The Odyssey (Penguin Classics)

A very long book, but quite interesting and will keep you wanting to pick it up again. The English translation is well done and provides a strong basis for many lessons that hold true today. This tale holds such a strong fix in our popular culture that this reading is highly recommended for all high school students.

As a scholar of Homeric Greek I would avoid this translation at all costs. It may be very well written as far as narrative ease is concerned, but it absolutely doesn't follow the original text in either wording or meaning.

(I'm not sure why amazon has over half of these reviews for Fagels's translation on Rieu's page? I noticed this happening quite a bit on amazon, but anyway...)

I have spent quite a bit of time comparing versions of "The Odyssey", and out of all of them I settled on Rieu's pioneering translation.

It was originally published in 1946 as Penguin's very first book!

He would recite "The Odyssey" from the original Greek to his wife and children during the second world war in London while bombs dropped around them. It was Rieu's wish to start a publishing company that dealt with reviving the classics for common man. Penguin Classics is now the most widely loved, read and utilized editions on the market! What a vision he had!

This edition of The Odyssey was revised by his son in 1991 and reprinted with a better print and layout in 2002. It still carries a type of "joie de vivre" all throughout, a wonderful raciness, and a strength of believablity.

...as good as the revised one is, I actually prefer Rieu's original more because of the humble human language he uses...which has mostly been taken away.

The reason some stories remain classics is simply because they deserve it. This ancient story is as exciting, sexy, and romantic as they possible come and that is simply how it should be. Post-Iliad comes the perilous journey back to Greece, a journey that lasts twenty years through every horrible (and yet totally cool thing) that could ever happen. It's passionate, fun, and exciting and I guess that is why they make us read all of it in high school. Well, yay!

While the story is fictional and full of all the joys and horrors of life, I am, at my later years finding that this text, the bible, and roman mythology have so much in common as to stimulate our minds, conceptions, and views without reducing our individual religious beliefs. The tales compliment and in some small way confirm each of mankinds dealing with the unknown at that period of history. To have the background of reading the Bible, Homer, Romans, Voltaire, etc. is to truly come to grips with an individual religion and God, versus, a rote learned Higher Power.