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
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
An unusual and mesmerizing novel, gracefully written and deeply disturbing.
In her first novel to be published in English, South Korean writer Han divides a story about strange obsessions and metamorphosis into three parts, each with a distinct voice.
Yeong-hye and her husband drift through calm, unexceptional lives devoid of passion or anything that might disrupt their domestic routine until the day that Yeong-hye takes every piece of meat from the refrigerator, throws it away, and announces that she's become a vegetarian. Her decision is sudden and rigid, inexplicable to her family and a society where unconventional choices elicit distaste and concern that borders on fear. Yeong-hye tries to explain that she had a dream, a horrifying nightmare of bloody, intimate violence, and that's why she won't eat meat, but her husband and family remain perplexed and disturbed. As Yeong-hye sinks further into both nightmares and the conviction that she must transform herself into a different kind of being, her condition alters the lives of three members of her family—her husband, brother-in-law, and sister—forcing them to confront unsettling desires and the alarming possibility that even with the closest familiarity, people remain strangers. Each of these relatives claims a section of the novel, and each section is strikingly written, equally absorbing whether lush or emotionally bleak. The book insists on a reader’s attention, with an almost hypnotically serene atmosphere interrupted by surreal images and frighteningly recognizable moments of ordinary despair. Han writes convincingly of the disruptive power of longing and the choice to either embrace or deny it, using details that are nearly fantastical in their strangeness to cut to the heart of the very human experience of discovering that one is no longer content with life as it is.
An unusual and mesmerizing novel, gracefully written and deeply disturbing.Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-553-44818-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Hogarth
Review Posted Online: Oct. 19, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2015
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