Rating: 
Summary: A superb epic poem
Review: Set in the ninth year of the war between Troy and Greece the Iliad is an epic poem covering 41 days of this tragic war. The story centers around an argument between the two main heroes of the Greek side (or the Achaeans as Homer called them): Agamemnon, the king of Mycenae and commander of the Greek forces, and Achilles, the most powerful warrior in the Greek army. The affront to Achilles by Agamemnon wounds Achille's pride. He vows to stay out of the war and in doing so Zeus tilts the scales of fate to the Trojans. With the Greek army facing almost certain defeat Achilles sends Patroclus, his closest friend, to help the Achaeans. He warns Patroclus, however, not to push the Trojans back to their walls, but Patroclus didn't listen. He was killed in battle by Hector, the Trojan commander. This Trojan victory would, however, bring Achilles into the war and turn the tide of battle.The Iliad brings the horrors of war with startling detail. Men slashed to pieces on the Trojan plain aren't just nameless enemies they are real people. Homer tells us who they were. We know their names; we know something of their family. Homer makes us care about them. He gives us a clear insight into the mind of the soldier in the ancient world. With tales of courage, honor and principle one can almost feel the horror of this titanic battle. Robert Fagles does a masterful job in translating this epic poem; now more than 2700 years old. I found the reading easy and quite enjoyable but one would do well to set aside plenty of time for reading. The story is over 15,000 lines in length. Fagles provides a nice introduction, covering the major themes of the story, and a glossary of names and a pronunciation guide at the back of the book. I highly recommend the book as one that belongs on everyone's book shelf.
Rating: 
Summary: hard version
Review: this book was ok because of the graphic violence, and because of the killing, the greek gods and the trojan war, most of this book is hard to understand and personally i thought it was very hard to read, my teacher said it was hard for me to understand because i got the hardest version of the book, to understand the book you have to pay attention through the beggining.
Rating:
Summary: One sick puppy
Review: The Illiad was one of the hardest books that I had to read all year. It consisted of words that i have never heard, much less being able to pronounce them. The story line was an adventures one, but was hard to follow as i read since it was in a poem format. The scenes of death were preety interesting. The way Homer tells you specifically how each character dies is cool, but also a little disturbing. I encourage people who are into the whole greek mythology to get into this book. As for me, I don't ever want to read this book again.
Rating:
Summary: Fagles Does It Again
Review: I have read several versions of the Iliad (both poetic and prose) and this version translated by Robert Fagles is the best I've read. Fagles has such an ability to translate the classics (as he has done with the Odyssey and the Theban Plays of Sophocles) so that they are readable to the modern English reader while still maintaining the lyricism of poetry. I'm also a sucker for introductions, glossaries, and translation notes and this edition has excellent versions of all three. While I would have liked even more notes to explain some of the myth references within the Iliad, the ones that are there are very explanatory. Bernard Knox (who also wrote the Notes) delivers a very erudite introduction that puts the "rage of Achilles" into context and gives an enlightening view of the humanity of the Gods who appear within. Highly recommended to those who want to get in touch with their Ancient Greek side.
Rating:
Summary: Great Modern Translation
Review: I found this translation much easier to read than those forced upon me earlier in life. In addition, I thoroughly enjoyed and benefited from the introduction and notes accompanying the beginning and end of the text. They served not only to set the context, but also to underscore underlying themes and highlight supporting Greek myths.
Rating: 
Summary: Audio version is abridged
Review: Derek Jacobi is incredible in the reading of Fagles' wonderful translation. His voices and acting make almost all audio recordings sound amateurish. However, no where on the label did it say this was an abridged version and I for one am appalled that it was cut and the buyer did not know. It mentions it on this amazon webpage but not in the stores. So five stars for the reading and the translations, one star for the abridgment.
Rating: 
Summary: Accessible , but not great.
Review: The Iliad. You know the story. The Rage of Achilles. Great story. One of the, if not the pillar of Western Literature. Fagles is a latest to do a major translation of this story. I like it better than Fitzgerald's, but this is the only case. I don't think Lattimore is very accessible for the first time reader. I also like the anglicized names, which Fitzgerald does not do. However, the translation is not perfect. It is a little too modern for my taste, and does not give the formality and mysticism that Homer so rightfully deserves. For example, the constant use of B**ch degrades it. He also changes the epitaphs around a lot. Overall good, the best out now, but there can be better.
Rating:
Summary: This Book May Change Your View of the Role of Translation
Review: This is a powerful translation. All my life I have shunned contemporary translations in favor of older, more well-accepted ones. This translation is so easy to read that millions of school-age children can praise Zeus--or Fagles--that they have been spared the much more difficult translations that are normally foisted on them. The idiom of Homer can be difficult enough, but to pile opaque, antiquated verbiage on top of it is simply too much for most readers. What a shame that for so many years this story has been made unaccessible to so many. This translation solves that problem brilliantly. Readers will be impressed with the current and sometimes colloquial nature of the writing. For instance, in connection with the funeral games for Patroclus, the first volunteer to participate in the boxing match says, "I am the greatest." Coincidence? But don't think for a minute that the translation is not serious. This translation has forced me to reexamine my view of the role of the translator. If someone can translate into clear and comely contemporarly language, why should they not do it? Hurray for Robert Fagles!
Rating:
Summary: Rage o Godess at all other dishonorable translations!
Review: Jest aside, this version of the Iliad, with the sheer force of its words, has impelled me to write a review. After trudging through Lattimore's translation in a classics class in college I thought that the Iliad could never be brought to life in modern english. Thankfully, Robert Fangles' master voice as a translator has dispelled these thoughts from my mind. As many of the previous review have made clear, this version of the Iliad really leaps off the pages. It has been a long time (not since Nabokov's Lolita) since I have been so completely enthralled by a work of literature. Page after page I am amazed at the metaphor's that Fangles (and by extension Homer) used to coveigh their story.
- "Menelaus, the blessed deathless gods did not forget you, Zeus's daughter the queen of fighters first of all. She reared before you, skewed the tearing shaft, flicking it off you skin as quick as a mother flicks a fly from he baby sleeping softly"
Countless other metaphores abound in the Iliad, each like a precise "winged arrow" drives home the author's point poetically, lyrically and astoundingly.
All this is a testament to Fangles ability to entertain and enlighten. However, the Iliad viewed as a holistic entity apart from Fangles translation deserves the highest accolades. In very few works have I encounted the diversity that I see in the Iliad. At some points (Book 13) I'm appalled and intrigued by the savagery of the poem. Homer uses the imagiry of the countryside and of the working world to describe the slaughter and inhumanity of combat. Men are cut down like so many fields of wheat and Homer treats their destroyers as farmers hearding their sheep. Namely, the catalysts of such violence are seen as blameless. Nontheless, the epic poem seemlessly transitions to events of great humor. In book five, one of the Greek kings named Diomedes, in all his blood lust goes on take the battle to the God's own person. Needless to say, at one point he wounds the love Godess Aphordite in the palm of the hand. The ensuing scene of her retreating to Mt. Olympus is very funny. It is amazing that a poem written over 2,700 years ago can still create situations that a throughly modern reader finds humorous.
The poem's most interesting aspect is not its humor, or violence, but the way it handles the relationships between the various characters. Agammenon, Achellies, Nestor, Menelaus and Oddyseus, among others, really come to life. By examening these character's various interactions we can elucidate the values that they held dear. By extension, we can see how much (or how little) modern man has evolved from this primal age guided by honor and pride.
Rating:
Summary: A beautiful work
Review: Beauty may be appreciated in several ways. Among the several forms, there is visual beauty, such as seen at a high Sierra overlook in winter. There is acoustic beauty sensed from good music, intellectual beauty felt in an elegant solution to a technical problem, and linguistic beauty heard and read. The chief aim of poetry is to produce linguistic beauty. For example, perhaps the most beautiful line ever written is: Yea, though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I will fear no evil...... And there is the short question: Am I my brothers keeper? These are blockbuster sentences even out of context. "The Iliad" by Robert Fagles ranks, in my view, among the best examples of linguistic beauty. I think it is, on the whole, superior in this regard to the translation by Richmond Lattimore, although I recognize this may be a preference. When comparing the Fagles and Lattimore translations, line by line, one sees that translation from the Greek is by no means exact, and the translator exercises a significant degree of interpretation. Furthermore the Greek hexameter cadence is lost, and the translator must replace it with a beat of his own. How the translator develops a cadence, selects words, and arranges words are all importance to the production of a beautiful work. Fagles does a remarkable job. Rod Hug
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