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An Iliad: A Story of War
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"* 'Baricco has written an Iliad for his time, a wonderful, gripping take on a story that has haunted our culture since it was first told.' - The Times * 'You won't, and can't put it down' - Observer * "A swift, stylish, summer-reading version of the great epic." - San Francisco Chronicle * "A taut and mesmerizing tale." - Seattle Times"
The Times
... a wonderful, gripping take on a story that has haunted our culture since it was first told.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I came to AN ILIAD having read SILK, a slim novella by Baricco. SILK was beautiful - full of sensuality and the prose read more like poetry, it was so packed with emotion. So, I hoped that Baricco's magic would rub off onto this telling of The Iliad.
I confess, I have never read the original, although its story is one of the most famous from the literary world. Baricco has stated in his note on war that The Iliad is a monument to war. That it was meant to "sing of mankind at war, [. . .] to sing of the solemn beauty, and the immutable emotion, that war once was and always will be". Having not read the original, I cannot comment upon whether this goal was achieved. Having now come away from AN ILIAD by Baricco, I believe that he, at least, has achieved this. Why, therefore, the mediocre rating from myself?
This comes down to my own personal preferences - perhaps the reason I have never opened the original is because I have known that I would not find the kind of beauty that I hold dear. With Baricco's offering, although I am able to recognise his talent for writing beautiful prose, the essence of the story was not what I needed at the time. To read page after page about war can be draining, no matter how talented the writer may be.
While I still regard Baricco as a superb writer, and I see that many will find AN ILIAD to be an inspired piece of work which provides characters from myth a voice about one of the most famous battles, I just have to concede that it is not my cup of tea. I am more of a silk girl. . .
I confess, I have never read the original, although its story is one of the most famous from the literary world. Baricco has stated in his note on war that The Iliad is a monument to war. That it was meant to "sing of mankind at war, [. . .] to sing of the solemn beauty, and the immutable emotion, that war once was and always will be". Having not read the original, I cannot comment upon whether this goal was achieved. Having now come away from AN ILIAD by Baricco, I believe that he, at least, has achieved this. Why, therefore, the mediocre rating from myself?
This comes down to my own personal preferences - perhaps the reason I have never opened the original is because I have known that I would not find the kind of beauty that I hold dear. With Baricco's offering, although I am able to recognise his talent for writing beautiful prose, the essence of the story was not what I needed at the time. To read page after page about war can be draining, no matter how talented the writer may be.
While I still regard Baricco as a superb writer, and I see that many will find AN ILIAD to be an inspired piece of work which provides characters from myth a voice about one of the most famous battles, I just have to concede that it is not my cup of tea. I am more of a silk girl. . .
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The Iliad is an epic poem, supposedly written by Homer, but most people think it has several authors. It tells the tale of a few months during the siege of Troy, by the Greeks.
It starts with Agamemnon, the Greek's 'king of kings', being forced to give up Chryseis, one of his spoils of war. In compensation he seizes Briseis from Achilles. This causes Achilles to withdraw from the war. The Iliad chronicles the various bloody battles and strategic withdrawals that ensue, and it ends pretty much at stale-mate.
That, at least, is the original version. Baricco adds a final chapter set years later which tells how the famous wooden horse allows a small contingent of men into Troy, and the city is eventually sacked.
In the very interesting preface Baricco explains exactly what he has done. He has taken a prose version of the Iliad written by Maria Grazia Ciani, and condensed it to a much shorter piece. He made some cuts, looked for rhythm, 'made the narrative subjective' ie told the many different voices in the first person supplanting the original Homeric narrator, and added a little to the text - these are italicised. These italicised passages were my favourite parts. The writing was quite beautiful and it made me want to read more of Baricco's work.
This version was performed twice each performance lasting two nights with a cast of eight taking different voices.
As Baricco points out this is a Greek text translated into an Italian text, adapted into another Italian text and then translated into English. So, it is somewhat derivative.
I found reading it very interesting, and having never read the Iliad before think I have learnt a lot very quickly. The number of different characters meant that it was sometimes difficult to follow but this is inevitable given the source. I think, as an exercise, it has worked well.
Reading the text reminded me of Jane Smiley's THE GREENLANDERS and also, to some extent, THE BIBLE. The prose tends towards a list and there is never a sense of involvement with the characters - reflection of the era in which it was originally written. Although Baricco says he has made it more subjective by attributing parts of the text to certain people, I am not sure that he has added anything to the text by doing this. The characters often describe scenes they couldn't have known, and in one chapter (Priam's) the first person becomes confused with the third. The chapter starts with Priam in the third person then suddenly changes to first person.
However I am glad I read this book, and recommend it - not particularly as a riveting read, but as an interesting way of absorbing a piece of essential western European culture.
It starts with Agamemnon, the Greek's 'king of kings', being forced to give up Chryseis, one of his spoils of war. In compensation he seizes Briseis from Achilles. This causes Achilles to withdraw from the war. The Iliad chronicles the various bloody battles and strategic withdrawals that ensue, and it ends pretty much at stale-mate.
That, at least, is the original version. Baricco adds a final chapter set years later which tells how the famous wooden horse allows a small contingent of men into Troy, and the city is eventually sacked.
In the very interesting preface Baricco explains exactly what he has done. He has taken a prose version of the Iliad written by Maria Grazia Ciani, and condensed it to a much shorter piece. He made some cuts, looked for rhythm, 'made the narrative subjective' ie told the many different voices in the first person supplanting the original Homeric narrator, and added a little to the text - these are italicised. These italicised passages were my favourite parts. The writing was quite beautiful and it made me want to read more of Baricco's work.
This version was performed twice each performance lasting two nights with a cast of eight taking different voices.
As Baricco points out this is a Greek text translated into an Italian text, adapted into another Italian text and then translated into English. So, it is somewhat derivative.
I found reading it very interesting, and having never read the Iliad before think I have learnt a lot very quickly. The number of different characters meant that it was sometimes difficult to follow but this is inevitable given the source. I think, as an exercise, it has worked well.
Reading the text reminded me of Jane Smiley's THE GREENLANDERS and also, to some extent, THE BIBLE. The prose tends towards a list and there is never a sense of involvement with the characters - reflection of the era in which it was originally written. Although Baricco says he has made it more subjective by attributing parts of the text to certain people, I am not sure that he has added anything to the text by doing this. The characters often describe scenes they couldn't have known, and in one chapter (Priam's) the first person becomes confused with the third. The chapter starts with Priam in the third person then suddenly changes to first person.
However I am glad I read this book, and recommend it - not particularly as a riveting read, but as an interesting way of absorbing a piece of essential western European culture.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
10 reviews
15 of 17 people found the following review helpful
a truly bold reimagining: approach with an open mind
3 Aug 2006
Format:Hardcover
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.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
a stong 4 stars from a baricco fan
22 Oct 2007
Format:Paperback
I read this as a fan of Alessandro Baricco (ocean sea is a personal favorite). When I began reading I was surprised at the rhythm of the text, because it seemed quite different than the long flowing poetic sentences of Ocean Sea and Silk. Once I settled into his concise style, I appreciated the gruesome battles more than expected. In the end, I was introduced to a style and context of fiction literature that I was previously unfamiliar with. I would recommend the book to anyone interested in Greek Epics or warfare.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Immense and Powerful Yet Personal
2 Feb 2012
Amazon Verified Purchase
This is not a translation of The Iliad as much as it a reimaging. We are presented with a view of the epic through a 21st century literary mirror. Baricco has taken a faithful interpretation of the epic (by Maria Grazia Ciani) and stripped away the intentional redundancies and the Gods and replaced it with deeply human voices without losing any of the depth, beauty or brutality of the original. This is a real accomplishment. I would not supplant THE Iliad for AN Iliad, but it is certainly a moving and wholly accurate experience for any reader.
Go ahead and buy it, and you will return to it and give it to others for years to come.
Go ahead and buy it, and you will return to it and give it to others for years to come.
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