The book begins with an explanation of the discovery, translation, and the epic and Mitchel's rendering of it, based on several extant translations. Then we get Mitchel's rendering of the epic, and then a lengthy note section describing the translations--including where translators added to the epic due to the many gaps in the unearthed cuneiforms, and where Mitchel added, rearranged, or omitted lines. ( )

The retelling of this ancient story is very accessible to the modern reader. It is told very simply but I think that is probability best. The clear manner in which Stephen Mitchell relates the tale of Gilgamesh makes it very easy to see and understand the themes. What I found most interesting, however, was the introduction. I usually am no fan of introductions in books. I like to discover on my own. At least I like to read something and form my own opinions and ideas before I’m told what to think about it. This was different. It really is the historical context of the story that makes it relevant and fascinating. It’s a quick read and a mush if one wants to understand the evolution of literature and in fact society and the human spirit. Damn, I sure have given this book a lot to live up to. Don’t worry about all that. Pick up a copy and have a go. ( )

I listened to this book first, but was curious enough to check out the book later. What the audio version does not have, but the book does, is a substantial body of notes on the text. I don't think that the notes individually were all that interesting, but together they seem to show how fragmentary the sources are, and how disputed are many of the translations. The version of the story is a synthesis of many translations by an author who is not himself a translator, and it is quite free. There is also an introduction, in both the audio and the physical book, which is based on an interpretation of the author's version of the story, and is thus, to me, highly suspect. In all, I'm glad that any version of the Gilgamesh story was available on audio, perhaps this is as good a place to start as any, but it doesn't seem to me to be a place to take very seriously.

Looked at from a bicameral mind sort of paradigm, does Gilgamesh seem to be bicameral? ( )

I had read Mitchell's lengthy introduction a while ago, but last night I read the translation itself. It's so much a rite - with iconic repeated phrases and images. It could be chanted, which is perfectly apt for a story this old, and this deep. Very spare and clear. ( )

By far the best of the four Gilgamesh translations I've read is the 2006 version by Stephen Mitchell. Besides being the oldest surviving world of world literature (perhaps 5,000 years old), Gilgamesh is a profound same-sex - male/male - love story, and an epic adventure. There's even a surprise "cameo" by Noah, of Ark fame, here called Utnapishtim, about a thousand years before his appearance in the Hebrew bible (Old Testament). In one sense, Gilgamesh's story is about how a man overcomes toxic masculinity and becomes a good, loving human being and ultimately an enlightened ruler. Also contains the first - and maybe still the best - 'meet cute,' with Gilgamesh wrestling non-stop for 24 hours with the "brute" he'll come to love with all his newly-emerging heart. If you're interested in the historical continuity of narrative form, compare Gilgamesh to Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces. Read this Stephen Mitchell translation, with its textual accuracy and red-blooded passion. Yalie friends: I tagged this entry with #yale because Stephen Mitchell studied there in the early 1970s; as he writes, "was born in Brooklyn in 1943, educated at Amherst, the Sorbonne, and Yale, and de-educated through intensive Zen practice." ( )