An Iliad

Entertaining on its own it makes a wonderful text to practice your Italian if you read it along with the Italian version much of which is available on Google books, look for: Omero, Iliade, on Google Books [...] I am an intermediate student of Italian. I find the translation from Italian to English to be quite literal and the Italian is straightforward so I recommend the two as a parallel reader. The fact that the original Homeric story is well known and well told helps.

If you think you know all about the Iliad, Baricco's book will delight you with the insights it brings to this oft told tale. A retelling of the masterpiece from the perspective of the participants, this delightful volume is another great example of Baricco's imagination.

Powerful, moving, timely, and beautiful. Recommended reading for all those who appreciate history and all those who need to learn to appreciate how today's generations continue to repeat the tragedies of the past. Baricco ends his book with a challenge to us all. Accept the challenge.

I've tried reading the Iliad a couple of times and found myself reading excerpts and just what I needed to get by in my classics class in college. In other words, it was a chore to read. This book was a pleasure to read, and you probably won't believe this, frankly I'm having a hard time believing it myself, but I read this book in less than a day and a half. I couldn't put it down. Better than any hollywood movie, this version of The Trojan War, the original or rather based on the original I understand by Homer, has scenes that Stephen King fans could admire. Alessandro Baricco is a genious turning a tale that has bored many students down through the years into an epic tale that will haunt you many days after the last page has turned. The author mentions that he orally recited this book in Rome and that it was broadcast on radio there and that listeners were held spellbound. I believe that, as I too was held spellbound. However I feel I should mention that this tale is not for the faint of heart. Who knew the ancient Greeks were so violent and bloodthristy? If Hollywood did make a movie of this rendering they'd have to create a new rating for violence. The battle descriptions here are in your face and low down dirty. A good look at war in ancient times and probably not too far from the truth or violence of war today. This is one not to miss!!

I am as close to a Homer purist as you will find: BA and MA in classics. Of course this book is no substitute for Homer's original: that narrative defined all western standards for storytelling. But I must give Baricco the highest marks for crystalizing and presenting (quite powerfully) the elements of the Iliad that are still relevant to human circumstances. We no longer believe that a pantheon of gods intimately involve themselves in the lives of a few heroic figures. It is therefore the job of the modern interpreter to find the purely human motivations that haven't changed over the millennia. This Baricco has done superbly. The characters do not all sound alike, as the other reviewer claims: that's just wrong. As one who has studied Homer line by line in the original, I have as much reason in theory to be bored or unimpressed by this project. But I am not. It made me think about the original in a new way, and that's no small feat.