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Loading... Gilgamesh: A New English Versionby Stephen Mitchell
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. Honestly, I did NOT think I was going to like Gilgamesh. I had read it for my college literature class.. and.. actually, I really loved it! I think most of my classmates were surprised that they liked it as well. The story was so interesting and well told. I felt like there was a lot of life lessons that were taught. I think it's a timeless story. I highly recommend, Gilgamesh! (  )touchthesky | Jun 2, 2009 |  1   Mitchell's introduction is excellent. The translation couldn't sound more modern, it reads very deceptively easily. The story is simple, yet powerful. What could be more human than the fear of death? This story contains so much and yet is so short. Love, sex,and hate, friendship and combat, death, grief and joy, courage and fear, foolishness and wisdom. Amazing considering it was all done on 12 clay tablets, in cuneiform. (  )sgstarling | Jan 16, 2009 | 1 There doesn't seem to be much redeeming value to what is known as the oldest story in the world. The narrative is achingly repetitive and spare. It is very easy to read, and there are only a select few images that make this worth reading. For example, the symbol of the snake taking Gilgamesh's only hope for youth away was very clever and brought to mind allusions from the Bible. In the same vein, there were many other references to the Bible, which, interestingly, had not yet appeared. The ending was abrupt, and the prose was dry and left one wanting much more. I don't really see Gilgamesh as particularly important to literature - to history, absolutely - but it doesn't really contribute anything besides the mere fact of its novelty. It did give some interesting insight into the customs and traditions of a nearly-forgotten culture. Mitchell's Introduction was actually more informative than the text itself. But in the end, if one is bored and has a few hours (because it's quite short), it's not a terrible way to pass the time. (  ) | Sep 23, 2008 | edit | |   I enjoy Stephen Mitchell's rendition, don't get me wrong,. Mitchell is a good poet. It's good to have an edition by a good poet. It's possible that having an edition by a good poet is the best of all possible editions. Yet, I can't help wishing that the critical edition ISBN 0198149220 by A. R. George would get equivalent critical attention from the New York Times and others. An edition published in numbers similar to the Mitchell version would bring the price per copy down to a level non-specialists can afford. As it is, only those associated with institutions can acquire a copy either by getting the institution to buy it for them or buying it and taking it off of their income taxes. Apologies for the rant. I just really hate to see good work out of reach. Oh, and George Guidall's reading on the audiobook is excellent. ( )dirkjohnson | Jul 29, 2008 | "Gil-galad was an Elven King, of him the harpers sadly sin..." Ooops. Wrong quasi-mythical epic. Well I'm sure Gilgamesh is equally good at chopping up Orcs. Or whatever Sumerians made do with in those days... :-0 (  )jontseng | Apr 26, 2008 |  0.090 seconds to build listing  no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 074326164X, Hardcover)Gilgamesh is considered one of the masterpieces of world literature, and although previously there have been competent scholarly translations of it, until now there has not been a version that is a superlative literary text in its own right. Acclaimed translator Stephen Mitchell's lithe, muscular rendering allows us to enter an ancient masterpiece as if for the first time, to see how startlingly beautiful, intelligent, and alive it is. His insightful introduction provides a historical, spiritual, and cultural context for this ancient epic, showing that Gilgamesh is more potent and fascinating than ever.Gilgamesh dates from as early as 1700 BCE -- a thousand years before the Iliad. Lost for almost two millennia, the eleven clay tablets on which the epic was inscribed were discovered in 1853 in the ruins of Nineveh, and the text was not deciphered and fully translated until the end of the century. When the great poet Rainer Maria Rilke first read Gilgamesh in 1916, he was awestruck. "Gilgamesh is stupendous," he wrote. "I consider it to be among the greatest things that can happen to a person." The epic is the story of literature's first hero -- the king of Uruk in what is present-day Iraq -- and his journey of self-discovery. Along the way, Gilgamesh discovers that friendship can bring peace to a whole city, that a preemptive attack on a monster can have dire consequences, and that wisdom can be found only when the quest for it is abandoned. In giving voice to grief and the fear of death -- perhaps more powerfully than any book written after it -- in portraying love and vulnerability and the ego's hopeless striving for immortality, the epic has become a personal testimony for millions of readers in dozens of languages. (retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:57:52 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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