I was disappointed; I suppose, it had been 'so bigged up' that was to some extent inevitable. While it was an interesting story, familiar since childhood to some extent to all of us,there were many parts that I had to force myself through. This was particularly so of the battle scenes, which I know many (particularly male) readers find fascinating. Someone said that he was so rivited by it that he even read it on the bus, but sadly I had no such urges,on the bus or anywhere else. I found these dismal reading:- much gruesome detail, for sure, disturbing, but finally repetative.
I also found the long lists of battalions wearisome.

I suppose from a woman's point of view, the difficulty is the macho values of Ancient Greece which underpin the poem, the inevitable lack of strong female characters or interests, the dismal rampage of good old Freudian Thanatos. Where is the joy in this poem? Well, it's a tragedy, but some joy by way of contrast would serve that well. The nearest we get to that is in the funereal games held in Patrocles' honour, when Achilles is deceptively jovial.

I was puzzled at what effect Homer is aiming at, or which characters are meant to be sympathetic; for instance, I assume Achilles is meant to be, as Fagles puts it, 'more and less than a man' an archtype of the fearless warrior, half immortal, arrogant, proud and unbending, who finally only succumbs to human values when Priam makes his desperate plea.

Actually, I liked him. I did feel sorry for him when after Agamemnon takes away Breseis, he goes and weeps by the shore and complains to his mother Thetis. This made him seem childlike.

Part of the problem for me was the style of the poet. Rhetorical, perhaps? I gather that to make lines scan, the oral poets employed certain words, such as 'Godlike Achilles' 'Briesis in all her beauty' etc. This makes them feel the more remote and stereotyped.

There were times when the poetry really caught fire for me - Priam's plea to Achilles:- 'I have endured what no-one on earth has ever done before - I put my lips to the hands of the man who killed my son'.
(Poor Briesis, of course, has put her lips to many parts of the man who killed her husband, but she is mute).

There has been a recent outburst of interest in the relationship between Achilles and Briesis, particularly following the awful 2004 film 'Troy', with a number of romantic stories published on the internet about these two. Modern writers shy from what would have been a fact of life to the Ancient Greeks, that as Achilles' war prize, Briesis opinion on their relationship would have been seen as no more relevant than that of a horse he took from a conquered king about its change of ownership. He has killed her husband in front of her eyes, father and brothers, and then presumably raped her, or if she submitted, then her consent was hardly given in conditions where it meant a lot. Nevertheless, Homer remarks that when she is taken off by Agamemnon's men she is 'reluctant, every step'. It may be that she is thinking in terms of 'better the devil you know...' Or she may have what would now be defined as 'Stockholm Syndrome'. For sure, the poor woman must be traumatised.

When she mourns for Patrocles -the only warrior described as 'kind'- at least in this translation, she says that he swore he would get Achilles to marry her. That Achilles would consider marrying his slave, even an ex-princess,is disputed by some translators, who argue that when he speaks of a 'wife' he means not Briesis, but Agamemnon's wife Clytemnestra. Not knowing Greek, I couldn't comment. In this translation he talks, with regard to Briesis, about how any decent man 'cares for his own'. Whether he means just her or all his concubines by this, I couldn't say.

I am glad to have read this(Oi,cultured, or what?) but I shan't be reading it again.