The War Nerd Iliad in War Nerd Reading List

Oct 28, 2017 Adam McPhee rated it it was amazing

Shelves: epic, favourites, the-ancient-world, the-exile

Dolan puts Lattimore and Fitzgerald in the shithouse, to paraphrase Dr. Reo Symes. A superb re-telling of the Iliad, that succeeds in Dolan's goal of returning the epic to its wild campfire origins by emphasizing the humour, violence and action of the original to accomplish.

There's a great moment where war god Ares wants vengeance for the slaughter of his son, but when challenged he can't remember his son's name. And that's one of the areas where Dolan shines–most translators have the wrong kin ...more

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Jul 31, 2021 Philip Girvan rated it it was amazing

Translator John Dolan delivers a stripped down, punch ‘em up, knock ’em down, let the gods sort ‘em out telling of The Iliad. Nothing pretentious or snooty here: just war and gore, and a lot of laughs along the way.

It’s enough, by god, to reaffirm a fella’s faith and do the funky Western Civilization one more time.

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Dec 26, 2019 Rashid Yasin rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction, history

I like John Dolan's short form writing/podcasting work (as The War Nerd), so I freely admit bias here. As a translation, it feels like a 5-star adaptation that takes a work that's foreign in time and place and transports it as eminently understandable to a contemporary American audience. But I don't have the experience with other translations and a particularly deep understanding of the surrounding mythology to really be a great judge of its quality in adhering to/properly explaining the origina I like John Dolan's short form writing/podcasting work (as The War Nerd), so I freely admit bias here. As a translation, it feels like a 5-star adaptation that takes a work that's foreign in time and place and transports it as eminently understandable to a contemporary American audience. But I don't have the experience with other translations and a particularly deep understanding of the surrounding mythology to really be a great judge of its quality in adhering to/properly explaining the original text. However, it all felt eminently readable and enjoyable to a modern-day reader while still imparting useful cultural cues throughout.

Dolan's choice to move from verse to prose makes the whole thing enjoyable and natural - it's useful to have modern translations that don't adhere to pre-modern literary structures. From my uninitiated perspective, it's hard to tell whether Dolan or Homer has a soft spot for the Trojans. While perhaps its a modern day affection for the underdog, they come out as more cultured, more diverse, and more well-behaved than the rowdy Greeks. You feel empathy for their plight, and on the other side, as a reader I palpably felt disgust at some of the crassness of the Greek leadership.

The Iliad itself is a book I hadn't read before, though I know most of the story through abridged versions and other media. I didn't realize how much the Gods interfered throughout every piece of the story nor the tremendous level of explicit violence in the battle scenes. Because it is a "classic" it's hard to rate as a reading experience. As a modern reader, I probably wouldn't want as many pages extolling the details of Hephaestus' shield for Achilles, but the presence of that description is a hint about the values of the culture who created and remembered this story (and Dolan does a good job keeping the description moving forward). So even things that I'd ding a modern story for end up being culturally relevant windows to the past. So if you're interested in the ancient Greeks, this is a 5 star story and a 5 star translation. And Dolan keeps it funny as well, which is an achievement in translating humor to a story from another culture separated by two millenia!

However, as I don't care that much about the ancient Greeks, I don't think I can give it a full 5 stars for me personally. It's a fascinating and important cultural artifact as well as a gripping and exciting war story, but there have been many battles and many sieges throughout history and many works written about ancient Greece. It's important that it exists, and it's great to have this resource in particular as a readable and understandable version. But I don't know if it's important/meaningful/insightful for anyone in particular to read the (War Nerd) Iliad unless you're already interested in the subject at hand or, like me, just want a fun romp through the past (which I got in spades). ...more

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