About the Book
A brilliant new version of the Odyssey from one of the most accomplished translators of our time. "Sing to me, Muse . . ."
It has been said that a myth is a story about the way things never were but always are. The Odyssey is the original hero's journey, an epic voyage into the unknown, and has inspired other creative work for millennia--from ancient poetry to contemporary fiction and films. With its consummately modern hero, full of guile and wit, always prepared to reinvent himself in order to realize his heart's desire--to return to home and family after ten years of war--the Odyssey now speaks to us again across 2,600 years.
In words of great poetic power, Stephen Mitchell's translation brings Odysseus and his adventures vividly to life as never before. Full of imagination and light, beauty and humor, this Odyssey carries you along in a fast stream of action and imagery. One-eyed maneating giants; irresistibly seductive sirens; shipwrecks and narrow escapes; princesses and monsters; ghosts sipping blood at the Underworld's portal, desperate for a chance to speak to the living; and the final destruction of all Odysseus's enemies in the banquet hall--these stories are still spellbinding today. So, too, are the intimate moments of storytelling by the fire, of homecoming and reunion, fidelity and love--all of greater value to Odysseus, and to us, than the promise of immortality.
Just as Mitchell "re-energised the Iliad for a new generation" (The Sunday Telegraph), his Odyssey is the noblest, clearest, and most captivating rendition of one of the defining masterpieces of Western literature. Mitchell's muscular language keeps the diction close to spoken English, yet its rhythms re-create the oceanic surge of the ancient Greek.
The first translation to benefit from modern advances in textual scholarship, Mitchell's Odyssey also includes an illuminating introductory essay that opens the epic still further to our understanding and appreciation and textual notes that will benefit all readers. Beautiful, musical, accurate, and alive, this new Odyssey is a story for our time as well as for the ages.
About the Author :
Stephen Mitchell is widely known for his ability to make old classics thrillingly new. His many books include the bestselling Tao Te Ching, the Iliad, Gilgamesh, The Gospel According to Jesus, The Book of Job, Bhagavad Gita, and The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke. His website is StephenMitchellBooks.com.
Review :
"Mitchell has been widely hailed for his masterful translations and this one, I think, will be regarded as the capstone of his reputation."--Bookviews
"Mitchell's updating has resulted in a livelier, more contemporary feel for this epic of world literature... The result is a faster-moving story... make room for this one on the shelf as an intriguing variation on a familiar story."--Los Angeles Times
"Propulsive, muscular rendering."--Washington Post
A daring new version of the epic poem.--Wall Street Journal
"Employing the five-beat, minimally iambic line he used for his translation of The Iliad (2011), Mitchell retells the first, still greatest adventure story in Western literature with the same clarity, sweep, and force.There are many more violent deaths in The Iliad--there's a war going on, after all--but nothing as ghoulishly terrifying (and starkly related by Mitchell) as what Polyphemus, the Laestrygonians, and Scylla do to Odysseus' crew. Stephen King, eat your heart
out."--Booklist, starred review
"Re-reading the epic poem The Odyssey with this new translation by Stephen Mitchell is a reminder not only of its significance as an early literary masterpiece of the West but also its beauty as a work of art... It resonates with modern readers as much as it did to our ancestors... Eminently readable, flowing narrative... captures the beauty of the language while rendering the poem accessible to all readers... Mitchell deserves great credit for providing a new translation that will appeal to modern readers and see the Homeric tales thrive amongst the next generation... Mitchell's translations should be the first port of call to anyone who's never yet read the Homeric poems but has always meant to."--Entertainment-focus (UK)
"Stephen Mitchell is one of the great translators, and his version of the Odyssey is a masterpiece of clarity, directness and a kind of blunt musicality which catches perfectly the pitch of the true Homeric voice."--John Banville, author of The Sea
"Stephen Mitchell's faithful translation of the Odyssey has great vigor, and a plain eloquence that is quite free of pedantry. It does not plod. Its narrative drive is so compelling that the reader will find himself speaking the lines aloud, as I did."--Richard Wilbur, former Poet Laureate of the United States and twice winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
"This latest incarnation of the Odyssey leaves no doubt that Stephen Mitchell has made a deep connection to the tale's spiritual power, which he has managed to express with propulsive cadence and in exquisite detail. The bard sings again, this time at the banquet of Mitchell's ardent labor."--Billy Collins, former Poet Laureate of the United States
"Yet again, one of today's gifted, knowing scholars and writers embraces one of the masterpieces of yore, and so doing offers us the Odyssey as a wise and stirring companion for our own personal voyage through time and life's many stirring, worrying, enabling moments."--Robert Coles
