The Odyssey [Paperback]

"'This is wonderful, to listen to a singer / Such as this. . . ' So Odysseus on the bard Demodocus. And the singer, the oral poet, the 'aoidos', is what Lombardo embodies in his Homer. With a line and a language hammered out 'in public performance,' he has made a verse that can move his audience to tears and even to laughter. At first glance, the simplicity startles - spare syntax, the highest proportion of short word in modern English poetry, colloquialism in the saddle, sudden and direct contact with the matter. But then the wonders of how he works become evident. So much was already to be seen/heard in Lombardo's version of the Iliad [Hackett, 1997]. But his Odyssey [Hackett, 2000] moves beyond, its verse widening its range to everything in between tears and laughter, able to present a storm, a battle, a chiding, a fable, a tale, and a whine with equal deftness. No version of the Odyssey is more immediate. No version shows better one of Homer's essentials: the oral poet at work. The persona is there, and it's real." -- Douglass Parker

"'What could be finer / Than listening to a singer of tales / . . . with a voice like a god's?' So Odysseus on the bard Demodocus. And the singer, the oral poet, the 'aoidos', is what Lombardo embodies in his Homer. With a line and a language hammered out in public performance, he has made a verse that can move his audience to tears and even to laughter. At first glance, the simplicity startles-spare syntax, the highest proportion of short words in modern English poetry, colloquialism in the saddle, sudden and direct contact with the matter. But then the wonders of how he works become evident. So much was already to be seen/heard in Lombardo's version of the Iliad. But his Odyssey moves beyond, its verse widening its range to everything in between tears and laughter, able to present a storm, a battle, a chiding, a fable, a tale, and a whine with equal deftness. No version of the Odyssey is more immediate. No version shows better one of Homer's essentials: the oral poet at work. The persona is there, and it's real." -- Douglass Parker, University of Texas at Austin

"Lombardo has created a Homeric voice for his contemporaries: fresh, quick, and verbally engaging to the modern ear, as the original was to the ancient. His characters come alive as real people expressing real feelings with urgency and verve. I very much like the language and the pace of this version, and would welcome it for classroom use." -- Joseph Russo, Haverford College

"Lombardo has the simple gift of summoning up a Homeric flavor wherever he turns. He may even blend contemporary colloquialisms with an antique epic grandeur, and the effect remains unimpaired. As Lombardo tells us, he recites and performs, he impersonates the poem as if he were the bard. We follow, we explore, plunging into 'medias res'. Homer arises before him as an encompassing reality. Lombardo moves at ease through this Homeric world, without artifice or rhetoric, attuning his verse to Homer's composition. Homer is here a vindication of poetry." -- Paolo Vivante, McGill University

Lombardo's Odyssey offers the distinctive speed, clarity, and boldness that so distinguished his 1997 Iliad. Lombardo has created a Homeric voice for his contemporaries: fresh, quick and verbally engaging to the modern ear, as the original was to the ancient. His characters come alive as real people expressing real feelings with urgency and verve. This would be very welcome for classroom use.