poetry

I fully agree with the previous reviewers who praised the qualities of this book and the translations by Andrew George. The introduction and supplementary material that accompany the standard version of the Gilgamesh epic really help to put this story into the proper historical context.

This was my first reading of the Gilgamesh epic and what surprised me most about this story was its humanistic focus, especially considering that most of the literature at that time focused on the gods and how they created the universe and mankind. We learn about the superhuman heroes Gilgamesh and Enkidu, who openly spited the gods by performing deeds that ran counter to their interests. After Enkidu dies, however, Gilgamesh gets a reality check and attempts to avoid a similar fate by searching for the secret of immortality. Instead, he only discovers that even a powerful king like himself will never be able to escape death. But he also learns that instead of performing silly quests like searching for immortality, Gilgamesh should "seize the day" and actively use his time among the living to perform actions that will make a king great to his people. In this way, he will be able to ensure that his name lives on among future generations. Now this is great literature!

As other reviewers have commented, Andrew George's translation of the Gilgamesh epic is very approachable and makes for very entertaining reading, even for the general reader (like me) who is not a serious student of ancient history. However, if you want to study the history of the Western literary canon, you have to start here in Mesopotamia.

You wouldn't think a 4000-year old story about a dead king would be that interesting or exciting, but actually, I enjoyed this book. The story is the archetypal heroic epic, and has been useful for learning about everything from ancient Mesopotamian beliefs and customs to tracking changes in the traditional scribal curriculum in ancient Akkadia and Sumeria.

Speaking of people getting excited, the translater, Andrew George, says a dignified and emminent 19th-century British archaeologist ran naked through his lab when he realized he was the first person in perhaps 2000 years to read an original copy of the story of Noah, once thought to be part of the Epic of Gilgamesh (we now know this isn't true).

George also makes the interesting claim that the text is the oldest written text accessible to a modern reader without special archaeological or scholarly knowledge. I found this was borne out by the actual reading, as Gilgamesh's actions and motivations are very easy to understand--he is concerned with fundamental issues of life and death--honor, loyalty, friendship, fear, loss, happiness, and so on.

I also enjoyed some of the historical details George provides in the introduction. By 1800 BC, during the time of Hammurabi, Sumerian, which had once been the dominant language in the more advanced, urban south, had died out, leaving only Akkadian, which had been more prevalent in the more rural north. Up till that time, most citizens in the area were accustomed to speaking both languages in their day-to-day affairs. Sumerian still retained the prestige of the scholarly and historical language, however, and in the written scribal curriculum.

We actually have clay tablets that go back as far as 2600 BC, according to George, but he points out that these texts are very difficult to translate and understand. It's thought that this is because the language was still making the transition to a full written language, and that this process was incomplete at that time, an interesting theory.

An interesting character George discusses is the ancient King Shulgi, who lived around 2000 BC. Shulgi prided himself on both his educational and cultural accomplishments, as well as his athletic and physical prowess, bragging about about his excellence as a student in the scribal schools and as the patron and creator of important public libraries. Shulgi is reminiscent of Gilgamesh and perhaps the king consciously modeled himself after the legendary hero of the famous epic.

Anyway, the introduction and epic made for more interesting reading than I had imagined.

So many translations are either painful transliterations, coming from someone who knows the language better than his mother tongue; or they arwe car-crash renderings into a stale "academica-eese." Andrew George manages to avoid the Scylla and Charybdis in this translation. I hope more people with the "gift of tongues" can add some honey like Seamus Heany did in his beautiful rendfering of Beowulf a few years of god. These stories are beautiful, and we need to transpose that beauty in to English.

I love the format of this book. It has the standard text of Gilgamesh, but has copies of all the alternate texts and readings, so you are getting the full whammie with the book. George also included maps, "dramatis personae," helpful chronologies, a glossary of the oddf names you read in the story, adn a publication history. His essay on "from tablet to stone" is helpul in expalining all the lacunae and the gaps in the poem.

I love the illustrations which seve as a sweet spice to the text you are reading. You can actually picture Gilgamesh moving in the ancient Babylonian realm, going forth conquoring and to conquor.

This book is designed for college level reading, and it more than delivers with all of the goodies. You rarely see a book this good, that hits all of the targets in tyhe right way. I hope that other ancient texts get a similar five star treatment.