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Jan 25, 2012

Stephen rated it:

5.0 stars. I thought this story was AMAZING. However, before I go any further I do want to point out that this review is solely for the version I read which was “Gilgamesh: A New English Version” by Stephen Mitchell. I say this because for a story written over 4000 years ago (approximately 2100 BC) about a King who lived over 4700 years ago (approximately 2750 BC) and was written in cuneiform in an extinct language (Akkadian), I imagine that the particular translation one reads may have a profou More...

19 comments like (31 people liked it)

Jan 25, 2012

Alex rated it:

The story of Gilgamesh is the Hero's Journey for all time. It is haunting in its sheer age — a ghostly voice speaking to us from Iraq, five thousand years ago. Yet it remains startlingly relevant to 21st century Americans, as its hero struggles to find a first-world sense of purpose. King Gilgamesh wants for nothing, and then loses the only person he ever loved. He covets eternity. He accomplishes the greatest things a human can... and then what?

Gilgamesh hits bottom and begins to ri More...

0 comments like (8 people liked it)

Dec 22, 2009

Keely rated it:

Why is it that I should feel a pit in my stomach when I think of the Library of Alexandria wreathed in fire? Cotton's Library, too, when we nearly lost Beowulf and The Pearl. Who knows what we did lose?

A copy of an unknown work of Archimedes was found to have been scraped clean, cut in half, and made into a Bible. To think: a unique book of knowledge--one that outlined Calculus 1800 years before its time--was turned into a copy of the most common book in the world.

As a y More...

7 comments like (12 people liked it)

Jan 25, 2012

Zachary rated it:

Three stars- That's five stars for the translated epic averaged against one star for the godawful introduction.

Frankly, there's a time and a place for political commentary on the Iraq War. The introduction to the worlds first epic, no matter if it takes place in Mesopotamia, is not the place.
It really irritates me that my enjoyment of the epic was tainted by me constantly thinking "What was that guy thinking? There are no allegories here... He was really reaching!" More...

1 comment like (4 people liked it)

Jan 25, 2012

Jacob rated it:

Fantastic. The economy of the storytelling is incredible--for such a short poem, you'll find everything here; if you're patient enough to look, I should add.

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jan 25, 2012

Adam rated it:

Oh this is a sad story about a man who learns his lesson too late, a man responsible for his own despair, a man whose arrogance is the source of his own pain. It's also a freakin' blockbuster of a tale. If they ever pitch the story of Gilgamesh to Hollywood, that's how they should pitch: the intellectual blockbuster.

I heart the Epic of Gilgamesh. It's four thousand years old but it feels as fresh as if it was written today. Part of that, of course, is due to Stephen Mitchell's excell More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 25, 2012

Stacie rated it:

I want to first thank Alex for telling me to read verse and not prose. I started reading them side by side, and quickly decided that the prose version was not for me. It really did lose its lyricism and beauty - I thought a lot of the story was missing. But, this is not a review of the prose version, but of the verse.

I thought it was lyrical and beautiful. I am not entirely sure what I was expecting in reading this, and I am glad because I felt completly open to whatever happened on More...

5 comments like (2 people liked it)

Oct 04, 2009

Iris rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

5 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 23, 2011

Chantelle rated it:

I learned that it's not an appropriate book to read with sixth grade students.

I, however, enjoyed it.

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Jan 25, 2012

Theophilus rated it:

I loved it. I have never been a big poetry reader, but this ancient free-verse epic was fantastic. Before Conan, Ulysses, Tarzan, or other superhumans, there was Gilgamesh. Clay tablets containing pages of this story date back to about 1700 B.C. Gilgamesh, the mighty king of Uruk is "two-thirds divine and one-third human". He has everytihng a king could want, a well-protected beautiful city, women, and wealth, but lacks one thing he really craves, a brother with whom to share adventure More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 17, 2011

James rated it:

Amazing.

Rilke says it's the "epic of the fear of death", and that's what it feels like, but in an ultimately warm and human way (I thought!). All the characters feel human in much the way that modern fantasy or fairy-tales can give us very "human" characters by taking little bits of ourselves and amplifying them into fantastical creatures so that those traits are celebrated or explored.

It is very engaging, very easy to read in this translation, and its More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 25, 2012

Hans rated it:

A thought that came to mind while reading this was the idea of how cultures can develop simply as an antithesis to other cultures. Knowing the historical rivalry between Assyrio-Babylonian and Israelite cultures you can see how the two influenced the values and ideas of the other. This makes this book especially relevant since Judeo-christian ideas permeate through out our civilizations today.

Gilgamesh is a hero-epic of a culture that predates the writing of the Bible. What caught More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Jan 24, 2010

Evan rated it:

"The common man, the noble man,
Once they have reached the end of life,
Are all gathered in as one..."
--
"Immortal under the Sun are the gods alone,
As for mortals their days must end -
What they achieve is but the wind!"
--
"I must face battle strange to me,
Travel a road unknown to me."
--
"He who leads the way preserves himself
And keeps his companion safe."
--
"Fixing his gaze More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Nov 29, 2010

Terence rated it:

I have an ugly secret to divulge - with few exceptions I have not read in their entirety the foundational epics of Western civilization. You name it, chances are good I haven't read it: Gilgamesh - no; Homer - no; Virgil - no; Beowulf - no; The Song of Roland - no; Cervantes - no. I could go on with the "roll call of shame" but I'm sure you get the idea.

Oh, I've taught parts of many of these works as a TA during my days at UCLA, and I know their gists but I've never been ab More...

5 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 25, 2012

Roxanne rated it:

Wow, I am completely shocked by how much I absolutely loved this. What an amazing story. So great. And uplifting. And just... great. Apparently most of the other translations on the market are really kind of academic in nature; Mitchell, who is not in any way a scholar of ancient Akkadian, compiled this version by studying all the other translations and doing a lot of research into the word choices and finally just making poetic decisions that seemed to fit the tone of the original epic. And it More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 23, 2007

Yoke rated it:

Gilgamesh was an historical king of Uruk in Babylonia, on the River Euphrates in modern Iraq; he lived about 2700 B.C. Although historians (and your textbook) tend to emphasize Hammurabi and his code of law, the civilizations of the Tigris-Euphrates area, among the first civilizations, focus rather on Gilgamesh and the legends accruing around him to explain, as it were, themselves. Many stories and myths were written about Gilgamesh, some of which were written down about 2000 B.C. in the Sumeria More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 23, 2011

Jeremiah rated it:

This is worth reading just because it is a major ancient epic. Clearly large portions of it have been lost over the eons. This particular edition does a great job of weaving together the many fragmented tablets that have been found and translated to create a mostly cohesive tale. As a casual reader, its fun, although this edition would be handy for a scholar as well, given its analysis of the separate tablets concerning this legend. Beyond that, Enkidu rocked. Everybody loves a wild man who More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 09, 2008

Jacob added it

Gilgamesh makes me want to listen Paul Simon. I listen to Paul Simon and steal his lyrics and put them into my writing. It's a weird practice and I mainly do it with the Graceland. Perhaps, this life is really a dreamscape that I'm inhabiting and it is a space where the borders of my being are becoming blurred by the books I read and the music I listen to. This weekend kind of feels millennial to me. Maybe it's because of Gilgamesh and the walls of Uruk being the walls of the book and the book o More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Jan 25, 2012

Jeremy added it

It's basically the oldest recorded story of any kind, and that gives it a weird sort of prominence. Gilgamesh feels like a prototype of Achilles in a lot of ways. The ultimate, hubristic badass, caught up in a quest for masculine honor which eventually breaks and humbles him after he looses his closest friend. Physical strength and sexual prowess are the end-all-be-all of these people's lives. Yet there is also this incredibly dark, world-weary sensibility at play: no matter how many monsters th More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 29, 2010

Nikki rated it:

I knew very little about Gilgamesh before I picked up this book in the library. I knew I wanted to read it, and I had a vague idea it was one of the oldest works of literature, but other than that, I was relatively ignorant. This edition helped a lot with that, since it has an informative introduction. It's not exactly a new translation, being based on (if I remember rightly) seven earlier literal translations, but it is lovely and clear and also, where the story needs it, tender and touching.
More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 23, 2011

Eric rated it:

What I learned from this ancient epic is how much The Bible and Homer cribbed from it. The entire flood story is here in its original Sumerian form, complete with the cubits and the ark and the animals and the dove.

Also, the storytelling style we later came to associate with Homer is here. I'm thinking about the way Homer would have a character deliver some paragraph-long pronouncement to someone, who delivers it to someone else using the exact same spiel, and so on.

And epic? More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 09, 2011

Ben rated it:

Very lyrical and poetic. Mason may be free wih the translation (I really don't know) but this is engaging and enjoyable. I tried reading through Maureen Kovacs's....very.......translation....hard yet to.......[read?]

I have to say that the passages focusing on loss hit me as powerfully as anything I've read. And Gilgamesh's final decision not to burden anyone with his sadness showed that overcoming loss forces us to grow. That's how I read it. I was very moved by this text.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 28, 2008

Michal rated it:

The 5900 years old tale is as accessible and heart taking as could be. Its heroes are guided by enchanting dream passages, which deeply illustrate the complexity and creativity of humanity. The reader sees one vision, the heroes hear another, or pretend to, and the inevitable tragedy touches the most human of feelings - the vanity of youth, the weakness of the old, instability, mortality, incomprehensibility, love, loyalty and the lust for life.
This narrative edition gave up scientific acc More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 28, 2011

Venus rated it:

گیل گمش اینسان شتابناک به کجا می روی؟تو هیچگاه زندگی را که در جستجویش هستی نخواهی یافت.وقتی خدایان انسان را آفریدند،مرگ را قسمت او قرار دادند اما زندگی را برای خود نگاه داشتند...
شادمانی و جشن و طرب پیشه کن،پوشاک نو به تن کن،در آب تن بشوی،به کودک خردسالی که دستهایت را گرفته مهر بورز و همسرت را در آغوش خویش شادمان ساز،چون این قسمت انسان است More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 25, 2012

Sara rated it:

I enjoyed the book,but not that much as I thought I would,its very readable, the writing style almost childlike ,simple but attractive version ,yet gives a message of power, friendship , audacity and antagonism .
I guess I must thank Stephen,for suggesting the audiobook ,narrated by George Guidall,it was fantastic and he does a such brilliant job ,reading this poem.Listen to it brought back memories of my old times , when I was a kid sitting with my grandpa and listen to him , telling old More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 09, 2011

Ryan added it

Why am I giving an epic poem from 2500 B.C. four stars? Not to mention an uncompleted, old-ass, poem about a macho-Mesopotamian man seeking immortality. Many have labeled this a “classic”- hell if an 4,000 year old piece of creative writing can’t be called a “classic” what can? I’m giving the poem four stars, not because of the names (like Gilgamesh, or Enkidu, or Utanapishtim), but rather the themes. Despite it being created at the beginning of time, the Epic of Gilgamesh, contains “age-old More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 05, 2009

Dave rated it:

The Norton Critical Edition of "The Epic of Gilgamesh" is a fairly recent translation of what is currently the oldest known epic. The epic was translated by Benjamin R. Foster. The book also includes "The Sumerian Gilgamesh Poems", translated by Douglas Frayne, and "The Hittite Gilgamesh", translated by Gary Beckman. In addition, there is "The Gilgamesh Letter", several essays discussing the epic, and an Introduction section which helps those who are new t More...

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Jan 18, 2012

Lee rated it:

Gilgamesh is the story of a legendary Mesopotamian king who embarks on a quest for immortality. The Gilgamesh Epic has two primary claims to fame: (1) it may be the oldest surviving written story on earth, and (2) it contains a passage eerily similar to the story of Noah and the Ark. A man builds a big boat, saving his family and lots of animals from a monstrous flood. Like Noah, the flood survivor in Gilgamesh sends out birds (a dove, then a swallow, then a raven) from his “ark” after the rain More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 14, 2012

Antonomasia rated it:

The Epic pulses with primitive rhythm and the mesmeric quality of repeating structures constructed under the oral tradition. Some lines of this translation feel as if they could be chanted and accompanied by drums.

And somehow it was scary, as well as fascinating. Probably because here is a voice from a time when life everywhere was harsher, when values were different - 1500-2000 years before Buddha or Jesus - and so many things we know wouldn't exist for millennia hence. Here we ar More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Dec 24, 2011

Dorothea rated it:

I remember my high school class loving Gilgamesh when we read it for English lit. In fact, some students wrote a dramatic version (in fact, I think, a musical) for the first season of the theater group they founded, which is still going strong with current students. I can't act, but I handed out programs. :D

Reading it again today, I love it even more. I completely adore the relationship between Gilgamesh and Enkidu (just --- everything about it. Gilgamesh is getting out of hand becau More...

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