For Gilgamesh initiates, it’s as good a place to start as any.
Relying chiefly on the works of early-20th-century scholars, Davis (Beowulf: The New Translation, 2013) gives an old-school treatment to one of the world’s foremost works of literature.
Believed to have originated in oral form more than 4,000 years ago, the ancient Middle Eastern tale of Gilgamesh has been subjected to all manner of translation: poetic, literary, literal, pastiche. Davis opts for the latter, combining the Sumerian and Akkadian versions and filling in the lacunae as befits his research. After a tidy introduction spotlighting the epic’s key historic figures (Sir Henry Rawlinson, Sir Austen Henry Layard and the integral George Smith), the familiar tale begins. Gilgamesh, the fifth king of the first dynasty of Uruk, challenges and then befriends the beast-man Enkidu, fashioned by the gods to counterbalance Gilgamesh’s decadent, ruthless comportment. Determined to be forever remembered, the godlike duo venture forth to challenge Humbaba, a fearsome giant who guards the Forest of Cedars. Their bloodlust doesn’t stop there, and as punishment for their hubris, the gods decide that Gilgamesh must live while Enkidu dies. Gilgamesh’s ensuing quest for immortality reads particularly well, resplendent with melancholy and desperation. “If you indeed be Gilgamesh, King of high-wall’d Uruk,” asks Siduri, Maker of Wine, “wherefore is your vigor so wasted and your cheeks so sunken? Wherefore is your face so wretched and why is your spirt so sorrowful?” While the original epic is known for its repetitive parallelism, Davis’ sometimes-rote translation challenges readers to work through certain redundant sections. Accompanying the text proper are two appendices; the first, Tablet XII, is treated as either an epilogue or “an appendage written by an inferior author and thus not worthy of inclusion.” The second, an earlier poem, recounts the death of Gilgamesh. Two scholarly essays help illuminate the historical and literary context of the epic, but as this version purports to draw from modern discoveries, the lack of contemporary references feels like a missed opportunity.
For Gilgamesh initiates, it’s as good a place to start as any.Pub Date: July 3, 2014
ISBN: 978-1500256463
Page Count: 138
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 4, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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