Nicholas Posted August 4, 2006 Posted August 4, 2006 I just can't get into it. I really want to read the Iliad, but I'm so bogged down in all of it. Can anyone help?
superconductor Posted August 4, 2006 Posted August 4, 2006 It's a wonderful story, but the prose is extraordinarily dense. Better the book than that awful Pitt movie Troy, though. Yuck.
westernxer Posted August 4, 2006 Posted August 4, 2006 Read the Cliff's Notes. The Odyssey, Homer's other work, was much more enjoyable. It was for me, anyway. Then try The Divine Comedy. It's totally cool... half the Popes were consigned to one of Hell's inner circles. Religion and politics were a sticky business in medieval Italy.
norajane Posted August 4, 2006 Posted August 4, 2006 I love mythology - Greek, Roman, Egyptian, gods, goddesses, love, lust, betrayal...it's all there, and a hell of a lot of fun. And I adored the Iliad - even developed a little crush on Hektor...damn that Achilles! But yes, the prose is tough until you really get into the rythym of it. And a lot of words are archaic and difficult to understand even in context. The only thing I can suggest is if you get a version that has word defintions and synopses alongside the text, or even get a copy of the Cliffs Notes and read it along with the text.
superconductor Posted August 4, 2006 Posted August 4, 2006 Funny this thread came up. I just started Thus Spake Zarathustra last night. Oy, it's thick... or maybe it's just me that's thick...
Rikka Posted August 5, 2006 Posted August 5, 2006 I love mythology, but I found the Illiad hard to get through. I got through the Odysey though. Enjoyable works.
burning 4 revenge Posted August 5, 2006 Posted August 5, 2006 Funny this thread came up. I just started Thus Spake Zarathustra last night. Oy, it's thick... or maybe it's just me that's thick...why do you want to read that?
wonderingmind Posted August 5, 2006 Posted August 5, 2006 I really want to read the Iliad, but I'm so bogged down in all of it. Can anyone help? I think it depends on which edition you're reading. Some are better than others.
burning 4 revenge Posted August 5, 2006 Posted August 5, 2006 I think it depends on which edition you're reading. Some are better than others.Yeah, don't get a translation from early 20th century English academics.
Blackfrost Posted August 5, 2006 Posted August 5, 2006 Currently working my way through the Finnish mythos of the Kalevala. Fascinating stuff, as it's the origin of where Gandalf's character came from when Tolkien wrote the LOTR.
HokeyReligions Posted August 5, 2006 Posted August 5, 2006 I read both and the Illiad is more difficult. The Oddesy is eaier to reaad. Dag I ned to clean my cmputer - keys ar stickin! Choose one sory to read rathr than the whol book. The movie O Brothr Whre Art Thou is based on it.
Blackfrost Posted August 5, 2006 Posted August 5, 2006 The movie O Brother Where Art Thou is based on it. Yes it was. A funny redneck adaptation
Adunaphel Posted August 6, 2006 Posted August 6, 2006 I started to find the Iliad more interesting after I got some "background", so to speak. After learning that the Iliad and the Odyssey clearly cannot be the work of a single poet, that all the repetitions and formulae in the Iliad are an oral-tradition thing, and a few information about how the ancient greeks of those times regarded religion, natural phoenomenas, death (for example, they considered the soul as a very physical thing, like it was some fluid that flowed in your body along with the blood) and emotions ("a certain God made me do it" is considered a pefectly acceptable excuse for Achilles'outburts of rage, or for Helene falling in love with Paris), I regarded the whole Iliad in a totally different perspective. What I used to find boring, started to be very interesting. I guess that the key to enjoying an otherwise "hard to go through" text (be it greek epic, or anything else) is to get curious about it, or even to regard it as a way to gain insight into lifestile and mindset of whomever wrote it. --------------- on a side note... Westernxer, I was wondering if you could recommend a good (english) edition of the divine comedy to me. It's a while I've been wondering what it might sound like in english.
westernxer Posted August 6, 2006 Posted August 6, 2006 on a side note... Westernxer, I was wondering if you could recommend a good (english) edition of the divine comedy to me. It's a while I've been wondering what it might sound like in english. You can try the Harvard Classics edition at http://www.bartleby.com/20, or you can visit your local library for the Everyman's Library hardbound edition. I find Everyman's to be excellent... they publish a wide array of classic literature and philosophy.
blind_otter Posted August 6, 2006 Posted August 6, 2006 I always imagine an old man reciting the story to me superimposed over the scenes of the book. Like someone is telling me a story. I get through lots of books that way. Sometimes it's how you frame the story and how it unfolds that can help you get into it, so to speak.
superconductor Posted August 6, 2006 Posted August 6, 2006 There's also The Gutenberg Project, which is a website devoted to offering free downloads of non-copyrighted materials, including the classics. I guess we're not supposed to put web links in the postings anymore, but if you do a quick search for The Gutenberg Project, it will come up pretty quickly.
westernxer Posted August 6, 2006 Posted August 6, 2006 I forgot about Project Gutenberg. That's a great site.
Adunaphel Posted August 8, 2006 Posted August 8, 2006 Thank you for the link to the Harvard Classics edition online , and for telling me about the Gutember Project, which also looks like an amazing website. -------------------- About getting more interested in the Iliad - if there are any movies or TV series in the US that are more adherent to the book than the one featuring Brad Pitt, they might be worth a look. I remember that when I was a kid they broadcast in my country a short TV series (lasting about twelve hours) about the Odyssey, which was very well done and got me very interested in the book. They re-made the series recently, but it is nothing like the old version.
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