Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I've read the translations of Fitzgerald, Fagles, and now Wilson. I've followed a pre-MOOC online course on the poem from Stanford. I'm in no way a scholar of it, can't read ancient Greek, etc. but at age 81 I consider The Odyssey the greatest book I have ever read, for itself and for its influence on my ways of thinking and of living. I liked the Wilson version and find many aspects of it the best version. But overall I still find the Fitzgerald version the most satisfying. The main reason is that, in comparison to the others, it is best at creating the mood of an ancient, epic, poem. In contrast, Washington Post reviewer Madeline Miller praised Wilson for her "fresh, unpretentious, and lean" language -- exactly why I prefer Fitzgerald who is a bit more gaudy, flowery, and, yes, far from lean. I love it when he repeats, for the nth time, "Son of Laertes and the Gods of old, Odysseus, master of land ways and sea ways..." and other such formulaic hints that we are not reading a James Bond or even a Scott Fitzgerald, nor Salinger, nor McEwan, nor certainly a Hemingway novel -- the content should perhaps be enough to distinguish Odyssey as the great epic it is, but I like the complementing embellishments of Fitzgerald's version. For a more important difference, compare the climax, as Odysseus is about to slaughter the suitors: Fitzgerald has him say: "You yellow dogs, you thought I'd never make it home from the land of Troy. You took my house to plunder, twisted my maids to serve your beds. You dared bid for my wife while I was still alive. Contempt was all you had for the gods who rule wide heaven, contempt for what men say of you hereafter. Your last hour has come. You die in blood." while Wilson's has it: "Dogs! So you thought I would not come back home from Troy? And so you fleeced my house, and raped my slave girls, and you flirted with my wife while I am still alive! You did not fear the gods who live in heaven, and you thought no man would ever come to take revenge. Now you are trapped inside the snares of death." Aside from Fitzgerald’s far more poetic language, there is a substantive difference. Wilson focuses on fear: the suitors didn’t fear either the gods, or the vengeance of men. But Fitzgerald focuses on breaking the rules, on disrespecting the mores of their time: the suitors were contemptuous of both the gods, and the opinions of their fellow men. The Odyssey is about many things, including of course homecoming; for me it’s mostly about doing the right thing. Anyhow, all this is nothing more than IMHO. Read either version, or that of Fagles, you won’t go wrong. It's an all-time great read.