Victoriously Vanquishing Virgil

First off, I have a new and improved online bookshelf courtesy of shelfari.com. It is a big improvement over goodreads.com, as it automatically updates directly from the site itself. This allows all of you to read what I read, so you can become as cool as I am. Or not. Still, it's pretty nifty.

*Scratch that. Shelfari doesn't work worth a damn. It's back to good reads for me. Still, it applies just the same.

Second off, for those of you who have been keeping up with my reading lists, you know that Robert Fagles' translation of The Aeneid has been haunting my digital shelf for quite some time now. Well, at least for a few months. However, everyone will be happy to know that I finally did finish it, line for line, verse for verse. All twelve books.

For the most part, it did live up to the hype. I must say, this was one classic epic I was totally unfamiliar with. I have read a prose translation of The Odyssey, and in general, know more about the Greeks than I do about the Romans. The odyssey of Odysseus I had read, but the aeneid of Aeneas I was considerably shakier on.

So I have to admit, when I finish a big work like this, there is a bit of pride that wells up in me. The last really huge verse epic I read was John Milton's Paradise Lost, which was supplemented by great paintings by Gustave Dore. I highly recommend checking it out if you like that sort of thing. I personally can't wait for the movie, complete with THX sound and lots of digital effects. The war in heaven would be awesome.

The Aeneid was well worth the challenge, though. The translation itself was impeccable, and I already have Fagles' translation of The Odyssey which I plan to tackle when I have sufficient intellectual fortitude once again. His choice of words is superb, his imagery so rich you can almost taste it. He really does make the old live again in a sometimes mesmerizing linguistic cadence.

The Aeneid is first and foremost the tale of the founding of Rome. Just as Odysseus had to travel far and wide to find his home again after the long Trojan War, so does Aeneas. This is basically the Trojan War from the Trojans' point of view, and I must say, it is nice to see them get to lay seige to a city before it's all over. Poetic justice, quite literally. As C.S. Lewis pointed out, the death throes of Troy were also the birth pangs of Rome.

We have epic battles, gods and goddesses, the personal struggle between destiny and desire, and of course, the requisite trip to the underworld. We also have a very big shield that essentially has the entire history of Rome carved into it, names and all. Not sure how that works. And when all is said and done, that is the only thing that made this work difficult to read at times. It seems as if every single character in it is named, even if all they do is pop up and get killed (for the record, I'm really glad they don't do this on Grand Theft Auto 4). It got to be a lot to slog through, though the battle scenes during the last few books between the Trojans and the Latvians were pretty awesome.

And did I mention gory? A couple of times, I almost thought I was watching a Quentin Tarantino film, what with all the beheadings and spurting blood. Still, the book worked its way up to quite a crescendo at the the end, not unlike a summer blockbuster. You really, really wanted Aeneas and his own personal Darth Turnus to throw down. I could practically hear John Williams' "Duel of the Fates" blaring in the background.

When all is said and done, Homer and Virgil did pretty much comprise the classical world's very own George Lucas. What with recurring characters, storylines, and even themes, The Illiad, The Odyssey, and The Aeneid form a single trilogy, and as far as I'm concerned, the Robert Fagles translation should be sold as a boxed set.

In short, if you're looking for an ancient trilogy on the level of Star Wars, these are pretty much it. Sure there may not have been any action figure tie-ins and they probably won't be doing a special edition anytime soon with a digitally inserted Boba Fett, but still ...