Thursday 13 September 2012

Update on readathon progress

It's September and I'm nearly 3/4 way through the readathon...time for an update!

July:
The Importance of Being Emma (reviewed)
Anna Karenina (yes- that's the whole month!!) (reviewed)

A lot of catching up to do....

August:
Moby Dick or the Whale (read)
Love Letters of Great Men (read)
The Iliad (reviewed)
Eifelheim (read)

A very productive month!

September:
Truth (read)

7 down, 6 more to go, none the size of Anna Karenina - woohoo!!

Started on:
The Odyssey
Novel destinations

Still to go:
Shards of Honor
Red Harvest
The Lady in the Lake
A Farewell to Arms


Must read...can't do any more reviews until after the readathon!

Saturday 8 September 2012

Review: The Iliad by Homer

Needed a few sillies after the last oh-so-serious review...not too hard to guess the mash-up :)

It sta-arts with Achilles, a total sook he i-is,
His girl is taken from him, in Homer's Iliad.

King Agamemnon tri-ies, to quell Achilles' pri-ide,
But 'go away' he su-ulks, to Ulysses and friends.

I-L-I-A-D, by H-O-M-E-R,
the longest ode to war
in western history!

 And off to mum he go-es, and mum flies up to Jo-ve,
who has been running the sho-ow, with all his fellow gods!

Olympus has its stri-ife, the kind of god and wi-ife,
and squabbles high in heaven, falls unto goodly men. 

I-L-I-A-D of H-O-M-E-R,
the Samuel Butler prose
translated from the Greek

Ten years they have been fighting, the Trojans and Achaeans, 
with warriors great and mighty, and heroes known to all.

Prince Hector is the noblest, his brother Paris much less.
What makes a man a hero? Is glory more than life?

 I-L-I-A-D by H-O-M-E-R,
Achilles, Patroclus,
  of rage and love and grief.

But death is close at ha-and, crushed skulls of fragile ma-an,
in heavy helmets fly-y, and torsos ripped in half.

What special care for armour, is paired with quest for valour,
yet story after story of kills and bloody gore.

I-L-I-A-D by H-O-M-E-R,
before the Odyssey
but where's the Trojan horse??!?


4 war-spurring gods out of 5