5/5 stars
recommended
Background:
I received this book several weeks ago from the secretary of the physics department at my school. She was cleaning out the storage room of the planetarium and recovered it from an old box that was lying around. This is a very old book. The copyright is 1970 and the afterward is copyright 1972. Presumably, this copy that I have was printed somewhere around 1972-1975.
I recommend this book. Gilgamesh is now officially the oldest piece of literature I’ve read (The estimate is that this story originated circa 1800 B.C. – the early bronze age) It’s quite interesting to realize that a story your reading vastly predates anything else that you have ever read by an astronomical amount of time. Additionally, this is a story that touches on the human experience in such a raw and authentic way. It is very understandable that this story was deemed valuable enough to be passed down in oral tradition and in written form for thousands of years.
The story is almost a coming of age tale, with the exemption that age doesn’t factor into the story at all. The protagonist, “Gilgamesh” finds himself struggling with loss to such a degree that he seemingly can’t help but fall into an arduous journey in the hopes of finding resolution through acquiring eternal life. This story has a lot of archetypal plot elements. Gilgamesh voluntarily enters, and yet at the same, is forced into a journey to find a mystic/sage character (who interestingly will remind the reader quite a bit of “Noah” from the bible. Wikipedia has more information on this “flood” reference, which is very fascinating). Gilgamesh has to confront the unknown, both internally and externally. All throughout his journey, he encounters forces (both people and circumstances) that tell him to turn back. They tell him that he has made it far enough and that he should turn back and forgo his quest.
There are some very poignant lines in this book, and they treat the reader to some profound moments. For instance, paraphrasing the narrator describing the mental pain of Gilgamesh early on in his journey, the picture is painted that “the size and nature of the creatures in his mind grow monstrous.”
I recommend that you indulge in the historicity of this tale, and give this translation a read. Remember, The Epic of Gilgamesh is technically a poem, but from Sumerian clay tablets to modern-day English, this will read as prose.
Technical Details:
The Herbert Mason translation is very streamlined, and it’s very easy to comprehend. This book, while formatted in verse structure, does not read like poetry. There is no rhyme or meter structure. You can read this just like any text you might come across.
This particular translation is streamlined, in that there are several scenes of the story that have been trimmed down for brevity. Also, it’s written with (for the most part) everyday vocabulary. I don’t recall using a dictionary at any point when reading this book. It isn’t very lengthy, and realistically it can be read within a day.