yorhano 's review for:

The Iliad: A New Prose Translation by Homer

4.5

dark informative reflective sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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A must if you like greek or roman mythology - it is not necessarily very gripping as it contains only a small part of the trojan war,

not even including the Trojan horse or the Curse of Achilleus

but nonetheless it is an interesting read. 

I liked the message that came through, which basically was

that war is pretty bad. Both sides seem to win at some points before changing the tide to the complete opposite multiple times. Both Achilleus and Priam loose some of the most important peoples of their ranks: Hektor and Patroklus. But even through the fog of war humanity perseveres: the Iliad does not end with the fall of Ilios, but with the Argives and Trojans making a temporary ceasefire to mourn their fallen heroes.

Some passages have aged like fine whine while others are a slog to go through (looking at the Catalogue of Ships) but particularly the end does get somewhat thrilling. The historical part of it intrigued me as well and made me lookup the backstories of some of those things on wikipedia.

The prose was okay to read although the origin as a poem does shine through rather well (can't count how many times "master of the war-cry", "son of peleus" and others came up). 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, War

Moderate: Animal death, Gore, Misogyny