinicia la acción, hay poco para molestarse y mucho para marcar. Los cantos del final son geniales, fueron una especie de premio a mi paciencia de lectora. A partir del XIX aparecen (y reaparecen) elementos que vuelven todo más dinámico.

Los personajes no están desarrollados psicológicamente. No hay una evolución paulatina de ellos, sino que actúan de forma radical. Aquiles, que rumia su cólera lejos del combate, puede ser tan bárbaro como piadoso, así como también Zeus parece tan omnipotente como amigable. Tal vez los matices no abunden, pero se me hizo imposible no ponerme del lado de alguno de los personajes para esperar que su destino (desde temprano, ellos mismos se van a encargar de avisar cómo y cuándo van a morir) no se cumpla. Por alguna razón, uno ya siente que los conoce y se vuelven naturales, de carne y hueso. Y aprendí que Zeus es implacable hasta cuando Hera lo distrae. Comentario femenino que no quiero omitir y que puede llegar a servir: en esa época las mujeres no eran más que objetos que en el "mejor" de los casos se utilizaban como premios y aseguraban descendencia y, en el peor, eran molestas, necesitaban un par de gritos e impulsaban riñas patéticas. Ese momento ya no se puede cambiar, pero sí se puede tener en cuenta antes de decidir revolear el libro por la ventana. Y además está Atenea como equilibrio, cuyas intervenciones son fascinantes y muy importantes. Las inmortales llevan una ligera ventaja en todo este asunto.

Ilíada requiere tiempo y atención, dos cosas necesarias para no abandonarla y que actualmente los libros se olvidan de pedirle al lector. Se aprende mucho más en sus páginas que en la búsqueda disgregada de algunos mitos y las repeticiones de Homero permiten descansar en algunos puntos para concentrarse en otros. La Historia, la filosofía, la forma de ver el mundo que poseían los griegos es material para un relectura (si es que no lo piden en la universidad, como es mi caso), pero la primera puede hacerse tranquilamente. Lo realmente "malo" de este libro es que lleva a leer más textos antiguos para completar el panorama y mi lista de to read lo está sufriendo. Y ya estoy en proceso de recuperación para seguir con la Odisea.

My very best experience with the Iliad. In fact, one of my best audio book experiences. I highly recommend this version translated by Robert Fagles and narrated by Derek Jacobi.

The Iliad was originally recited, performed orally for an audience rather than being read individually. Homer, man or group, is credited with writing it down, but it continued to be recited. I find that this is still the way to enjoy it.

From the Publisher

This set, translated by Robert Fagles, includes an abridged Iliad on six audio cassettes (nine hours) accompanied by a nine page booklet. The text is read by Derek Jacobi.

About the Author

Translator ROBERT FAGLE is chairman of the Department of Comparative Literature at Princeton University.

If you believe in fate then I was fated to finish this book, it's another one of those books that I opened read 5 books of, and didn't pick it up again because I borrowed another book that scratched the same itch, that I didn't own, so I would rather read the borrowed book, than the book I know is mine forever, but yeah I always get emotional when I finish one of these opened books, because in a parallel Earth I wouldn't be alive to finish it.

Okay one of my biggest worries while ending this book was, where the hell is the trojan horse, how will Achilles die in this last book, I was mainly worried that this part of the story gets poorly told, with no details like a bullet review of the last days of the war.
Especially that I know the Odyssey was about the trip back and how Odysseus got lost in the sea.
It didn't happen though, Achilles is alive and well, Hector got handed back to his parents to mourn him, at this point of time for Tawfek, this war will see no more tragedy. The city of Ilion will stand tall and not invaded, and the Achaeans will sit and eat around their ships not feeling the passing of time, and not in a hurry to invade Ilion.

So I did some research, the story of the making of the horse gets touched upon lightly in chapter 5 of something of the Odyssey (which I also own, so I am safe!) but a nice surprise is it gets told in detail in the Aeneid by Virgil! (Which I also own, and I almost fought the publisher of it years ago when they refused to sell me part 2 after I bought part 1 from them when they didn't have part 2 out yet.) so great epics to look forward to reading in the future, I genuinely feel excited to continue living for a while because of books these days, nobody has suicidal thoughts more than me all the damn time.

This war is really weird, there is no evil people in the war, it's a war of honor, where the blame falls only on Paris, who doesn't want to hand over Helen.
Hector was defending his city, Achilles was taking revenge for his friend.
We had a few major emotional scenes one where Patroclus died, and another where Achilles found out, and the third was Hector dying and his family crying for his loss.
Those are men, who would stand in front of you in battle, shove their spear through your skull, and they were crying, so it seems at least when it comes to that part of society we went backward, I am speaking about the entire real men don't cry bullshit, these people were weeping for losing their loved ones, and doing much more than just crying too.

Reading this, I felt like 2700 years at least passed since the writing of this Epic, and guess what? we didn't make great strides in linguistics, everything was clear, yes this is translated, but they are not making up words, this is a literal translation, people were fully able to speak about everything at that age.
Another thing that surprised me, was how advanced they were knowing each part of the human body, yes it was through the destruction of these parts, but still, they knew every single organ, what each organ does, what's the thing inside the bones is called, I might be thinking about them like they are cavemen, but knowing how we function, should enable you to heal the body as well, not just destroy it, like these ferocious men.
Hell some words they had, needed to be translated into multiple words of our own, specially the ones that described certain kinds of ships and certain kinds of clothes.

Mythology! This was just a delight for Mythology lovers, there was a lot of myths being told about all these gods, hell I feel like I know their society inside and out after only reading 800 pages with the commentary, but don't be fooled, there is a lot of Myths not told, and most of these myths are told in short anyway, so they could be told in more details in another Greek play, I have put so many in my tbr even though I own more than 400 plays (Not all Greek my name isn't Adonis.)

Slaves, reading old literature always annoys me because of the entire slavery thing, and how it's mentioned too, because they don't mention slavery like it's something that people who get enslaved despise, no! They mention it as if everyone accepts it, you are a woman living with your husband he gets killed, and suddenly you are a slave, and suddenly you are okay with being a slave, or even in love with your new master, fuck that bullshit, it's one of the most offensive things I read about in old literature, but it's inevitable it's literally everywhere.

Gods are assholes.
Yes this is the title of this paragraph, man they are so bad I swear, they interfere in everything, not only war taking sides pickering over everything, fighting amongst each other.
They actually interfere in simple contests too! Apollon interfered by blowing the arrow of Diomidis just because he didn't pledge a sacrifice for him if he hit his target!
Half of these famous men in the war would actually be dead, if the gods didn't interfere time after time and hiding them inside clouds!

Reality check.
But here is a thing I was thinking about while reading, all these sons of gods actually have human parents, so the realistic conclusion is people keep saying we are a son of this god or that god, just to have infamy in war, for people to fear you. Oh I am fighting the son of Zeus, his father will surely help him, it's a mental warfare, you lose just because of the bullshit they make you believe.
And then all the times that gods embody another human in the war, to give advice that would keep the balance or give you an edge, reality is, they are the actual humans speaking and giving good advice, and again they are giving the gods credit, just so that their enemy fears their backing in the war.
And so on.

But we can't deny the magical atmosphere when we read ancient Greek Literature, it's like writing fantasy, but it's not fantasy, they believed this shit, they wholeheartedly believed in it, everything that happened was a sign of the gods, everything they did demanded a sacrifice to the gods so that they see it through, and it's fucking magical.
I remember reading this trilogy Alèxandros: Il figlio del sogno and the writer at some parts, like the fall of Athens for example, did the exact same thing, everything was a sign was an omen of the gods, these scenes felt suddenly like we were reading a fantasy novel not a historical novel, but that's how the Greeks told their stories, with the gods everywhere around them, because these stories were often about kings and great warriors, people who can actually make the costly sacrifices, of course the gods had to be there for their favored sons, and even though I do those reality checks, I make fun of all the "Bastards", I truly adore the hell out of this kind of story telling.

I read 5/24 Books of this back at the end of 2019, then this year I started from the beginning, and I now finished it, I won't edit the date started date finished, but this was finished in a much shorter time than what is recorded here on goodreads.
I expect next year to maybe read either the Odyssey or the Aeneid, we will see what happens.
I can probably make this review go on forever if I read the endless notes I put daily about this on goodreads, but no need for that.

The Iliad is an epic poem created before writing was invented and likely written no later than the 7th BCE. The poem's events cover a period of 7-8 weeks of a decade-long Trojan War in which the story's character traits, namely honor, courage, skillfulness, and strength were valued above all other human qualities.

Despite the long-held beliefs that the Trojan War was purely a mythological event, the 19th-century discovery of Troy has made The Iliad to some extent an actual historical event. Nevertheless, a historical event that our poet intertwines with dramatic fictional stories fueled by a vivid imagination.

There is also a belief that "Homer" is not the name of the poet who is presumed to have written the The Iliad and that "Homer" simply means "compiler", hence, we might not know the writer's personal name but only their profession. Also, the notion of Homer being blind is difficult to believe for many due to his ability to describe external events so clearly.

Homer's characters are exceptionally religious and devoted to their gods and the gods are involved in everyday people's lives and utilize their divine powers for both good and evil. What I found interesting in the story is the belief that not only is life governed by destiny, but that one's destiny stands above the gods. Hence, destiny is what the gods submit to and are there to see that destiny is fulfilled and that nothing disturbs it.

I first began reading the English translation of The Iliad by George Chapman but soon realized it wasn't the right fit for me, so I continues with a translation in my native language and enjoyed it significantly more. I was also anticipating the event surrounding the Trojan Horse but there was no mention of it in The Iliad. Last but not least, the all-powerful and brave Achilles openly weeping over the death of his dear friend Patroclus is another confirmation that it's alright and acceptable for grown men to publicly cry.

n  n    Book Reviewn  n
3+ out of 5 stars to The Iliad, a Greek lyrical work written around 800 BC by Homer. Ah The Trojan War. We all know of the horse, but how did it come together? Who was at war? And why? You'll need to read The Iliad & The Odyssey to figure all that out... of the two, I preferred the Odyssey. I still found the story fascinating and enjoyed the read. But it's a lot to digest. It's amazing when you realize these works are almost 3000 years old. Such beauty in his words. And to think about everything we've learned over the years... about war... and the Trojan horse... both the virus and the trickery. There are some valuable lessons in this work. If only more would give it a chance!

n  n    About Men  n
For those new to me or my reviews... here's the scoop: I read A LOT. I write A LOT. And now I blog A LOT. First the book review goes on Goodreads, and then I send it on over to my WordPress blog at https://thisismytruthnow.com, where you'll also find TV & Film reviews, the revealing and introspective 365 Daily Challenge and lots of blogging about places I've visited all over the world. And you can find all my social media profiles to get the details on the who/what/when/where and my pictures. Leave a comment and let me know what you think. Vote in the poll and ratings. Thanks for stopping by.

fellas, is it gay to want your dear companion's ashes and yours to be combined and buried in the same place so you can be together even in death?