Review by New York Times Review
the odyssey translated by Emily Wilson, read by Claire Danes. (Audible.) Wilson is the first woman to translate Homer's epic of adventure and yearning for home into English. It's a version that has been widely praised for its lyricism and use of contemporary idiom, made even more vibrant here through the voice of Danes, have a nice day by Billy Crystal and Quinton Peeples, read by Crystal, Kevin Kline, Annette Bening, Dick Cavett, Darrell Hammond, Rachel Dratch, et al. (Audible.) This live reading of Crystal and Peeples's new play, performed at New York's Minetta Lane Theater, captures its dark humor, the story of a fictional president of the United States and his encounter with the angel of death, the power of love by Bishop Michael Curry, read by the author. (Penguin Audio.) Best known now for delivering a passionate sermon at the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, Curry, the presiding bishop and primate of the Episcopal Church, here offers more thoughts on love and social justice, how to be alone by Lane Moore, read by the author. (Simon & Schuster Audio.) Moore is the former sex and relationships editor for Cosmopolitan and in this memoir she tells of her lonely childhood and teenage years, spent largely without any family, and the struggle to find connection with others, thanks a thousand by A. J. Jacobs, read by the author. (Simon & Schuster Audio/TED.) The stunt writer returns, this time with a book about his attempt to personally thank every single person involved in producing his morning cup of coffee. This aim sets him on a journey from miners in Minnesota to farmers in Colombia, musing about the benefits of gratitude along the way. & Noteworthy "To my mind, talent was innate: You either had it, or you didn't; you were brilliant, or you were not. This mindset made writing no less than torturous. Listening to an audiobook version of grit by Angela Duckworth changed that. Duckworth's book is essentially an ode to practice, arguing that far from innate, genius is a result of a combination of passion for your subject and perseverance in your mastery of it. It's a simple but potentially transformative idea. I played Duckworth's narration throughout the day, in the shower through waterproof speakers or dodging pedestrians near Herald Square, and it was a balm for my perfectionism. Afterward, I started seeing the message of 'Grit' everywhere: It's the work you need to fall in love with, not the end result. And as the long, sometimes challenging paths trailing my heroes came into view, I felt safer getting on the road behind them." - CONCEPCIÓN DE LEÓN, DIGITAL STAFF WRITER, BOOKS, ON WHAT SHE'S READING.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [August 14, 2019]
Review by Library Journal Review
The enduring character of the epic poem The Odyssey invites repeated attempts at translation, here most recently an energetic verse rendition by Wilson (classical studies, Univ. of Pennsylvania), who has authored books on the nature of tragedy, Socrates, and Seneca, as well as translations of plays by Euripides and Seneca. Wilson's goal is for the work to sound natural to the modern reader without falling into contemporizing anachronisms, such as those found in the translation of Stanley Lombardo. Unlike Robert Fagles or Robert Fitzgerald, Wilson deploys a natural English syntax, while closely following Homer's lines. Like Fagles and Barry P. Powell, she adopts iambic pentameter and seeks a diction that does not sound archaic, using the Latinate version of names and submerging many of the recurrent epithets. Thus Odysseus, "the man of many turns," becomes the "complicated man," or "bright-eyed goddess, Athena" becomes "she looked him straight into the eye," true to the spirit of the text if not always the word. -Wilson is particularly sensitive to the tone and description applied to the many women throughout the narrative, especially Helen and Penelope. VERDICT Wilson offers a fluent, straightforward, and accessible version of the Homeric epic; a solid reading edition.-Thomas L. Cooksey, formerly with Armstrong Atlantic State Univ., Savannah © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Fresh version of one of the world's oldest epic poems, a foundational text of Western literature.Sing to me, O muse, of thewell, in the very opening line, the phrase Wilson (Classical Studies, Univ. of Pennsylvania) chooses is the rather bland "complicated man," the adjective missing out on the deviousness implied in the Greek polytropos, which Robert Fagles translated as "of twists and turns." Wilson has a few favorite words that the Greek doesn't strictly support, one of them being "monstrous," meaning something particularly heinous, and to have Telemachus "showing initiative" seems a little report-card-ish and entirely modern. Still, rose-fingered Dawn is there in all her glory, casting her brilliant light over the wine-dark sea, and Wilson has a lively understanding of the essential violence that underlies the complicated Odysseus' great ruse to slaughter the suitors who for 10 years have been eating him out of palace and home and pitching woo to the lovely, blameless Penelope; son Telemachus shows that initiative, indeed, by stringing up a bevy of servant girls, "their heads all in a row / strung up with the noose around their necks / to make their death an agony." In an interesting aside in her admirably comprehensive introduction, which extends nearly 80 pages, Wilson observes that the hanging "allows young Telemachus to avoid being too close to these girls' abused, sexualized bodies," and while her reading sometimes tends to be overly psychologized, she also notes that the violence of Odysseus, by which those suitors "fell like flies," mirrors that of some of the other ungracious hosts he encountered along his long voyage home to Ithaca.More faithful to the original but less astonishing than Christopher Logue's work and lacking some of the music of Fagles' recent translations of Homer; still, a readable and worthy effort. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
