Upon Reading Fagles' Iliad

Last December, in a move which must have been subconsciously aimed at cementing "nerdy" status, I made a list of 24 categories from which I wanted to read one book each in 2009. I'm sure there will be a post on "Stuff White People Like" on something like this sometime soon. So far, I'm pretty close to being on pace.

One of the categories which I put down I wanted to read a book out of was "Ancient and Classical Literature". So, since I had never actually read the "Iliad" and I was going on a long trip to North Africa, I decided to pick up a translation -- Robert Fagles'.

It's a long book.

My non-professional thoughts?

I honestly preferred the "Odyssey" to the "Iliad", but there is much to be said about the "Iliad". The long-churning battle scenes, with extended, gory descriptions of death -- "Person X hacked Person Y with Weapon Z and Body Organ Q was visible" -- almost seemed to produce an imitation of the battle weariness of the Greeks and Trojans after nine years of combat in the reader himself. I could not bring myself to enjoy the extended battle in a straightforward way after the eleventh such 20 page battle, so I'll chalk Homer's technique up to some sort of mimesis. This view could be supported by Homer's tendency to describe the life of a promising young youth -- his parentage and upbringing -- only to have him die savagely at the hand of Hector or Achilles, a seeming nod to the wastefulness of war. I say this even though I am not a strict pacifist myself.

Likewise, although I expected myself to be rooting for the Greeks the entire time, Homer seemed to make it impossible to side entirely with the Greeks or the Trojans.

Surprisingly, my favourite character in the "Iliad" would have to be Hector. The image of a man who is chiefly dedicated to caring for his family, yet is willing to face his duty in war courageously and with deadly capability is very appealing to the Renaissance Man in me. Most noteworthy in the "Iliad", to me, is the scene in which he tenderly bids his wife goodbye before he faces the battlefield, and when his toddler son sees him in his horsehair helmet, his son cries, scared of his father. The couple laugh at the son, and Hector takes his son in his arms and prays that the son might grow to be a better man than the father. That is better than a rom-com for men. It is little wonder that the Medieval Europeans counted him as one of the four Pagan Worthy Knights

Out of all the Greeks, Odysseus, the crafty and diplomatic one, seems to be the most likeable. Compare his tact and wisdom against the infantile power-plays of Agamemnon and the selfish, childish sulking of Achilles, and he stacks up quite well.

A good friend of mine considers Achilles to be his favourite character in the book, but I would dissent. Achilles is undoubtably unmatched on the field of conflict, almost godlike in his powers. But Hector's strength is a well-tempered strength; his character is well-rounded. And until the Styx-dipped Achilles shows up, Hector is well-nigh unstoppable. His death, like an animal put to flight around the walls of Troy, was, to say the obvious, lamentable.

The translation itself, by Robert Fagles, leaves me nothing to complain about. It is terse and highly readable.