Product Description
The remarkable, untold story of the unlikely genius whose lifelong quest to solve the secret of golf changed the game forever.

In 1939, a billiard hall fry cook from Tacoma named Homer Kelley played golf for the first time and scored 116. Frustrated, he did not play again for six months; then when he did he shot 77. Obsessively inquisitive with a mind for science, Kelley devoted the next 30 years to solving the science behind the perfect golf swing, self-publishing his findings in 1969 in a book titled The Golfing Machine.

Unlike the bestselling instruction books of the day that required golfers to conform their swings to the author's ideals, Homer Kelley configured swings to fit every golfer. The Golfing Machine was revolutionary but also intimidating: heavy on physics, geometry and scientific vernacular, Kelley's work was largely dismissed and seemed doomed to obscurity before visionary teacher Ben Doyle and his superstar prodigy Bobby Clampett brought Kelley's teachings to worldwide prominence--only to see Clampett suffer an inexplicable implosion and blow a seven stroke lead at the British Open.

Validation finally came 70 years after Homer Kelley's odyssey began, and 25 years after his death, in the unexpected form of a teenage girl when Morgan Pressel, a "Golfing Machine baby," became the youngest golfer ever to win a major championship.

With exclusive, first-ever access to Homer Kelley's archives, veteran journalist Scott Gummer delivers an enlightening look into the nuances of the game and paints a fascinating picture of the man behind the machine, the ultimate outsider and under appreciated genius who changed the game once and for all of us. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (20)

Great history on Golf Machine
A "page turner" which I couldn't put down.My close friend who is great teacher has worked with Ben Doyle for years told me to the order the book which I'm glad I did.Amazing story.The story of Bobby Clampett filled in a lot of blanks about him,everyone who followed golf in the late 70's and early 80's will recall this major talent.His fall was blamed on the Golfing Machine and now I realize this wasn't the case at all.Loved the book, but if you are looking for book on golf instruction DON'T buy it,if you're looking for background and the evolution of the Homer Kelley's Golf Machine this a must read.

A good read not spoilt
A well written history of an interesting character.Don't look for instruction here.Buy Mr. Kelley's book.

Deceiving Title
It was suggested that I read Homer Kelley's Golfing Machine.Unfortunately, I found it on Amazon and very casually proceeded to order it. Only once I received it and began to look it over did I realize it was "a book about a book."

I'm sure the author has made a lot of money based on that deception. Fortunately, Amazon customer service was very understanding, refunded my charges and removed this item from my Kindle.

Homer Kelley's Golfing Machine:The Curious Quest That Solved Golf
This proved to be a different book than I was expecting as it was recommended to me as an instructional guide.It is not.However, I found this biographical effortvery interesting, entertaining, and a fast read.

Homer Kelly Golf Machine - Not for anyone wanting to learn a better swing
This book is about Homer Kelley and has nothing to do with learning a better golf swing. I was very dissatisfied with the book. I think it is deceptively named. ... Read more

Product Description
Today, fear may be affecting even the strongest of us. Sometimes it's immediate, caused by a sense of imminent danger-the kind we felt after terrorists destroyed the magnificent World Trade Center, tore a giant wound in the Pentagon and killed thousands of people. But sometimes fear can be enduring and become a normal way of life.

In the #1 New York Times best-selling memoir and critically acclaimed movine October Sky, Homer Hickam introduced us to the rugged town of his youth, Coalwood, West Virginia. We met the people who settled there and took on the hazardous and often brutal enterprise of coal mining.

To survive and prosper, Hickam's friends, relatives and neighbors relied on a practical no-nonsense and often humor-filled approach to living that would get them through hard times with an almost unnatural resilience and a special kind of fortitude.

In his brand new book, We Are Not Afraid, Hickam champions the remarkable attitudes that shaped the townspeople of Coalwood. Over a lifetime, they learned to take on these attitudes:

We are proud of who we are.We stand up for what we believe.We keep our families together.We trust in God but rely on ourselves.

These attitudes are summed up in the Coalwood Assumption:

WE ARE NOT AFRAID

Through poignant memories of his youth, best selling author Homer Hickam helps lead you beyond fear to find the courage and strength to live more happily and look toward to future with optimism. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (13)

wonderful
It is not easy to type out reviews on these little kindle keys but wanted to say this is the 4th of Homers I have read now and loved every one. I feel like I know him and his little town so well by now. I was also born in 1943 andrelate to alot of his writtings. I will miss him when I have read the rest. Keep writting Homer/ they are the best I have read in a very long time. Thank you. Mary in Sequim Wa.

Always a fan
Always a fan of Homer Hickam... So I am not sure he could ever write something that I wouldn't like. His whole life, is just inspiring, and when he puts pen to paper he brings his own experience to life. Just exellent.

Coalwood Attitudes to Confront Fear
Homer Hickham, author of his best-selling boyhood story, "The Rocket Boys",Rocket Boys (The Coalwood Series #1) (later made into the wonderful movie, "October Sky"October Sky (Special Edition)), writes a very different book in "We are Not Afraid".His prvious books, called the "Coalwood Series" The Coalwood Way (The Coalwood Series #2), Sky of Stone: A Memoirdealt with his upbringing in the hard-scrabble coal country town of Coalwood.Hickham grew up right next to the coal mine, and he learned the hard lessons all coal miner families learn.These values or lessons can be summed up in four sentences:

"We are proud of who we are."
"We stand up for what we believe."
"We keep our families together."
"We trust in God but rely on ourselves."

The book is divided into these four sections, and in each section, Hickham elaborates on each principle with anecdotes from his own life and the lives of coal people from Coalwood. The underlying theme of the book is that we take responsibility for the people we are and hope to become (through the moral choices we make), we are not cowed by fearful circumstances (courage in the face of fear), we support one another through thick and thin (loyal to family and country), and we rely on the foundation of faith to live out out lives with meaning and purpose (people of faith).

Hickham's four principles are not simply empty moralizing, or a wistfulsense of nostalgia; rather, he presents these principles (actually desirable character traits) that are applicable to life today, and how we do not need to live in perpetual fear of the future unknown.

We live in turbulent times.Our country has been at war with terror since 2001, and now we find ourselves sliding into a national, if not world-wide economic depression.Hickham's book gives the reader practical mind-sets to employ in facing uncertain and fearsome times.His message is that we do not have to be afraid, that we have within us, the power to overcome fear, difficult times, and personal loss.

I enjoy Hickham's writing style, a mixture of down-home practicality with a large portion of humor mixed in.May I suggest you purchase this book used (copies can be had for less than a dollar), and have each member of your family read the book.Much beneficial family discussion will inevitably result.

A nation is only as strong as the families that anchor it.In these pressing times, we need united, intact families to face the challenges unique to our time.This book helps families and individuals cope and even thrive through the most difficult of times.

Highly recommended.

konedog

Stories of Strength and Courage
Homer Hickam wrote a very enjoyable and informative book about his hometown of Coalwood, West Virginia, and the people who helped nurture him as a young boy.With his childhood stories, he took me on a journey through time to a place that many today would dismiss as "old-fashioned," and Hickam would argue was "the way things can and should be."

Inspired by the events of September 11, 2001, Hickam reflected on his youth and realized the values he grew up with in Coalwood were what many people needed to move on with their lives following the tragic terrorist attacks on America.Hickam expertly wove his thoughts and experiences into the four "Coalwood Attitudes of Strength and Courage" (We are proud of who we are, We stand up for what we believe, We keep our families together, and We trust in God but rely on ourselves), which led to the "Coalwood Assumption" that most Americans found themselves either wanting to say or saying repeatedly following 9/11: "We are not afraid."

In his introduction, Hickam explains the purpose of this book: "If you want to stop being afraid, or if you want to avoid the habits of fear and dread, this book can help by teaching you a philosophy of life that will fill your heart and soul with a sense of well-being and confidence.It is a philosophy that was developed by real people who led good, happy and hearty lives while managing to raise a crop of children who went on to have successful lives of their own."

Hickam is a master storyteller, and his stories contained many powerful moral and inspirational passages.Some I related to as personal memories, others as things I missed growing up or never thought about, and still others as a father wanting his young son to experience in his childhood.

This book has a lot to offer to many different people with many different needs in many different situations.I encourage everyone to read this book and let Hickam take you on a journey of discovery into your heart and soul.

Fear diminishes the quality of life.........Don't let it!!
We Are Not Afraid is a very inspiring book about strength and courage in perilous times.I think everyone who reads this will come away a stronger individual for it.If you have children, sons, daughters, nieces or nephews I think it is even more important to read this!!! The book was just such a "thinker".It is only 213 pages, it reads quickly but it lasts long after you close the cover.
While it is a collection of stories about growing up in a small coal-mining town in West Virginia itmakes you stop and think hard about what really should be important in life, the values, the morals, the spirit, all the things that went into creating our great Nation. Mr. Hickam points out that yes times are perilous, but that there have been many perilous times and many hardships and challenges and being afraid is not a way to meet these.He pulls no punches when he discusses the United States of America.He dismisses those who want to focus on our failures as a Nation and fail to acknowledge our ability to correct our errors and move forward as a whole.This book is a life lesson on how not to live your life in fear, and how to overcome and surmount obstacles in your way.This is not accomplished by promising "pie-in-the-sky" but by learning from the examples of others ways to be strong and have courage and face life with your head up. This revolves aroundfour important attitudes. #1 We are proud of who we are. #2 We stand up for what we believe. #3 We keep our families together. #4 We trust in God but rely on ourselves.These may sound simplistic to many people,but when they are broken down and explained you will know that it is possible to live a good purposeful life and not be diminished by fear and to pass this on to those around you. ... Read more

Product Description
Odysseus, the most heroic of the ancient Greek warriors, journeys home to Ithaca after the Trojan War. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

"This is the story of a man who was never at a loss."
"The Odyssey", as with other Greek poetry, was poetry intended to be recited orally as opposed to being read. Fitzgerald's backgroung in poetry brings out the lyrical passion of the Odyssey so prized by the Greeks as no other translation has done.

The sequel to "The Iliad", it represents the last phase of what is known as Greece's Heroic Age in which human events are governed by gods, demi-gods, and heroes.The mortal heroes are endowed with godlike gifts and are mostly tragic. They interact with emissaries from the gods who aid them to their destinies and forewarn them of the fates. Tales such as Jason and the Argonauts, the labors of Hercules, Perseus, Thesseus, etc., are also of that period. The uncertainties in Fate, glory, and mortality are always the dominant themes in these tales. The setting of "The Odyssey" is c. 1200 B.C. at the close of the Bronze Age. The Greeks are actually Myceneans, a Greek-speaking group that dominated Greece prior to the Doric invasions several centuries later. The story poetically recites a time of Myceanean geopolitical expansion across the Mediterranean and its coasts and encounters with hitherto unknown civilizations after the fall of legendary Troy.

"The Odyssey" starts many years after the Trojan war where, after many ordeals, Odysseus is reciting his travels to Princess Nausica: the young heiress of a kingdom upon which Odysseus washed ashore after being shipwrecked. He recites his departure from Troy after its sacking and how, having angered Poseidon, the god of the sea, he has been condemned to wander across the Mediterranean away from his wife and son, Penelope and Telemachus.Odysseus goes on to recite his encounters with various peoples and mythical beasts during his travels such as the lotus eaters, the sirens, the cyclopse, Scylla and Charibdis, etc.Odysseus is also held captive by powerful demi-godesses and witches such as Calypso and Circe. In Odysseus' absence, Penelope is constantly courted by unwelcome suitors who are wasting her estate. Now a young man and fed up with the suitors, Telemachus travels to mainland Greece to inquire about his father. Odysseus eventually returns to his home of Ithaca to reunite with his family and to dispose of the suitors.

There have been many disputes as to whether "The Odyssey" was really written by Homer and there's substantial evidence that it was not. Many scholars believe that a good portion of the Odyssey was written by a woman: probably a princess named Nausica whose court was in the Greek colony of Syracuse in Sicily and who cleverly inserted herself into the story. There's probably truth to that conclusion as the book is, first of all, a novel as opposed to a epic poetic recital such as "The Iliad" in which there is really no 1st person narrative.The main characters are also primarily women.The narrative seems to have a keen understanding of the female gender in terms of expectations, emotions, and behavior whereas the men are mostly faceless caricatures. This is completely inapposite to Homer's "Iliad" where the development of the male characters is rich and complex in contrast to those of women who are stereotypical representations without much depth (e.g. the women weep, moan, and are continuously reminded that their place is either in the bed or at the loom.) If one follows "The Odyssey" carefully, they will notice a distinct change in narrative style every time scenes are illustrated with nature or in various scenes involving the Gods which are very similar to the narrative style of "The Iliad." Another indication that Homer was not the main writer is that, unlike "The Iliad", the writer has no clue as to ships, navigation, or wind patterns.

Regardless of its true authorship, "The Odyssey" has been hailed as a literary jewel for the past 2900 years and there's a reason for it: it's a timeless look into the human condition as recited by a poet of immense talent. Although the characters may have lived over 3000 years ago, the epic drama has much relevance for humanity today. Fitzgerald provides a good translation that isn't weighed down like earlier ones with your "thys", "thees", "shalts", "doths", etc.Although some his word choices can be awkward such as 'wily-nily' and such, his translation is more fluid than those of many other writers and allows the reader to appreciate the meter much more without being weighed down or diluted with either archaic or overly modern English. So enjoy this masterpiece of literature in one of the best translations available to date: your money will be well spent.

Fitzgerald's Odyssey Rocks!
Robert Fitzgerald's poetic vision brings Homer's vibrant Greek verse through into full powered English poetry.I struggled through the original Greek in high school and find other translations wimp out compared to Fitzgerald's accurate, high energy images bringing the reader the vitality of the original.This is the best-ever translation of a timeless classic: one man's longing for home, loneliness and desolation overcome by insight and perseverance. Fantastic ... Read more

Product Description
I am not a pest! Everyone says Homer is a pest-especially his sisters, Lolly, Molly, Polly, and Dolly. But Homer knows he isn't and soon he has the chance to prove it! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (12)

A Must Have Essential For Any Childhood
I've adored this book since I was 7 years old.This is a timeless children's classic that delights and endures all fair-weather fads or trends.Homer's appeal is universal and there is no child above the age of 5 who will not see a part of him or herself in any of the characters.

The wit, the humour, the gentle adventure bouffe of Homer and his four insouciant sisters will bring laughter and mirth to young readers and a tear or two of love and comfort to those who read to them.

Please, do not allow any child dear to you pass through the portal of young discovery and innocence without the renewable joy of this book.

children's book
I read this book to my granson when he was here several months ago and he thoroughly enjoyed it. He is learning to read so i bought it for him.It came in great shape and I sent it off to him.

Really good children's book!!!!
I got this book for a friend who had read it to her girls when they were little. She wanted the book to read to her grandchildren and I told her I would see if I could find it. I read the book and will be sending to her for her birthday. It is so cute. She remembers the quad sisters and the one pesky little brother. I'll be sending it to her soon.

a favorite
this was a favorite of mine as a kid; fun and easy to read for kids.

My little reader loves this book!
My first grader loves reading this book!Easy words and repetitive phrases make learning to read more fun and quickly builds self esteem!
--Vicki Landes, author of "Europe For The Senses - A Photographic Journal" ... Read more

Product Description
As Homer remains an indispensable figure in the canons of world literature, interpreting the Homeric text is a challenging and high stakes enterprise. There are untold numbers of variations, imitations, alternate translations, and adaptations of the Iliad and Odyssey, making it difficult to establish what, exactly, the epics were. Gregory Nagy's essays have one central aim: to show how the text and language of Homer derive from an oral poetic system. In Homeric studies, there has been an ongoing debate centering on different ways to establish the text of Homer and the different ways to appreciate the poetry created in the language of Homer. Gregory Nagy, a lifelong Homer scholar, takes a stand in the midst of this debate. He presents an overview of millennia of scholarly engagement with Homer's poetry, shows the different editorial principles that have been applied to the texts, and evaluates their impact. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Very Useful Tool
I used this years ago in college and just got it off the shelf as I prepare to take up Homeric Greek again for fun.

This was a great help when I first needed it for both 'Odyssey' and 'Iliad' readings. I can certainly agree with those who want principal parts and more definitions, but that's why you also need Liddell and Scott's or Cunliffe's 'Lexicon...' My sticking point is that nouns could've been given a definite article and a genitive ending, even so supplying them yourself (as I did) is a great exercise.

What is so nice about this book is the great number of words listed for you and especially its portability. Take it every where; use it any time!
What Owen and Goodspeed wanted to do is provide vocabulary as simply as possible. And they succeeded.

List of words by frequency can be helpful
If you wish to read any language, vocabulary is necessary.The listing of words by frequency and parts of speech helps one to focus study time where it will bear the most fruit.

Indispensible Study Aid
I will disagree with the reviewers that fault Owen & Goodspeed for the lack of principle parts and alternate definitions; for me, the strength of this little volume was the ability to carry it tucked in a pocket and quickly drill vocabulary when I had a few minutes.Anyone reading Homer should have a good lexicon and use that for examining meanings and forms; if you memorize the contents of Owen & Goodspeed, you'll be able to quickly identify words and, if necessary, look them up for other meanings or unusual forms.

Good for Beginners, But Could Be Better
The greatest obstacle to reading Homer in Greek is the sheer density of the vocabulary. That is to say, Homer's vocabulary is
enormous. As an attempt to help the student of Homeric Greek acquire a good grasp on Homer's vocabulary, this little book is useful yet not as useful as it could have been.

The book contains word lists covering words that occur up to ten times in the Iliad and Odyssey. Unfortunately, there are serious faults with the word lists. As one reviewer has already mentioned, the verbs give only the present indicative active; with a verb such as audao (to speak, say, utter (something)(to someone)), this is no problem, since the verb only appears in a few tenses in which context and form always guarantee one's recognition of it. However, there are countless verbs which undergo such dramatic changes in form from one tense to the next
that knowing the present indicative active alone is well-nigh useless. Thus, principal parts should have been provided for such words.

Also, there are many words whose meaning changes from one context to the next. The definitions provided for such words in the word lists are almost useless, since they only equip the reader with an understanding of them in certain contexts.

One last criticism: There are a number of words which really do not need to be included in these word lists. Words like kai, de, and alla are so common and so basic that only the most intellectually challenged of Greek students would need to practice them.

So the book is useful for the absolute beginner in Homeric Greek, but its defects become more and more obvious the more
one progresses in one's learning. It's a shame that no one has come up with a better alternative to these word lists. Personally, I would love to see a full vocabulary guide to Homeric Greek such as one can find for the vocabulary of the Greek New Testament, in which principal parts and variant meanings are included, and in which all of Homer's vocabulary is covered down to those pesky hapax legomena (words used only once).

Simple but effective
This wordlist is of inestimable value to all those few yet thrice-blessed who still learn to read Homer in Greek.By the time you finish it, you will have at least a nodding acquaintance with every word that appears ten times or more in the Iliad and Odyssey.That may indeed leave a trireme of unknown words, but trust me, knowing the most frequent ones makes it much easier to get the gist of a passage before running to the lexicon.If you are learning Homer from Pharr--as nearly everyone does--this is a good reference to consult to see which words in his chapter vocabularies are worth committing to your active memory.(I wish that Pharr had marked the words of infrequent occurrence.Wright should have done this in his "revision" but he didn't really revise Pharr much at all.)

There is only one shortcoming, though I do consider it a serious one:the list of verbs does not include principal parts, and the noun list does not give genders or stems.You could easily write in the article and genitive forms for the nouns, but good luck trying to fit the five remaining principal parts of a verb on the same line as its entry.So no matter how you solve this problem, you will still need to look up nearly every word.That's an onerous task to inflict on a beginner.With a class of students, though, I suppose the teacher could divide up the drudge-work. ... Read more

Product Description
This handy guide quickly identifies the shapes, decorations, and patterns of dinnerware made by the Homer Laughlin China Company of East Liverpool, Ohio, from 1874 to the present. You will want to bring this useful reference along on buying trips so you'll have the most up-to-date information and values of all the Homer Laughlin dinnerware. Their ever-popular Fiesta, Harlequin, and Historical American Subjects are just three of more than 160 different entries covered here. The book has an A to Z listing of the dinnerware with 820 photographs, and useful sections on the dimensions, marking system, and history of the company. This is the best and most comprehensive identification book of Homer Laughlin shapes and patterns ever made available to the public. Collectors and dealers alike will rely on this book for years to come. ... Read more

Product Description
The Odyssey is the sequel to the Illiad in which the Greek hero Odysseus has many adventures in his travels. After the fall of Troy Ulysses (the name the Roman's gave Odysseus) returns to Ithica. During the nine years of the Trojan War and the subsequent eleven years it takes Odysseus to return home, his wife Penelope has to deal with a group of disruptive suitors. ... Read more

Product Description
In HOMER'S DAUGHTER Robert Graves recreates the ODYSSEY. He bases his story on Samuel Butler's argument that the author of the ODYSSEY was not the blind and bearded Homer of legend, but a young woman who calls herself Nausicaa in Graves' story.

"Here," he says, "is the story of a high-spirited and religious-minded Sicilian girl who saves her father's throne from usurpation, herself from a distasteful marriage, and her two younger brothers from butchery by boldly making things happen, instead of sitting still and hoping for the best." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Interesting approach to the problem
In his relatively short novel author presents very interesting approach to the ''Homeric problem''. But in my opinion Homer was an author of both greatest works in the literature.

An Interesting Concept
"Homer's Daughter" does not compare favorably to "I, Claudius"--Graves does not write a woman's voice convicingly. Still, the idea behind this novel is an interesting one. I can well believe after reading it that the "Odyssey" could have been written by a woman. The main character, Nausicaa, is likeable and spirited.
As an "Odyssey" fan, it was a lot of fun seeing how Graves set up the story as parallel to "The Odyssey"--the sort of situation that could have inspired it. The setting, in actual historic Greece/Mediteranean, not a mythical setting, was well-drawn and interesting. I would recommend this novel as a thought-provoking read for someone who is well-familiar with "The Odyssey".

TOO CLEVER BY HALF OF 1%
I suppose I 'enjoyed' this book in the same weary way I 'enjoyed' the same author's Wife To Mr Milton, which is also narrated in a female persona. The ever-so-clever wheeze here is to suppose that the Odyssey was indited not by Homer, nor even by another Greek of the same name, but by the Princess Nausicaa, a memorable character in it, largely for her peculiar-looking name. The Princess is not on such firm ground as Mrs Milton, whose husband definitely was one person who definitely wrote Paradise Lost and other noble works. When I was last up-to-date with Homeric scholarship (thirty-odd years ago), the English-speaking scholars had at last been converted to the view that the Homeric epics were a cumulative effort of a whole tradition of illiterate bards. This view found a shrill but entertaining and very readable proponent in Denys Page, Professor of Greek at Cambridge, whose The Homeric Odyssey is in fact a far better read than this book, even if you don't know Greek. Page even has no great opinion of the Odyssey as a poem, a very tenable view I would say.

So Graves's princess is a fraud of the worst order, a pale shadow of the 'dim phantom' who visits Penelope in Book IV. She is not purporting to be anybody in particular, but a whole lot of people. Her/their poem sucks anyway. And -- wait for this -- she does not even know what her own name means! She thinks it is something to do with BURNING ships! Can you imagine a people as superstitious as the ancient Greeks having the princess of an island that got its living from the sea called 'Burner of Ships'? The derivation of the name is from the root 'kas' with the 's' lost between vowels in the usual Greek way, and that root signifies 'excellence', which you must admit makes a lot more sense.

I still enjoyed the book as make-believe, insofar as I ever enjoy 'drag-artist' narratives. I enjoyed Wife To Mr Milton a bit more, partly because much as I detest her husband as a human being his big poem is my outright #1 in any language I can read.

Great premise -- Disappointing novel
Robert Graves had a great idea: he wanted to elaborate on the idea that "The Odyssey" was written by a woman and that the woman-author was one of the characters in the epic poem.Since the only virtuous humanwomen in the poem are Penelope and Nausicaa, Robert Graves concluded thatNausicaa is a good candidate to be the poet.

The idea itself is quitebrilliant."The Odyssey" has always been called a"women's" epic because except for Odysseus, all other importantleading characters are women and the story focuses more on domestic lifethan on war-like exploits.Thus, imagining Nausicaa as the epic's authoris not so outlandish.

That said, "Homer's Daughter" the novelis hugely disappointing.One of the major reasons why it failed to impressme is that the tone of the novel was very impersonal.I was always awarethat Robert Graves was telling the story instead of the proper narrator --Nausicaa.Speaking of Nausicaa, she is extremely unappealing.She seemsto be very intelligent and clear-headed but so cold and closed-off that Icould not care less about her.All the personal stories failed to impressme because either they were almost cartoonish, like Laodamas and Ctlimene,or plain boring, like Nausicaa and Aethon.The meeting between Odysseusand Nausicaa in "The Odyssey" is one of the best parts in theepic.Especially, when Odysseus says to Nausicaa that best of all, hewishes that she would know harmony in marriage.The meeting betweenNausicaa and Aethon in "Homer's Daughter", patterned afterOdysseus' and Nausicaa's in "The Odyssey, cannot compare.Also,Aethon pops up in the novel but I do not learn anything about his characterexcept that almost everyone who meets him has an immediate trust andaffinity for him.Instead of telling us that, Graves could have shownbetter why Aethon inspires such trust.

Robert Graves is extremely good attelling myths and whenever characters do that in the novel, the storiescome alive.This is why it is such a disappointment that he cannotreproduce the same magic when the action is between the characters in thenovel.He also writes good speeches and the confrontations in the Counciland between Aethon and the suitors are also well-realized.But when thecharacters try to related to each other, the result is unremarkable.

Robert Graves should have tried harder to expand on his idea but heseemed to be so enthralled with the premise that he pays little attentionto anything else.All in all, this is not a bad book but not asinteresting as it could have been or as other books that are historicalnovels based on mythology, such as Graves' own "Hercules, MyShipmate" and Mary Renault's "The King Must Die".

A wonderful conceit: A Sicilian princess plays Homer
Robert Graves, poet, novelist and scholar of things Greek, here explores the possibility that The Odyssey, successor to Homer's Illiad, was written by a princess of mixed Greek and other ancestry in a Greek-Trojan settlement in ancient Sicily some time after the Trojan War. Using internal evidence which suggests female authorship and a relationship of the terrain described to areas in the western Mediterranean, Graves speculates that the true author told her own story, possibly a true one, buried within the Homeric epic which has been handed down to us via the ancient Greeks. To get it included among the Homeric canon this young, energetic and extremely intelligent woman manages to get the tale incorporated into the body of Homeric songs through the auspices of a member of the Homeric guild. But, scholarly speculation aside, this is basically a tale of adventure and intrigue as it recounts the events surrounding the siege of a king's household by rebellious nobles using a suit for his young daughter's hand as an excuse to undermine and destroy her father's rule. The princess, clever and indomitable by turns, first investigates the mystery of her elder brother's disappearance and then organizes a shrewd counterplot, reminiscent of Odysseus' triumphal and bloody return to Ithaca, to reclaim her father's holdings and the honor of his house. A bit slow and ponderous in the beginning, and somewhat too scholarly, it nevertheless comes sharply to life in the second half of the book as the plot to undo the suitors' predations hurtles toward its bloody resolution. A good tale and worth the read, though it's not quite as compelling or erudite as Graves' other work in this vein: Hercules, My Shipmate -- a tale of Jason and his Argonauts on the quest for the Golden Fleece. -- Stuart W. Mirsky author of The King of Vinland's Saga ... Read more

Product Description

Product Description
This is the exciting story of Odysseus's epic journey home. After the fall of Troy, Odysseus sets sail for his island kingdom of Ithaca, not knowing that his voyage will take all of ten years. Along the way, he is to face many dangers, including the one-eyed giant Polyphemus, Circe's enchanted island, and the sirens who lure sailors to their death. He even journeys down into the underworld and meets the dead Greek heroes. And all the time, his wife and son are waiting, hoping against hope that he will come and help them face the men who have invaded their home.
Homer's great epic poem is brought to pulsating life in this critically acclaimed, classic retelling by Barbara Leonie Picard. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

This fantastic retelling has me and my two sons in its grip
This is a great retelling, which I found surprisingly engaging for my 6 and 7 year old boys, and very enjoyable for Dad and Mom as well.I'm always on the lookout for something which both they and I will like, and this really fits the bill.

A wonderful introduction to Homer
I first read Barbara Leonie Picard's retelling of the Odyssey when I was young and since that time, it has held a special place in my heart. I read it aloud to my daughter when she was a little girl.Picard captures the beauty of the language in a manner that young people can understand and appreciate. The illustrations by Kiddell Monroe, in keeping with the period, portray the characters as figures on a Grecian vase. This is a wonderful book and a terrific introduction to magical lyrical work of Homer. Over the years as I grew older I read many excellent translations of the Odyssey both in prose and in verse, but it is this introduction to Homer that first opened my eyes. ... Read more

Product Description
The classical civilizations of Greece and Rome once dominated the world, and they continue to fascinate and inspire us. Classical art and architecture, drama and epic, philosophy and politics--these are the foundations of Western civilization. In The Classical World, eminent classicist Robin Lane Fox brilliantly chronicles this vast sweep of history from Homer to the reign of Hadrian. From the Peloponnesian War through the creation of Athenian democracy, from the turbulent empire of Alexander the Great to the creation of the Roman Empire and the emergence of Christianity, Fox serves as our witty and trenchant guide. He introduces us to extraordinary heroes and horrific villains, great thinkers and blood-thirsty tyrants. Throughout this vivid tour of two of the greatest civilizations the world has ever known, we remain in the hands of a great master. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (23)

100% Satisfaction
I was very pleased with recieving this book.It was an excellent price and the quality of the book was as advertised, in excellent condition.

A magnificent, full-blooded, exciting and sympathetic history
"The Classical World: An Epic History of Greece and Rome" by Robin Lane Fox is an enormously ambitious book: it is a survey of almost a thousand years of complicated and interesting history in only 600 pages. Frankly, I'm generally skeptical of epic surveys - telescoped history is often watered-down history. Not so with "The Classical World", it is a magnificent, full-blooded, exciting and sympathetic account of Greece and Rome. Few scholars, I suspect, could pull-off anything similar: Lane Fox's classical knowledge is veritably encyclopedic. A particularly congenial aspect of the book is how Lane Fox's love for his subject matter shines through; he makes no apologies for his passion.

Negatives: a sometimes-ponderous writing style and a surfeit of French words, the themes of `luxury', `freedom' and `justice' seem occasionally procrustean, the book has a slow and somewhat confusing start and Lane Fox can be a bit pompous at times. All that said, I highly recommended it as an introduction to the classical world.

Well-Written but Reductive
In his "The Classical World:An Epic History of Greece and Rome," Oxford University's Robin Lane Fox tries to distill 900 years of classical history from the beginnings of Greek civilization to the rule of Hadrian, the Roman emperor fondest of Hellenic culture.Throughout Mr. Fox explores the themes of freedom, justice, and luxury, which was also what the ancients concerned themselves with as well.

Freedom, justice, and luxury are also themes that the thinkers and legislators of both Britain and America, as Rome's heirs, would also worry much about.Alexander Hamilton worried incessantly about luxury, and how it would drain the fledging republic's treasury and moral character.When Edmund Burke warned of the tension between liberty and empire he was referring to how young Englishmen were raping India and returning with the spoils to corrupt the British political process:for Burke, empire was a direct threat to British liberty.A much more vivid example found in "The Classical World" was Julius Caesar, whose ambitions were realized when he took command of Roman legions in Gaul, raped and pillaged these territories at the cost of millions of lives, and used the plunder to assure his political ascendancy back in Rome.(This is a disturbing insight into the nature of empire:the ambitious must exploit and expand the fringes of empire in order to rise successfully in the center.)

Mr. Fox thinks very little of Julius Caesar, who in his opinion was a mere opportunist who succeeded because of fortunate circumstances and the incompetence of his enemies.Mr. Fox also has nothing but outrageous slander for the other enemies of freedom and the republic:Mark Anthony a stupid thug, and Octavian a cowardly manipulator.Before Mr. Fox also writes how in destroying Greek freedom in order to advance his sense of freedom Alexander the Great was merely a product of the Macedonian warrior culture who sought conquest for the sake of conquest.Alexander the Great also had the good fortune to inherit tough veterans (soldiers who were still menacing and hardy even in their sixties) from his father.

This is most unfair and unkind of Mr. Fox.Both Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar were creative military geniuses, and in attacking Caesar so viciously for being the immediate destroyer of the Roman republic Mr. Fox forgets that neither Athenian democracy nor Roman republicanism were stable anyway.Human history is full of flux, and that's what accounts for creativity and diversity:Athenian democracy and Roman republicanism are temporary phenomena, as are Roman imperialism and the American hegemony of today.

If he's ambivalent about the Romans Mr. Fox has nothing but glowing admiration for the Athenians.Athens was one of many Greek city-states that were continually competing against each other.These Greek city-states were originally ruled by an aristocratic class that formed a powerful cavalry before they were overthrown by a change in military tactics (a hoplite formation whereby infantry could withstand a cavalry change) and by the disorder and instability caused by the aristocracy's inane self-defeating competition over luxury.Tyrannies arose throughout the Greek world to bring order and stability, but that threatened the Greeks' love of freedom and justice.The Greek city-states constantly struggled between order and freedom, and Athens upon overthrowing their tyrant decided upon a remarkable innovation:equal rights for all its male citizens.Male citizens were selected by lot to serve as magistrates in Athens, and so given the limited population of Athens every male had an opportunity to serve as magistrate in his life-time.Democracy required oratory, and with oratory culture and learning also flourished.The Greeks' love of freedom and their oratory were two critical factors in their successful defense against the massive Persian invasion, the definitive historical event in Mr. Fox's understanding that secured the safety of the young child of democracy in the world.

The Greeks' successors in upholding the Western tradition the Romans thought the Greeks were too dishonest, too clever, too corrupt, and too homosexual.If the Greeks worshipped the trickster Odysseus then the Romans worshipped Aeneas, whose one quality was that he was pious.The Romans were first and foremost pious, and they were a hardworking, virtuous, and simple breed who offered citizenship from all walks of life.Their virtues - honesty, simplicity, piety, and openness - were to be the bedrocks of their republic and their empire.Rome simply had the most stable, strongest, and most coherent society in their region, and it was natural that they would go out to conquer most of the known world.And when they did so it would also be natural that their original values would be diluted, and that they would over time become corrupted by luxury and empire.

Thus, what killed the Roman republic was the inevitable progress of history, and while Julius Caesar may have been a military genius he became one because Rome at that particular juncture permitted him to be one.After all, Rome had many military geniuses before, but the Roman people would have revolted against an all-conquering hero who tried too hard to push the boundaries of Rome, their traditions, and their liberty (for example, read Shakespeare's Coriolanus).By the time of Caesar, Rome was ready and willing to become an empire - all it needed was an emperor.

A book that attempted to cover 900 years of history in 600 pages is bound to be simplistic and reductive, and Robin Lane Fox clearly betrays his prejudices.Even Herodotus is fairer and more nuanced.Robin Lane Fox considers Themistocles an Athenian hero who saved Greek democracy against the Persians with his brilliant oratory and naval genius; Herodotus considers Themistocles a double-dealing thief who sought to save his own skin and who got stupid lucky against the Persians.

What ultimately propels the book is Mr. Fox's clear elegant prose, but even his writing cannot sustain the book.It is too long by half.

Bloodless and biased
In his wonderful book about Alexander the Great, Lane Fox writes: "I am bored by institutions and I do not believe in structures." As a motto for historical writing, this is excellent advice. I only wish he had taken it here.

Instead, we are presented with dry academical style writing, where "classes" pursue abstract goals (as if there were such a thing in real life) and "forces" determine events. If this technique is applied to the case at hand, we'd have to conclude that the privileged classes at Oxford try to further enrich themselves by exploiting the defenseless common book lover.

Unfortunately, this isn't the only or even the main fault of this book. Lane Fox operates with an inflexible set of moral prejudices (Greeks good, Romans bad, Spartans worse) and demands full submission to this scheme from historical facts. Unsurprisingly, this leads to huge distortions; for example, what Thucydides says about Athenians and Spartans has to be turned upside down. On the other hand, when a detail is to the author's liking, caution is completely thrown to the wind, and the most absurd anecdotes from ancient writers are presented as if they were well-established historical facts (so the obviously highly unlikely claim that Claudius was made emperor by Caligula's bodyguards on a whim when they found him hiding behind a curtain).

In summary, this was a big let-down. The book manages to be dull and annoying at the same time.

Textbook style writing
This is comprehensive and detailed, good perhaps as source for reference. It resembles a textbook more than a well integrated history. It hops from topic to topic, losing organizational coherence. And like many textbooks that one yawned through in school, it is a matter-of-fact presentation of information, with the prose lacking vitality.
It will be interesting to see if his most recent release has the same stylistic deficiencies. ... Read more

Product Description
From the beautiful mountains and streams of Canada and the Adirondacks to the sandy beaches of New England, from the picturesque coasts of English villages to the sunny shores of the Bahamas, Winslow Homer captured in his paintings the true magnificence of nature. For more than thirty years between 1873 and 1905, Winslow Homer turned to watercolors during his working vacations, concentrating on capturing the spirit of each place he visited with both spontaneity and intensity.Many of Homer’s most beautiful paintings focus on the interaction between humans and nature—a hunter carrying a deer on his shoulders, a man fishing from a small canoe, a girl lounging and reading in the grass, a young man driving cattle, a fisherman’s family anxiously watching for his return. It is Homer’s understanding of this important relationship between humans and nature that makes his paintings so intriguing.Winslow Homer Watercolors reproduces the best of these paintings. Large color plates allow these reproductions to be appreciated almost as much as the originals. Accompanying the more than 100 color plates is an eloquent introduction and detailed chronology of Homer’s life and artistic development. This stunning volume allows one to experience nature through the eyes of one of America’s greatest painters. It is a vision of nature from a century ago that is still appreciated today. ... Read more

Product Description
Helen of Troy: From Homer to Hollywood is a comprehensive literary biography of Helen of Troy, which explores the ways in which her story has been told and retold in almost every century from the ancient world to the modern day.

• Takes readers on an epic voyage into the literary representations of a woman who has wielded a great influence on Western cultural consciousness for more than three millennia
• Features a wide and diverse variety of literary sources, including epic, drama, novels, poems, film, comedy, and opera, and works by Homer, Euripides, Chaucer, Shakespeare
• Includes an analysis of a radio play by the prize-winning author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time and a Faust play by a contemporary Scottish playwright
• Explores themes such as narrative difficulties in portraying Helen, how legal history relates to her story, and how writers apportion blame or exculpate her
• Considers the aesthetic and narrative difficulties that ensue when literature translates myth

Customer Reviews (2)

She is the literary equivalent of the Mona Lisa's smile: absence is her essence
"Helen of Troy" is on the ROROTOKO list of cutting-edge intellectual nonfiction. Professor Maguire's book interview ran here as the cover feature on March 17, 2010.

beautiful, informative, wide-ranging, original book
This learned book is beautifully written and a real pleasure to read, and as the Horatian dictum specifies, it instructs and delights in equal measure.From Homer to Hollywood is a vast span, but this book gracefully treats the range, and what's more, has something to enlighten a huge range of readers, from those just getting acquainted with the topics to those already quite expert. This is a generous book, a book that will make you smile, will open your eyes, will stimulate the mind, will sharpen the aesthetic sense.Maguire is a superb writer and thinker whose reliability and deep knowledge never weigh down her sparkling wit and perceptiveness. You won't look at beauty the same way again, nor at the cultures that keep representing beauty in different ways.I highly recommend this fascinating, wonderful book.
--Britomartis ... Read more

Product Description
Scholarly infighting can get a lot more violent than most outsiders realize, but most of the time, that violence is confined to the printed page. Not so in Concord, Mass., where the arrival of Homer Kelly, a well known expert on the work of Ralph Waldo Emerson, has stirred up passions concerning a manuscript that may or may not have been written by Henry David Thoreau, one of Emerson's colleagues. Things come to a head during the towns annual re-enactment of Paul Revere's famous ride, when one of the "Minutemen" turns up dead, still in Revolutionary regalia. Accustomed to little more than the odd stolen bicycle, the local police are way over their head, but Kelly-in this, his first outing-proves as gifted at sleuthing as he is at scholarship. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Brilliant writing but no drawings in this reprint edition
I've loved Jane Langton's Homer & Mary Kelly mysteries forever, for the people, plots, history, AND for the remarkable drawings that were in all the Penguin editions, now mostly all out of print.

Felony and Mayhem, reprinting 'classic cozies,' is to be praised for returning the first of the Kelly mysteries to the bookshelf, but they left out Langton's clever line drawings. Maybe they couldn't get permission? Maybe they didn't think the drawings necessary.

I guess they're not necessary but are part & parcel of Langton's charm, a rare gift she shared with her readers.

So I'm giving this edition of this great book 3, not 5, stars and hope people will find and buy the out-of-print Penguin editions.

A Must Read Book for Jane Langton Fans
If you've read other Homer and Mary Kelly mysteries, but not this one, put this one on your list!

This book not only is a good story, but we get to see Homer and Mary when they first meet. Of course, they find each other irritating. The plot, which is quite good and intriguing, throws Mary and Homer together, but still it looks like they will never like each other. All the while, you the reader, know from the other books that they will end up together.

Langton has her usual cast of colorful and eccentric characters, an interesting mystery that goes back to the past and involves the Transcendentalists, and pokes her usual gentle fun at people who are carried away with themselves.

I enjoyed this both for seeing how Homer and Mary met, and for the story itself. A must for those who enjoy Homer and Mary Kelly!

Henry David and Emily ?
Henry David Thoreau and Emily Dickenson together ... well perhaps?Detective Homer Kelly and beautiful librarian Mary Morgan together ... you'll just have to read it! The 60 short chapters keep the story and the mystery moving along shapely, like a bite out of a McIntosh apple or a cool swig of apple cider.Perhaps there is nothing transcendental about murder, but each chapter is introduced by a quote from Thoreau, Emerson, Dickenson, or the Alcotts, and the quotes help you feel the presence of these in Concord. A good mystery and a fun read! As a bird watcher, I would have to question the realism of the Bald Eagle being Teddy's last bird on Thoreau's list, particularly since the now extinct, Passenger Pigeon was seen by Thoreau.

It stays in the mind
I first read this book in 1966 in high school and remember becoming instantly attracted to the characters and the New England setting.Even after all these years I remember worrying that Mary and Homer would neverget together.They were both so different and eccentric they belongedtogether! Langton also manages to keep a respectable mystery going thatkeeps you guessing and with an exciting ending. Over the years I haveread and enjoyed Langton's other books as very literate - just quirky andfunny enough to be charming without being silly. Some years ago I visitedNew England and found myself imagining Mary and Homer in the places Ivisited. So it appears I can never forget Mary and Homer as they havebecome a part of my life. Over 30 years ago I wished these characters werereal so I could meet them - after all this time I still do.

This one got me Hooked!
I read this book on a trip overseas; several of us did a paperback swap to lighten our loads and at first I was none too thrilled to have to lug thisone around. But to my surprise and sheer delight, it started a wonderfullove affair with this author's main character, Homer Kelly.I love hisclumsy actions, absent-minded professor ways -- and Jane Langton's linedrawings are wonderful.I have read every one of these books and scanamazon constantly for news of her latest releases. Set in Massachusetts, itis just a great read. Enjoy! ... Read more

Product Description

As a five-feet-three-inch hunchback who weighed about 100 pounds, Homer Lea (1876--1912), was an unlikely candidate for life on the battlefield, yet he became a world-renowned military hero. In the Dragon's Lair: The Exploits of Homer Lea paints a revealing portrait of a diminutive yet determined man who never earned his valor on the field of battle, but left an indelible mark on his times.

Lawrence M. Kaplan draws from extensive research to illuminate the life of a "man of mystery," while also yielding a clearer understanding of the early twentieth-century Chinese underground reform and revolutionary movements. Lea's career began in the inner circles of a powerful Chinese movement in San Francisco that led him to a generalship during the Boxer Rebellion. Fixated with commanding his own Chinese army, Lea's inflated aspirations were almost always dashed by reality. Although he never achieved the leadership role for which he strived, he became a trusted advisor to revolutionary leader Dr. Sun Yat-sen during the 1911 revolution that overthrew the Manchu Dynasty.

As an author, Lea garnered fame for two books on geopolitics: The Valor of Ignorance, which examined weaknesses in the American defenses and included dire warnings of an impending Japanese-American war, and The Day of the Saxon, which predicted the decline of the British Empire. More than a character study, In the Dragon's Lair provides insight into the establishment and execution of underground reform and revolutionary movements within U.S. immigrant communities and in southern China, as well as early twentieth-century geopolitical thought.

Product Description

Customer Reviews (1)

awesome
ben caldwell does amazing work
i only hope they will print this in a larger scale in the near future ... Read more

Product Description
Professor Shipp's purpose in the first edition of this book (published in 1953) was 'to examine in as much detail as possible the development of the language of the Iliad in some of its typical features, with careful attention to the spoken dialects involved and to the influence of metre'. In the second edition he widens the scope of his work to examine the Odyssey as well as the Iliad, and he extends its detail to include syntax as well as grammatical forms and to cover questions of vocabulary more comprehensively. The author's earlier conclusions are shown to be confirmed, and an important further result for the Odyssey has been to show the typical lateness of the language of moralizing passages. ... Read more

Product Description
In this book Joachim Latacz turns the spotlight of modern research on the much-debated question of whether the wealthy city of Troy described by Homer in the Iliad was a poetic fiction or a memory of historical reality. Earlier excavations at the hill of Hisarlik, in Turkey, on the Dardanelles, brought no answer, but in 1988 a new archaeological enterprise, under the direction of Manfred Korfmann, led to a radical shift in understanding. Latacz, one of Korfmann's closest collaborators, traces the course of these excavations, and the renewed investigation of the imperial Hittite archives they have inspired. As he demonstrates, it is now clear that the background against which the plot of the Iliad is acted out is the historical reality of the thirteenth century BC. The Troy story as a whole must have arisen in this period, and we can detect traces of it in Homer's great poem. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (11)

Troy and Homer
My husband is a great fan of Homer and of Troy. This book is a wonderful combination of both. Factual yet written interestingly and with ferver.

If I can ever get my husband to put it down, for a moment, I might get to read it, too.

A first-rate text!

The fascinating feature of the archeology essentially resides in the continuous mobility of its nature; where every single day you may find out an evidence that destroys a whole life of sacred investigation. Because the basic corpus of its study is fed for many variables and several disciplines, where the random sequence of the intermingled factors can generate a fruitful and new hypothesis of work. History, geography, psychology, sense of ownership, military defense, religious beliefs, social conventions and mental paradigms constitute a huge parade of unlimited possibilities. And you as fevered and ceaseless analyst has to disentangle, take off and ensphere the countless clues, traces and findings along the uncertain road of riddles and enigmas.

For many persons around the world (as I do) Troy has been a matter of undeniable passion, that has transcended by far, the febrile imagination of Homer. Schliemann and more recently, Michael Wood, as well as a ser of thinkers have dealt with this captivating and enigmatic fact.

This book brings new lights around this first-rate issue. New investigations that will induce you to rethink and even reconsider all the basic premises. Once you begin to read it, you will be engaged by its extraordinary informative value around, where the finding of new signs place us before an absolutely different perspective.

Absolutely recomendable.

A handy update on the affairs of Troy (with annoying quirks)
The whole of my reaction to this book is divided into three parts.

First, this book is a convenient source of information on the preliminary results of the excavations carried out at Hisarlik in Turkey under the leadership of Manfred Korfmann since 1988, as well as news about a 2003 re-interpretation of a letter from the Hittite archives known since 1928.

The truly new information in the book is that the football stadium-sized citadel at Hisarlik, which has been regarded as Troy since Schliemann's day and was almost certainly regarded as that in classical times, turns out to be exactly that: a citadel.It was the keep of a much larger walled city, serving much the same function to Troy (or whatever) that the old acropolis did for Athens before it was burnt in the Persian invasion.The full extent of Troy (or ...), its residential areas protected by a wall much less formidable than those of the citadel, as well as by anti-chariot ditches, is much greater than formerly believed and the town may have housed a population as great as 10,000.In the context of its time and place, this Troy (or ...) was a major population center.As such, rather than being merely the fortress of a relatively small-scale nest of pirates, it serves much more comfortably as the focal point of a vast sea-borne invasion.

The re-interpreted document appears in this English translation but not in Latacz's German original edition, since it was published in 2003, after the German text was in print.The document in question is now said to be a letter from the king of Ahhijawa (or Achijawa) to the Great King of the Hittites that asserts his claims to some islands in the northern Aegean, most likely Lemnos, Imbros and/or Samothrace.Now these kings of Ahhijawa were almighty nuisances to the Hittites, who ranked with the Assyrians and Egyptians among the Great Powers of the time.Ahhijawa was powerful enough to command a certain diplomatic respect and distant enough to avoid being crushed by the land-based forces of the Hittite military machine.Ahhijawa was almost certainly a naval power.

The name most commonly used by Homer for his Greeks is Latinized as "Achaean," from the Greek "Achaioi."Linguistics pretty conclusively demonstrate that the pre-Homeric form of this name was Achaiwoi.Ever since the name Ahhijawa turned up in the Hittite archives, some scholars have heatedly asserted that it is obviously the name applied by civilized Hittite scribes to the land of the barbarian Achaeans, while other scholars have just as fiercely denied it.

One of the Ahhijawan kings corresponded with Hattusili(s) II, the Hittite Great King whose reign centered around 1250 BC.The Ahhijawan's name was Tawagalawa(s).And that name has been identified as a Hittite version of the Greek name Eteokles, in its earlier form of Etewokles (while other scholars have ... etc.)Eteokles, of course, is remembered in Greek myth and legend as a prominent member of the Theban royal family and a descendant of the founder of Thebes, Kadmos.

This letter from Ahhijawa regarding the ownership of the islands appears not only to be from our old friend Tawagalawa, but in it he bases his claim on the domain of a distant ancestor who happened to be named Kadmos [page 244].Most annoyingly, Latacz's translators fail to provide the Hittite version of the name identified with Kadmos, so we are obliged to take the identification on faith.Nevertheless, if the Kadmos-Eteokles genealogy is actually there in the Hittite archives, it is an impressive boost to the historicity of Greek legends.

The second thing about this book is attitude.It's full of it.Despite Latacz's academic credentials and the prestige of the publisher, the tone of the book is resolutely not scholarly but popularizing ... well, as popular as the subject matter will allow.Inordinate pride is taken in favorable comments appearing in German popular journals whose very existence is a matter of indifference to members of the English-speaking world.Prior excavators at Hisarlik, Latacz allows, all did well enough, considering their biases and limited technical resources, but now for the first time truly competent people are on the scene and they are finally making worthwhile discoveries.Earlier investigators of Homer and history have been trapped in the ghetto of the classicists (with a couple of exceptions almost grudgingly acknowledged), but the current crop are properly oriented toward middle eastern excavation and history.The vast majority of the text is devoted to rehashing material firmly established since the 1950s.Indeed, a good part of the text would have been old hat in the 1880s.But readers not familiar with the development of this little corner of scholarship would hardly be able to differentiate between the wholesale rehashing of old learning and the light seasoning of new material.

The third part of my reaction to the book relates to the translation.The translation has a strong and pervasive German accent.This is particularly odd because the translators, Windle and Ireland, are both associated with the School of Language Studies at the Australian National University.What were those cobbers thinking?I'm not at all chuffed about the result.

Using a much simplified version of a method used by philological scholars of the 19th Century, the ones who get such short shrift in this book, I am willing to hazard a guess that Windle and Ireland didn't work jointly on the whole text, but rather worked independently on individual chapters or, less likely, on individual sections.The test is pronunciation.One translator followed the conventions of the English language and referred to an ancient people and their language as "Luvian" (pronounced just the way it looks.)The other translator, the one who more often referred to those ancient people, followed German convention and called them "Luwian" (pronounced "Luvian.")The w-man is the one who prepared the index.

All very minor, idiosyncratic stuff, you might think until you come on passages devoted to historic sound changes in the Greek language and only belatedly realize that they are literal translations from the German (and of German sounds) without acknowledgment of or adjustment for English-based readers.One passage actually says something on the order of the sound represented by the archaic Greek letter digamma was originally pronounced like W, evolved into something like the English W and then disappeared in most Greek dialects before Homer's time.I think what the w-translator really meant was that digamma was originally pronounced V, became W and then disappeared.Things start getting hairy when dealing with the name Homer often uses for his besieged city: Ilios, as in the proposed equation of Ilios = pre-Homeric Wilios = Hittite Wilusa(?).

Attitude and annoying translation quirks aside, this book is still a handy summary of current scholarship and dispute.It helps, though, if you have a fairly good idea of what they're talking about before you plough through the actual words of the translators.

Scholarly intent rules here.
Latacz's intent is to update scholarship for those with an interest in Troy (particularly researchers in interdisciplinary areas related to such study) and to do so by means of tightly structured argument. In this he succeeds. One might find his conclusions tentative and contingent on further corroboration, but, nevertheless, he indicates the direction of future inquiry. Yes, he uses periodic sentences, but he's entitled to his style, like Homer. Yes, the effect of his prose and framework make for dry reading, but they inform, even if they don't entertain. Worth reading, particularly for someone who will read one book about antiquity in a decade or who has little time to keep up with someone else's speciality. Still, scholarly inquiry pales when compared to the brilliance of the text it seeks to illuminate. Poetry exists to be enjoyed; scholarship to be understood. Their domains, cognitive and affective, are distinct and evaluated by different rules. "The Odyssey" is great art; "Troy and Homer" is but a good summary of rapidly changing scholarship. Some questions aren't examined, the economic cause of the Trojan War, for example. And the book itself is historic source material about Classical studies--proof that, a century after alienating its creative element, philological study, as practiced by the Grammarians, still asserts hegemony. Finally, reading between the lines, one sees the vanity of scholars competing for recognition, legitimacy, and honors on a subject that, however interesting, is marginal.All knowledge is not equally worthwhile, and irony is best served dry.

I have to dissent from the favorable reviews ...
but this is barely readable.

The translators have struggled earnestly, but what can you really do with a sentence like this, from the preface? "The idea of writing a book about the new research at Troy, which had developed in so many directions, arose from a combination of external impulses and a personal feeling that, given the fundamental turnabout in the research situation in Bronze Age history, which is to a large extent due to the new Troy research, a provisional appraisal of the facts and theories now to hand was needed and would probably be of value for further work in the various disciplines involved."

It's impossible to read the Iliad without feeling its historicity, that it was based on accounts of an important conflict and strong characters. But Homer is foremost a poet, a geographer of the soul, not of the soil. Professor Latacz can at most show that the physical, linguistic and written evidence available do not contradict Homer in his essential narrative. His attempt to elevate Homer to historical evidence is in the best heroic tradition, courage in the face of certain failure. ... Read more