Excellent

This is a masterly book which brings new (to me) and penetrating insights into this great work. It is also very well and sympathetically read. Very highly recommended.

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Great recent discussion of the Homeric Question. Poor audio at the beginning

I’ve burned through much material on Homer and the Iliad for over a decade. This book is great and I’ve immediately bought the audio and hard copy versions for reference. Lane Fox writes with a wealth of experience and insights, and his views are well argued. Although one does not always need to agree on everything, it’s great to hear a relatively comprehensive overview of what a seasoned scholar thinks, based on the latest and greatest knowledge in 2023. I imagine it’s also a great introduction into the Homeric Question for listeners who are just starting on the topic and then want to dive in further with other authors.
Unfortunately the introduction especially seems to have some audio problems where the first words in a number of sentences are somewhat omitted or barely audible. But that’s a small technical blemish on the audio version of an otherwise great book.

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Enthusiastic reader and good translation

I enjoyed this experience and made it to the end with reading it physically (Penguin Classics) as I listened to the narrator. Somehow this brought home to me how important the Iliad is in the history of European literature. I was surprised by the pervasive involvement of the 'gods' and have no doubt our current politicians had a means to involve them to a similar extent.

One point, "winged words" are apt and relevant words. The phrase has a Greek origin. (I thought it an odd and over-used phrase before looking it up.

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Superb book.

The beautiful reading, the logic of the text and the interest generated in hearing further works by this reader.

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A must-listen for anyone who loves the classics

Fox has his own ideas about Homer and Homer's work, that the Iliad is the work of one poet who had it written down for his family, which he advances without being too overbearing. Most of the work is very interesting analysis about the work and of the hypothetical Homer, which you will appreciate even if you do not agree with his thesis or are not interested in it.

For example, one chapter has a discussion of shame vs. guilt in the Iliad, which discusses the difference between a shame culture and a guilt culture, the difference between shame and guilt, whether the Greek word translated as 'shame' just means that, and much more besides.

This is the work of a true historian, not a literary scholar steeped in sometimes bizarre theories. So while he obviously does not accept the historicity of the Iliad, or even that of a Trojan War, the approach to the work itself is very scholarly and evidence-based. There is no whiff of presentism (talk of certain activities with female captives is presented without judgment, even though it obviously makes Fox as uncomfortable as it makes us), and in the chapter on women in the Iliad there is no unwarranted injection of modern identity politics.

While the content is beyond excellent, the narration could be better. Some Greek words are mispronounced, the most frequent being 'kleos' which is consistently mispronounced as though it had an 'i'. The stress on the word 'Myceneans' is also wrong. These are minor blemishes though.

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6 people found this helpful