The Iliad

Anton Lesser’s voice and reading brilliantly captured the fighting, quarreling, scheming, pleading magnificent characters of the gods and goddesses, the half gods and warriors and the women. The only problem I had was with the voice of Achilles, because as a young man I imagined a less seasoned voice, and there seemed to be a little cynicism in tone which I didn’t expect, but got used to it and did not detract from my enjoyment. Goosebumps on hearing the last line. As for Ian Johnston’s translation to my untrained ears was easy to listen to, though some of the words were a bit jarring. Not generally squeamish but don’t know if the Greek original would have had Helen use the word ‘b——‘.