Rating: 
Summary: Great Classic
Review: I have read both the Odyssey, and the Iliad, and both of them are wonderfull pieces. Fagles does a great job of translating the feelings and moods Homer conveyed so long ago. For anyone who likes adventure, mythology, and great tales, this book is for you!
Rating:
Summary: Good Book!
Review: I found this book adventurous and well-written. If I were Siskel and Ebert rating books, this would be 2 thumbs up!
Rating:
Summary: Best of the modern translations
Review: This translation is worthy of the praise heaped upon it by critics and readers. Side by side comparison with other versions reveals it to be quite "readable" and properly paced. You should know that Penguin offers a two volume hard cover set of the Illiad and the Odyssey both translated by Robert Fagles. While the Illiad is quite graphic in the account of war and death during the battle(s) for Troy it also exposes all that is good in man.
Rating:
Summary: This book keeps you on the edge of suspense!!!
Review: I really enjoyed reading this book for my English class. This book was very well written and I love the conflict between the gods. My favorite character is Diomedes. I would recommend this book to anyone.
Rating:
Summary: My Vote for Best Translation of this Exciting Epic Tale!
Review: I highly recommend this translation of the classic Homeric epic. I have read many fine translations of this work, but Robert Fagles' translation is by far the best I've seen. Fagles manages to bring the story to life while still maintaining a sense of the poetic beauty of the original. Far from being a dusty and archaic rendition, this translation is instead very much "alive", and truly captures the excitement and beauty of this classic tale. I discovered many new insights that I had missed in my earlier readings of Homer's Illiad, and Robert Fagles' translation makes it clear why this is such a long-standing literary classic.Also, the "introduction" by the well-respected classicist, Bernard Knox, is a great source of additional,up-to-date information about both the Illiad and the Homeric period of Ancient Greece.
Rating:
Summary: I absolutely loved it.
Review: I have read all sorts of translations on the Iliad. And I love Fagles. It is the best one that I have ever read. It mades me wonder if he did one on the Oddyssey
Rating: 
Summary: A beautiful version laid low by a ill-advised abdrigement
Review: Fagles translation is spectacular, no debate there. To my mind, the only contemporary translation which even comes close is Stanley Lombardo's forceful, daring, colloquial translation. This audio version of the Illiad is also outstanding and Derek Jacobi was the perfect choice for a reader. But why oh why did they decide to abridge it? And what was the criteria for the abridgement -- an abridgement that was prepared by Fagles himself. I think I know. Fagles removed virtually all of the scenes of combat in favour of the disputations and speeches. Why? The Illiad stands as one of the great statements on war. Knox in the introduction dwells at length on this. Yet, paradoxically, until Patroclus enters the fray in Book 16, the audio version offers virtually no extracts dealing with actaul combat betwen Torjans and Acheans. Instead it is all removed in favour of the speeches and debates between the various players, both Gods and men. Gone, for example, is Book 5 where Diomedes takes on the gods. I played this cassette for my wife who had never read The Illiad. She enjoyed it, but it wasn't until the Myrmidons enter the battle with Patroclus at their head that she was offered a sample of how Homer wrote about combat -- and she was riveted -- and with good reason. It is in those passages that Homer reaches the heights which established him as one of the greatest poets ever. And even if I am wrong about that, why couldn't the mix be more balanced? And in ending, I would simply ask, why abridge it at all? Had they offered a more balanced selection I would have rated this version a ten out of ten. As it is the mere fact it is abridged (and the manner in which it is abridged) has to affect my rating. All of this is all the odder when one takes note of the fact that The Odyessy audio tape is NOT abridged and the reader (who shall remain nameless) is annoying and monochrome. Sadly, therefore, the better poem receives the shoddier treatment. What we need to do is pressure the publisher to offer a full, unexpurgated version. Now that would be worthy of both Homer, Fagles and Jacobi.
Rating:
Summary: Paging Mr. Tarantino
Review: So you've made it to middle age, and you just haven't gotten around to reading the first great epic poem in what we generously refer to as Western Civilization. OK, Robert Fagles has taken away your last excuse.
Never mind that you don't like poetry and are skeptical of things ancient and/or Greek. This is not wrack-your-brain-for-hidden- meaning poetry, and as for the ancientness and the Greekness, well, this might as well be the stuff of the most blood-spattered pages of today's tabloids.
It always gives me a laugh when critics say that such-and-such translation is too literal or too liberal or too whatever-else: do some people really have the time and education to read books once each in different languages, plus the literary acumen to judge the quality of the translation? I have no way of knowing--plot excepted--how faithful Fagles' translation is. I only know that what he has written is a rollicking read, with a deft blend of modern idiom and attractive archaism.
Plus--and how often do you ever hear or say this?--the introduction by Bernard Knox, though long, is a pleasure to read and does a perfect job of setting the tone for the poem.
Only one thing should scare you off of this book: squeamishness about violence, of which there is an abundance, presented in graphic detail. In fact, three words kept occurring to me as I read: Quentin Tarantino treatment.
Rating:
Summary: I Couldn't Put It Down
Review: I can't believe I've written the one line summary you see above. In college, when I took World Literature 101, we read a prose translation of the Iliad that made me question how any classics scholar could have called this work "great." Why, oh why, I thought, did this work survive? Now, I know. Fagles' tranlation is alive, magnificent, and incredibly compelling. The get togethers on Mount Olympus are pure high class soap opera. Zeus, get a clue! Your wife is playing you like a violin! And Achilles! Get over yourself! It's just a girl! There are millions of fish in the sea! Get on with your job --killing Trojans. He's the ultimate Terminator. The extended similes leap off the page. The poetry is glorious. Give yourself a treat. Revisit the greatest poem ever written.
Rating:
Summary: An astoundingly wonderful achievement
Review: "Much have I travelled in the realms of gold" etc., but I have never read a translation of the Iliad which swept me along like this one. The power and immediacy of the language draw back the veil of almost three millenia and make us witnesses of and participants in the seminal conflict of the Western world
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