Product Description
The brilliant new Virgil Flowers thriller from the #1 New York Times-bestselling author.

One late fall Sunday in southern Minnesota, a farmer brings a load of soybeans to a local grain elevator- and a young man hits him on the head with a steel bar, drops him into the grain bin, waits until he's sure he's dead, and then calls the sheriff to report the "accident." Suspicious, the sheriff calls in Virgil Flowers, who quickly breaks the kid down...and the next day the boy's found hanging in his cell. Remorse? Virgil isn't so sure, and as he investigates he begins to uncover a multigeneration, multifamily conspiracy-a series of crimes of such monstrosity that, though he's seen an awful lot in his life, even he has difficulty in comprehending it...and in figuring out what to do next. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (71)

Kathy's refview of Bad Blood
Great writing as usual. That "effing Flowers" is truly a character. Lots of action. Well worth the read.

good but disturbing
I love vergil - he is a great character- the book is pretty well written but the subject matter is dark and disturbing.to be honest, i would rather not think that the subject portrayed actually exists in the world.the entertainment value is way outwayed by the disturbing subject.

Bad Blood
I have read all Sandford's books & particularly enjoy the one's featuring Virgil "T.F Flowers" for a change. Nevertheless, Lucas Davenport totally "rules" & was glad he had some interaction in Bad Blood. Good read & a tad slow in spots but sadly a very disturbing subject matter that I'm afraid exists more than we may realize.... even though a fringe element of our society.

a good read
This book by John Sanford is one of the best Virgil Flowers novels I have read. Virgil is a character all his own and is believable as well as the rest of the cast of characters.The story is challenging and irresistable, compelling you to finish to find out what happens. A good read.

J. Robert Ewbank author "John Wesley, Natural Man, and the 'Isms'"

This book sucks!
Has Sandford run out of stories? This is one of his worst books and I have read them all. His last few books have not been good. I have fond memories of his early books. ... Read more

Product Description
Three murders in just as many weeks in the quiet rural town of Bluestream is unheard of. It’s also no coincidence. And it’s not over: Detective Virgil Flowers is about to be pulled into the middle of a killer’s violent personal vendetta. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (113)

BORING, BORing, Boring!
I finished reading this book last night and it's one of the worst books I've read in a long time. Like another reviewer, I kept waiting for something to happen. It never did.The killer was never developed. The story just fizzed out. A real letdown. I may never read another Sandford novel.

Long plodding plot....
I listen to books on CD while I'm driving so I have a high tolerance for mediocrity....I've listened to complete books that I never would read.This falls into that category.It took me a while to plod through it even though I logged a lot of miles in the last two weeks.

I agree with many other reviewers here that the characters are undeveloped and uninteresting.The most gripping think about Virgil Flowers is his name.Other than that, he's a stock character....good looking, sexy, loves the ladies and vice/versa, willing to fight but really has a sensitive side.His attitude towards women was pretty off-putting---he never seemed to see beyond their physical attributes...maybe that's why he was divorced three times.Sorry, I just didn't care that much about Virgil. (The romantic scenes sounded like they were written by a jr. high boy.)

His lady of the moment, was no more interesting.I think it's safe to say this was not a character-driven plot.It was all supposedly plot driven. I'm not really a mystery fan so I guess my comments should be taken with a grain of salt.I know good writing though and this wasn't it.There are so many characters and so many subthreads and it's terribly long and after a while, I really didn't care.

This was my first John Sanford novel.As other have said that this is not up to his usual standard I may try him another time.Only on audio, though.

Good mystery
A good first book about Virgil Flowers, who has appeared in some of John Sanford's later books in the "Prey" series. He's very unique as a charecter and as a cop. This mystery held my interest and kept me guessing through the twists and turns that develop throughout the story to the unexpected end. I recommend this book to fans of mysteries and especially to faithful readers of John Sanford's books. He writes about the same charecters, but each book is very different. I would recommend reading them in order, starting with the first in each series. They are always exciting!

Don't waste your time!
After managing to get three-quarters of the way through this book I decided to go back to the first few pages inside the front cover and re-read the reviews. I'm sure those reviews were written about a different book than the one I was reading.

This story-line is uninspired, boring, and does nothing to make you care about any of the characters.

The reviews say it's "Fast Paced," think- turtle races. The reviews say "non-stop action," think- grass growing (in August).

I only finished reading the book because, well, I don't know why I finished it. But I did.

Instead of reading this book, do something exciting, Watch paint dry.

Great Story - Horrible Book
The actual story was very good, no complaints there. It was interesting to see Virgil Flowers as the main character in a story. He seemed like he would be worthy of having his own spin-off series. I hope that happens.

My complaints are with the physical condition of the book itself. I spent a few extra bucks and got a hardcover edition. The book looked liked it had been stored outside and had been exposed to the elements. Many pages had obvious water stains...at least I HOPE they were water stains, the front and back cover were warped, the inside covers were torn, showing evidence that the original exterior cover had been peeled off, and so far I have discovered one page that actually had a hole in it.

I just have one question. Is Amazon selling badly used books and trying to pass them off as new? ... Read more

Product Description
The murder of a successful advertising executive leads Detective Virgil Flowers to the unlikely scene of the crime: a peaceful and bucolic wooded resort. But one with as many suspects as it has secrets. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (115)

Great Read! Finished in two days..couldn't stop reading.
Very entertaining book to read. Not terribly deep, but a good mystery nontheless. The dialogue between the cops is right on the spot! Really like the character of Virgil Flowers and how he handles his investigations. Looking forward to the next book.

Offsetting the Kindle whiners
This book was excellent....well written with a moving plot. I've found myself growing very fond of Virgil and all his flaws (especially with the women). There were actually a few laugh out loud moments in the book. Hopefully my 5 star rating (which I truly believe the book was) will offset all the TOOLS whining about the Kindle price and giving one star ratings.

$5.59 at Costco 10-23-2010
What a rip off.I can buy this book for $5.59 at Costco today. And when I am finished I can sell it to a used book store or give it to someone else. I like my Kindle but I feel like I am increasingly getting ripped off

Excellent story
This is the first book that I have read by John Sandford.The plot sounded interesting when I picked it up at the airport bookstore.I laughed out loud at some of the descriptions of life in the north woods.The story offered twists and turns that I could not predict. I could not put the book down and was surprised by the ending.I am looking forward to the other Virgil Flowers books.

Big Sandford fan, Virgil is growing on me, annoying plot point.
How do you rate a book where you like the author and increasingly like the central character but can't get past a glaring plot point that pretty much ruins the book for you.I don't want to give anything away, but there's a plot line in the book that was joint so off key it was irritating. Suffice it to say a character meets a easily predictable end in a thoroughly predictable manner and the lead detective does nothing about it and seems surprised. In a Lucas book there would have been a deabte about using the character as bait or at least the morality of it. Here, it's a surprise to everyone, except the reader. Really kind of blew an otherwise enjoyable book for me. ... Read more

Product Description
Fresh from his “spectacular” (Cleveland Plain Dealer) debut in Dark of the Moon, investigator Virgil Flowers takes on a puzzling—and most alarming—case, in the new book from the #1 bestselling author.

John Sandford’s introduction of Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension investigator Virgil Flowers was an immediate critical and popular success: “laser-sharp characters and a plot that’s fast and surprising” (Cleveland Plain Dealer); “an idiosyncratic, thoroughly ingratiating hero” (Booklist). Flowers is only in his late thirties, but he’s been around the block a few times, and he doesn’t think much can surprise him anymore. He’s wrong.

It’s a hot, humid summer night in Minnesota, and Flowers is in bed with one of his ex-wives (the second one, if you’re keeping count), when the phone rings. It’s Lucas Davenport. There’s a body in Stillwater—two shots to the head, found near a veteran’s memorial. And the victim has a lemon in his mouth.

Exactly like the body they found last week.

The more Flowers works the murders, the more convinced he is that someone’s keeping a list, and that the list could have a lot more names on it. If he could only find out what connects them all . . . and then he does, and he’s almost sorry he did.

Because if it’s true, then this whole thing leads down a lot more trails than he thought—and every one of them is booby-trapped.

Filled with the audacious plotting, rich characters, and brilliant suspense that have always made his books “compulsively readable” (Los Angeles Times), this is vintage Sandford. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (84)

That F'in Flowers
I am a fan of Virgil Flowers, maybe even more than I am a fan of Lucas Davenport.Davenport can come off as a bit uptight and serious, while Flowers has more of a laissez-faire style, and a good deal of recklessness. When we join him in this story, he is investigating a series of murders where the victims are left at Veterans' memorials with lemons in their mouths. Soon, a connection to the Vietnam War emerges, and Flowers travels the state of Minnesota chasing down leads.Along the way, we see his trademark affinity for troubled women, and he finds himself fooled on more than one occasion.And that's why we love Virgil... He's not perfect. The state of Minnesota is also the perfect backdrop for this outdoorsman, and I feel like I know the state after seeing it through his eyes.

Good story line
Mr. Sandford could have conveyed the same great story without the profanity, but then I guess it wouldn't have been as realistic for most people.Outside of that, I truly enjoyed this book.I'd never read a Virgil Flowers novel, only Lucas Davenport.I like this character just as well.

A Fast Paced Virgil Flowers Novel
This is a no-nonsense fast paced, plausible novel that does not dawdle & waste time with rhetoric.
Lucas Davenport assigns a series of mysterious "Lemon" murders to Virgil Flowers.
The murders, we find, are revenge for atrocities committed in Vietnam in 1975. The murders target certain GI's that took part in the original crime. The plot makes for a very plausible story which just keeps moving right along. No wasted dialogue in this book

Virgil is a surprise
I thought Lucus Davenport was the premire character in the John Sandford novels.Virgil f---ing Flowers may be even more fun. Taking after my own heart, Virgil is a fisherman first, serious crime solver second - sort of. This novel takes Virgil to new levels, testing him through a love affair, old murders tied to the Vietnam War and racial tentions involving the resident Native American population in Minnasota.Fast moving, tense, and entertaining, with a dash of good old Lucus, this book was a nice surprise.I will definately be looking forward to the next in the seriesJohnny's Jacket.

Pretty Good
This was a petty good, quick read. Virgil Flowers is an enjoyable character; good sense of humor. The plot had plenty of interesting twists and turns; kept my interest. Good ending. I also enjoyed the international slant. Its a good great but not great; I've read better books from John Sanford. While reading it, I just had the feeling that it was written quickly. The writing seemed clipped. The characters and sense of place could have been developed further. I enjoy reading John Sanford's books.But this one is not on top of my list of favorites. Probably a good book to read on a long flight. ... Read more

Product Description
Fate takes many forms. . . .
 
When Henry receives a letter from an elderly taxidermist, it poses a puzzle that he cannot resist. As he is pulled further into the world of this strange and calculating man, Henry becomes increasingly involved with the lives of a donkey and a howler monkey—named Beatrice and Virgil—and the epic journey they undertake together.

With all the spirit and originality that made Life of Pi so beloved, this brilliant new novel takes the reader on a haunting odyssey. On the way Martel asks profound questions about life and art, truth and deception, responsibility and complicity.
 Amazon.com Review
Yann Martel on Animals and the Holocaust in Beatrice and Virgil

I often get asked the question why I use animals in my stories. Life of Pi was set in a zoo and featured a number of animals, and animals once again play a prominent role in my new novel, Beatrice and Virgil. Am I a great animal lover? Well, I suppose I am; nature is indeed beautiful. But the actual reason I like to use animals is because they help me tell my tale. People are cynical about people, but less so about wild animals. A rhinoceros dentist elicits less skepticism, in some ways, than a German dentist. I also use animals in my fiction because people rarely see animals as they truly are, biologically. Rather, they tend to project human traits onto them, seeing nobility in one species, cowardice in another, and so on. This is biological nonsense, of course; every species is and behaves as it needs to in order to survive. But this animal-as-canvas quality is useful for a storyteller. It means that an animal that people feel kindly towards becomes a character that readers feel kindly towards.

Why did I choose to write a novel about the Holocaust? There’s nothing personal to this interest; I’m neither Jewish, nor of German or eastern European extraction. I’m a complete outsider who’s been staring at this monstrous massacre of innocents since I first learned about it as a child living in France. It’s as an artist that I’ve kept coming back to the subject. What can I do as an artist about the Holocaust? I believe that if history does not express itself as art, it will not survive in common human memory. And so I took what I knew of the Holocaust, the cumulative knowledge of my reading and viewing and visiting (both to camps in Poland and Germany and to Yad Vashem in Israel and to various museums), and I set it next to that part of me that wants to understand through the imagination. Then I sat down and wrote Beatrice and Virgil.

Customer Reviews (123)

What happened to the DOG?
This novel was absolutely terrible, and I am so dissapointed because I really loved Life of Pi.

For the life of me, I can't figure out what exactly happened to the dog and what connection it has to the larger plot of the story.

beatrice & virgil
This is a must read; it's a keeper; it's one to share; it's one to read more than once.Fabulous for a book club discussion group, or a bunch of college kids to discuss.Really thought provoking.

Exploring "The Horrors"
Henry had a phenomenally successful first novel, but his second book, a far-fetched opus about the Holocaust combining fiction and nonfiction, proves to be unpublishable. Shaken, Henry withdraws from writing and moves to an unnamed city where he takes classes, answers fan-mail, and apparently has no need to work. After some time the fan-mail draws him into a strange relationship with a taxidermist who is attempting to write a play.

In the taxidermist's never-to-be-finished script, a howler monkey has an unlikely relationship with a donkey. Both of them talk in riddles, trying to find a way to discuss unspeakable things. It gradually becomes clear that "The Horrors" they speak of refer to the Holocaust. Henry can't make much sense of the writing or form any kind of relationship with the taxidermist, but slowly becomes aware that as he delves into the play, evil is breaking into his comfortable world.

This is a challenging book, with its story-within-story structure and a certain self-important literary style. You will either love it or hate it, but you will find it hard to get the book out of your head. You will not find anything uplifting here. It's an exloration of evil in different and overlapping ways. I'm glad I read it, and I recommend it, but it's not for everyone. Reviewed by Louis N. Gruber.

Pretentious Pears, and other inanities.
I gave up on Life of Pi 75 pages into reading it, for the same reason I hated this book.The arrogant, pretentious, blather.I've often wondered if I should give Pi another go, but after reading this I know I made the right decision.

This is the message I got from the author:

"I love me, don't you?Hark!I shall now describe a pear."

For 20 minutes (or at least, what felt like 20 minutes, but at least 15 or 20 sentences longer than was necessary or interesting.)We were also treated to such fascinating tidbits as Flaubert Cliff Notes, and the author's practice of reading and responding to his fan mail. Another of his self-love moments.Dull. Dull. Dull. Blah. Blah. Blah. Silence.Blah.

Then we got to the play within the story, (enter the pear).Allegory, Schmallegory.Martel left nothing to the imagination.Heaven forbid the reader interpret anything as they saw it, every little bit of the story was explained.It felt like a lecture.

The human characters in this book were awful.Unlikeable.Maybe that was by design considering the subject matter.But I didn't care what happened to who, and I couldn't wait for them all to just SHUT. UP.

I listened to this on audio, which was 6 hours long.The first 5 hours, I eye-rolled so many times I think I actually improved my vision with the workout I got. However, there was some redemption in the last hour (and it saved this book from a 1-star review.)There were fleeting moments of brilliance and it could have been great if the author didn't seem so bent on impressing everybody with his descriptive power of Pear, and his need to explain every little tidbit to an audience who was apparently unable to figure it out for themselves.I had both affection and sympathy for Beatrice (though most of the sympathy was a result of the fact she had to be in this awful book.)

The only time this book didn't miss the mark for me was "Gustav's Games" at the very end.If the rest of the book had been written with this degree of sensitivity and rawness, it would have blown my socks off.

Spellbinding
This book works on so many levels it's impossible to describe: rather like Beatrice's inability to put into words the most profound perceptions, I find myself speechless (but am able to produce this review anyway lol).

Here are the words that come to mind:poignant, ruthless, soul plumbing, big-as-life, frightening, glorious and, ultimately, real.Thank you Mr. Martel and keep writing, please.
... Read more

Product Description
Describes the legendary origin of the Roman nation. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

If Virgil were British...
If Virgil were British, this is what he would have sounded like.Much praise must be give to John Dryden for this accomplishment.For our translator has managed to tune to the Latin lyre to the beat of English metre. These fine and artful heroic rhyming couplets are without a doubt a manifestation of the aesthetic potential of the English language.This edition is preferred above all others, with the exception of Allen Mandelbaum's rendering, which is without rhyme and without rival in the arena of Virgilian translation.

the ONLY translation I care to know about
This, John Dryden's awe inspiring translation of Virgil's great Epic is probably the finest and most characteristic work of the Neo-Classical period. The Dryden heroic-couplet style, which would foreshadow the syle of the GREAT Alexander Pope (1688-1744) is very characteristic of the poetry of the Neoclassical era, and a large influence on the verse and drama of the eighteenth century.

This great work is the epoch of neo-classical literature in the seventeenth century, and look who translated the Great Virgil, the GREAT John Dryden (1631-1700), the GREATEST poet of the Restoration and right up there with Milton as the greatest two poets of Seventeenth Century English Literature

I was told that...(chuckle, chuckle)...that there are actually OTHER TRANSLATIONS, OTHER THAN DRYDEN'S!!! HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!!! That's rediculous!!! STUFF & NONSENSE!!!!

THE DRYDEN TRANSLATION IS THE ONLY TRANSLATION!!!

BUY IMMEDIATLEY!!!!!

the ONLY translation I care to know about
This, John Dryden's awe inspiring translation of Virgil's great Epic is probably the finest and most characteristic work of the Neo-Classical period. The Dryden heroic-couplet style, which would foreshadow the syle of the GREAT Alexander Pope (1688-1744) is very characteristic of the poetry of the Neoclassical era, and a large influence on the verse and drama of the eighteenth century.

This great work is the epoch of neo-classical literature in the seventeenth century, and look who translated the Great Virgil, the GREAT John Dryden (1631-1700), the GREATEST poet of the Restoration and right up there with Milton as the greatest two poets of Seventeenth Century English Literature

I was told that...(chuckle, chuckle)...that there are actually OTHER TRANSLATIONS, OTHER THAN DRYDEN'S!!! HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!!! That's rediculous!!! STUFF & NONSENSE!!!!

THE DRYDEN TRANSLATION IS THE ONLY TRANSLATION!!!

BUY IMMEDIATLEY!!!!!

SOMEONE ELSE TRANSLATED IT????
YOU MEAN TO TELL ME THAT DRYDEN'S TRANSLATION ISN'T THE "DEFINITIVE" TRANSLATION????

THAT IS GAY.

JOHN DRYDEN IS THE GREATEST POET OF THE RESTORATION PERIOD (1660-1700)

JOHN DRYDEN
1631-1700

A Masterpiece
A Masterpiece in every sense of the word. I have also read John Conington's translation, done in about 1870, but find that Dryden's much earlier one wins out. Even though it has a very outmoded rhyme scheme, so despised in today's world, it is that very rhyme scheme that literally carries you along in the reading, making it much easier. Everything is here, war, unrequited love, violence to the max, blood, gore, horrific battle scenes, slaughter unending, the human condition. Which encompasses the gods, who succumb to using mankind as chess pieces to play out their very human emotions. And how Virgil must have clearly understood the futility of war, as well as its horror - and something else - how it catches hold of man and chases away his reason. The poetry is truly soaring; many scenes are as vivid as any movie screen could make them. The pathos and poignancy are not soon forgotton.Scenes of parents behind city walls seeing their sons shut out and killed when the gates are shut are heartwrenching. Here is an example of the power in Virgil's storytelling:
There is this king, who was evil and a very bad ruler,(one of the things he does as punishment to citizens is to tie a living man to a dead man, face to face, and leave them together while the dead man decays) andhis people manage to throw him out. In his escape he takes with him his infant daughter, Camilla, whom he loves very much.(It is one of the poet's strengths that no one is either all good or all bad.) They come to a raging river, and the king quickly realizes that, although he is a very strong swimmer, he cannot possibly cross with Camilla, a babe in arms. What to do? He has with him a stout lance or spear, and lashes Camilla to this. Then, using all his considerable strength, he throws the lance across the river, where it lands, quivering, with Camilla still tied safely to it. Then he swims across, retrieves his daughter, and raises her to be Camilla, the virgin warrior, who will bring a corps of other like women to the last battle. Is this the stuff of movies or what? Don't be put off by the fact that itwas written over 2000 years ago. It is exciting, absorbing stuff.And I must disagree with the majority of critics who constantly harp on the fact that Aeneas left Dido in the lurch.Dryden's translation makes perfectly clear that he did so only at the instigation of the gods, and that inwardly his heart was breaking. He was above all else an obedient man to his forefathers and his fate, containing that very Roman virtue, "pietas".Vergil captures "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned" to a tee.A caveat - be very familiar with the story and characters of "The Iliad", from which Virgil builds "The Aeneid". ... Read more

Product Description
From the award-winning translator of The Iliad and The Odyssey comes a brilliant new translation of Virgil's great epic

With his translations of Homer's classic poems, Robert Fagles gave new life to seminal works of the Western canon and became one of the preeminent translators of our time. His latest achievement completes the magnificent triptych of Western epics. A sweeping story of arms and heroism, The Aeneid follows the adventures of Aeneas, who flees the ashes of Troy to embark upon a tortuous course that brings him to Italy and fulfills his destiny as founder of the Roman people. Retaining all of the gravitas and humanity of the original, this powerful blend of poetry and myth remains as relevant today as when it was first written. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (57)

Excellent translation
This is BY FAR the best translation I have ever read of the Aeneid. Robert Fagles makes the story of Aeneas come alive in contemporary language, and keeps it poetic - very hard to do.

Excellent
The Eineid is one of the foundational stories of Western Culture. Written some 2,000 years ago, in the time of Caesar Augustus, it tells of the story of the Trojan hero Aeneas, his leaving Troy at the hour of its destruction, his wanderings through the Mediterranean, his arrival in Italy, and the wars he fought. But, behind Aeneas are the gods, who are steering him towards his destiny of founding the Roman people, who are destined by the gods to be the greatest people who ever lived, the rulers of the Earth.

The story itself is quite excellent, which is why it was highly regarded in Imperial Rome, and why it is considered a classic worth reading to this day. But, an old story is only as good as its translator, and this book is the work of an expert translator. Robert Fagles (1933-2008) was a professor and poet who won awards for his excellence as a translator, and from reading this book you can see why.

This translation of the Aeneid is very understandable, and reads quite smoothly. As you read it through, you almost feel like this is a modern work.

Yeah, this is a great book, great in its original, and great in this translation. If you want to see why people still talk about this moldy old book, then pick up Robert Fagles' translation, and see what the fuss is all about!

The Shield of the Roman Empire
In the second part of Virgil's "The Aeneid" (brilliantly translated by Robert Fagles), Aeneas and the Trojans have landed in Italy, about to give birth to Rome.Aeneas has already seen his beloved Troy ransacked by the duplicitous Greeks, driven to suicide his lover the Queen of Carthage, and ventured into the land of the dead to hear his prophecy from his father.Much of the torment that the Trojans faced was devised by Juno, and the mercurial and mischievous Goddess was still intent on wreaking mayhem to prevent the Trojans from fulfilling their fate.Prodded by Juno, the Italian tribes, led by Turnus, gather to repel the Trojans from their shores.It is at this moment that Aeneas' mother Venus pleads with her husband Vulcan to intervene.Vulcan irons for Aeneas a shield, and in this shield is the history of the Romans, from the sacking of Troy to the founding of the Roman Empire by Augustus Caesar.Aeneas' shield collapses time and eternity into its metalwork, comforts Aeneas with the thought that he is empowered by fate and destiny, and promises the triumph of the Trojans and their Roman descendants.And in this very way "The Aeneid" is also the shield of the Roman empire.

More so than the conquests of Julius Caesar and the empire-building of Augustus Caesar, Virgil's "The Aeneid" founded the Roman Empire by bestowing upon the Roman people an imperial consciousness.There is a timeless and eternal quality to "The Aeneid," but more so it sings of truths and values that make the Romans destined to rule the world.Aeneas is courageous and virtuous, but above all he is pious.When Jove sent Mercury to Carthage to beckon Aeneas to set sail for his destiny and to abandon his great love he did so without thought, despite the insane pleadings of Dido.And when Aeneas landed in Italy and he was surrounded by treachery and betrayal, instead of despairing or scheming he simply led his troops into battle.And in their love of clean virtue and clear justice the Trojans are not like the scheming and treacherous Greeks portrayed by Homer and Herodotus.That's why the Gods deem the Romans must rule the world.While "The Aeneid" follows closely the structure of "The Illiad" and "The Odyssey" Aeneas is really the anti-Odysseus.

In fact, Aeneas lacks any intellect or personality.All he understands is duty and honor.He comes alive only in battle, and his heroism brackets the epic:at the beginning he defiantly leads the Trojans against the Greeks in defense of Troy, and at the end he confidently leads the Trojans against the Latins.He neither complains and cries like Achilles nor cheats and schemes like Odysseus.More than any of the classic heroes Aeneas has come to define what a true hero is in Western eyes.

There is an ironic and contradictory moment in "The Aeneid."Throughout the epic we are told human will and agency are superstitious beliefs, and we are nothing more than the playthings of that dysfunctional family that is the Gods.The fall of Troy and the rise of Rome have long been preordained, and given that a thousand year have already been written the battle between Aeneas and Turnus should only be worthy of a paragraph instead of half of "The Aeneid."But before this battle Jove must preside over an intense debate among the Gods, especially between Juno and Venus.And Jove, the master of all things, decrees that the battle's fate is one that the humans must decide for themselves.

This is silly because either Jove is being a disingenuous politician and insulting everyone's intelligence or there's a tremendous contradiction in the book.But it is a testament to the power of Virgil's poetry that this literary device actually does work, and we are left wondering what the outcome between the battle of Aeneas and Turnus will be.And the battle is epic poetry at its best, reaching dazzling heights of suspense, drama, and emotion.

There is no denying Virgil's impact on Western consciousness: Milton's "Paradise Lost" and Tolkien's "Return of the King" are two of the epic's descendants.But what's truly amazing about the book is that it is an eternal present truth unto itself.Dido's lament at the betrayal of her lover and Turnus' decision to leap into chaotic battle and certain death despite the wise counsel of his elders would be stirring pieces of poetry in any time and in any culture.

GREAT SERVICE
My daughter needed this book for school ASAP and the book came to her in less time than indicated on the order allowing her extra time to benefit from it. As far as the actual book goes it was the ONLY translation her professor considers. Fabulous price too!

Frank and candid
I haven't read the book yet. I have read "The Iliad" translated by Fagles and he is beyond great. ... Read more

Product Description
This deluxe edition of Virgil's epic poems, recounting the wanderings of Aeneas and his companions after the fall of Troy, contains an introduction by Allen Mandelbaum and fourteen powerful renderings created by Barry Moser to illustrate this volume. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (34)

The Aeneid is not just for scholars
The Aeneid by Virgil is the story of Rome's founding, written over two thousand years ago, with the intention of being a sequel to Homer's Iliad.The story was not a creation of the author's imagination, but derived from oral folk tales that were already hundreds of years old.This is the greatest and probably the oldest of the survivor tales.It tells how a little band of refugees who fled the fall of Troy founded western civilization.Perhaps the most important thing you will come away with after reading this story is how much like us these people were.Their dreams for the future are locked in with their will to succeed and it is interesting that the story plays out like a modern day international thriller.
When I read this book I was living in a very small town.I was dismayed that so many of the teenagers, especially the boys, did not read.They hung around my house, (my nubile niece was staying with me) like young Knights hungering for some quest or other on which to spend their energies.I took to telling little bits and pieces of whatever I was reading and boys who had never read a whole book, started borrowing my books.Some of the books were returned, but the Aeneid, the Iliad and The Monkey wrench Gang were passed on to other friends and never found their way home.
That The Iliad and The Aeneid are no longer assigned reading in middle school is probably one of the reasons so few teenage boys ever learn the joy of reading.If you want to get a video game junkie to read just give him this book and suggest he skim through it and look for ancient winning strategies, he'll be hooked in no time.

Found lacking compared to Homer
First off, I'm neither a literary expert nor Latin scholar.I'm a guy that enjoys Roman history in his free time and has been riveted by the Illiad and enjoyed the Odyssey.So when I found out there was a Roman creation myth epic that was written in a similar manner to the epics of Homer, I was excited.After slogging through 200-some pages of Virgil's Aeneid, I can report that excitement has turned to disappointment.

The story is interesting and in the classic way it winds from scene to scene in indirect manners and with long sections that serve to explain something historically rather than move the plot along.This adds the rich texture of myth but does tend to make the story plod in sections.Explained in brief, the story seems intriguing and worth the effort.

It is in the telling that I lost my dedication.The first half of the story is a journey with the latter half being a battle as the Trojans land and attempt to found their destined city to the demise of some of the locals.Thus the story in a sense, tries to encompass both the Odyssey (journey) and Illiad (battle) in a single volume that is at best half the size of either of the others.Real stories are crammed down to a couple pages at times, entire histories of multiple warriors are explained in a single paragraph.Compare this to Homer's explanation of Diomed or Odysseus' archery contest in Ithaca and it becomes frustrating and memory-testing with the density of the material.No time is really allowed to soak in the myth, to feel the characters and imagine them before they have exchanged blows and lie dead on the field.

Virgil is said to have wanted his manuscript burned upon his death, only to have it saved by Augustus' mandate.I wish instead that it had been picked up by another and revised into the work it could've become.

A solid literal translation
I purchased this particular translation of the Aeneid to help me read the original Latin text, and it has done a good job of helping me understand complicated grammatical phrases filled with patronymics and Greek constructions.

Mandlebaum's translation, however, is not the most enjoyable to read. He translates literally many of the Latin verb tenses, which make more sense in the original language, making the reader feel slightly disoriented.

Furthermore, part of the beauty of the Aeneid is its mood of antiquity. Mandlebaum modernizes the language, creating such ridiculous lines as, "It was so hard to found the race of Rome" (I.50). A translation that stays closer to the original Latin, and sounds less colloquial in English, would be something like "What a burden it was to found the Roman race."

There are several annoying but simple typos, such as "though" for "through" which make the reader feel that the text was not thoroughly edited.

Although it is to be expected with Bantam Classics books, the margins leave very little space for notes, and the text runs to the middle of the page, meaning that you can't easily hold the book open with just one hand.

So, all things considered, this is a great book for Latin students looking for a literal translation of the Aeneid, but those looking for an enjoyable English read should look elsewhere (try The Aeneid (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition), for instance).

Most Excellent
Shipping was extraordinarily fast, and the book is excellent. Once again, Amazon fails to disappoint!

Aenid of Virgil
I ordered a copy of Aeneid of Virgil in good condition. The cover does not look exactly like the picture, but other than that, there were no marks on pages and book is in usable condition. Shipping was fast. ... Read more

Product Description
DAMOETAS Hold! not so ready with your jeers at men! We know who once, and in what shrine with you- The he-goats looked aside- the light nymphs laughed. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

For Lovers of Latin Poetry
Thank you, Penguin, for publishing this slender volume which is small enough to tuck into my carryon whenever I travel to Italy; for Vergil's "Eclogues," written in the first century BC, celebrate the essence of the Italian landscape. Vergil's susurrant pines and splashing fountains; his humming bees and keening doves; his savours of crushed garlic and thyme are omnipresent, as any walk in Rome, Ostia Antica, or Hadrian's Villa on a summer's day will reveal. Reading Vergil's "Eclogues" makes one almost forget about the incessant din of the Roman traffic.

So that readers of Latin can fully appreciate these ten short poems, Penguin has set Vergil's Latin text on the left page and and Guy Lee's translation on the right page. The translator has essayed to approximate the Latin hexameter by using English Alexandrine meter. Translation is a matter of taste. I am not certain that one approaching these poems from English with no knowledge of Latin will get a sense of "what Vergil was really like" from the translator's rendition, which is nevertheless punctilious. Furthermore, since the poems are not annotated, the words "lucerne" (cytisus) and "sappy vervain" (verbenas. . . pinguis) may send non-Latin readers rushing to a dictionary.

Vergil may be regarded as 'untranslatable' in that one must read the "Eclogues" in Latin to appreciate the beauty of these poems. For example "The very pines,/ the very springs, these very orchards called to you/" is accurate, but it fails to catch Vergil's brilliant combined sibilance, consonance, and alliteration that imitates these sounds of nature themselves: "ipsae te Tityre, pinus/, ipsi te fontes, ipsa haec arbusta vocabant." Nor does "[as ever feeding Hybla bees]/ will often whisper you persuasively to sleep/" capture Virgil's drowsy combination of L's and S's in ". . . saepe levi somnum suadebit inire susurro." But again, one has to read these poems, which are unfortunately sometimes neglected in favour of the "Aeneid," in Latin to appreciate their stunning beauty.

Thanks to Penguin, readers of Latin, if not completely satisfied with the English, can refer to the magnificent original.

What language is it in?
Yes but I ask yet again of a book on Amazon.com: what language is it in? I find that this is a problem right across Amazon.com with both regular books and Kindle books. Whether it's Chaucer or Virgil it is never made clear what language a work that was written in another language is being presented in. For example this book is described as being in English (see above). Is it? Does it contain the original Latin text. Some of the reviewers seem to suggest it is but who knows? I have spent many hours trying to guess from trawling through reviews etc..whether what I'm looking at is an original text or a translation. It's important to know this - especially for authors like Virgil. Can someone at Amazon take this on board please?

Apology for the English Alexandrine
No reading of the Eclogues is complete without a reading of the Idylls of Theocritus.

Having said that, and having (re-)read that, I find myself commenting on the other review, which was excellent (though it was written for a different edition). I disagree that Virgil "slavishly imitated" Theocritus. My impression is that the Eclogues are more of an artful (and extensive) adaptation. The fear of plagiarism and insistence on originality is a modern phenomenon. Ancient literature depended upon the recasting of existing works to suit the poet's purpose and taste. Appropriation provided a cultural continuum that preserved and transmitted the beauty, values, and ideas of one's predecessors.In Virgil's case, poetic license would not have referred to a deviation from form or tradition as it does today; it would have meant knowing the rules and biding by them.

If anything was slavishly imitated by Virgil, it would have been the characters created by Theocritus.Daphnis, Thyrsis, Amaryllis, Tityrus, Corydon, Damoetas and Menalcas all make somewhat more than cameo appearances in the Eclogues.They have in fact re-emerged as Virgil's main cast of characters.In some cases they appear as the poet himself!

The Idylls as an art form only superficially affected Virgil.Of course he adapted the singing contests to his own settings and themes.The prizes still included cups, heifers, girls, banes and boons.While the Idylls were a collection of poems written at various times and for various purposes, the Eclogues appear to be (and there is ample evidence to support this) composed as a coherent set.They are the equivalent of a modern-day popular music album.Cohesive devices link one poem to another; matching numbers of lines provide internal balance; there is an introduction and a conclusion.

Good for students of literature, but too much for others
This edition of Vergil's ECLOGUES comes in Cambridge University Press' "Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics" series, and is a typical entry. The Eclogues were Virgil's first literary creation, ten pastoral poems that are often a slavish imitation of the bucolic poetry written by Theocritus, but occasionally show striking originality. The fourth eclogue, a foretelling of a golden age brought in by the birth of a miraculous child, is historically significant as it was appreciated by some in the early Church.

The Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics series combines the text with an introduction and extensive commentary. Here these materials are prepared by Robert Coleman, a fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. The introduction consists of four sections: "The pastoral before Vergil", "The chronology and arrangement of the Eclogues", "Vergil's achievement as a pastoral poet", and "Text, Note on orthography". These are interesting, but as with the introductions of so many works in this series, one feels that the author already expects you to know all about the work in question already. The commentary takes up 227 pages of this 303-page work, and deals many with explicating the historical allusions and poetic devices of the Eclogues. Regrettably, the commentary does not touch much on Virgil's use of archaic Latin diction, for it would be interesting to explore how much earlier these forms had passed from colloquial speech.

If you are interested in the literary themes, this is a good edition to have. Those who would rather read the book out of linguistic interest (like this student of comparative Indo-European linguistics) might rather go with the Oxford Classical Text edition. ... Read more

Product Description
Begun while the author was imprisoned in a German concentration camp, this extraordinary and profound novel is widely regarded as one of the great works of 20th-century modernism. A work that is part historical novel and part prose poem, it recreates the last 18 hours on the life of Virgil, author of the Aeneid, and the squalor and splendor of imperial Rome. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (14)

Loved it...
No doubt, it's boring.It's one of those fabulously boring books.

I'm going through my margin notes, looking for why I love this book so much.

First--Virgil wants to destroy his works because he feels he missed the point.He recognized the power of the new love-movement under way. He felt that he was always just sucking up to the Emperor.(In the end, Virgil is well loved for being enough of the new movement, despite the clearly propagandistic side of his work.)

It was a revelation to me that the Axial age (characterized by a softening, a movement away from the brutality of the heroic age) was so Christian in tone, and before Christ.

I later realized that Christianity is Hellenized Judaism. (Got this from a book called, *Early Christianity and Greek Paidea*)

Putting all this together was part of the excitement, for me, in Broch's D or V.Basically, just like the baby boomers got sick of war and (for the most part) rejected it; so with the Romans.

Death of Virgil reminded me of the Horace ode about Pompeius.Pompeius, the poor sucker, goes on fighting in one of the bloody Roman wars. He's almost killed, while Horace himself, who fought beside Pompeius briefly, soon put down his shield, gave up the fight.(He was later pardoned, because he was useful as a poet, and he was high born.)

But there's so much more to this book.

There are leitmotifs.Pg.101--"knowing" is the leitmotif.The word is planted innocently, and keeps growing and growing in weight and import, until:

"verily man is held into his task of knowing,
and nothing is able to dissuade him,
not even the inevitability of error,
the bound nature of which vanishes
before the task beyond all chance;"

Broch's language (in Jean Starr-Untermeyer's translation, too) is so wonderfully giddy.German culture was in a fabulous inflation that did not end until Hitler was killed in his bunker.And part of this inflation was even in the knowing German/Austrians' forbodings about the ridiculous ending that was in store for the whole thing.(Goethe was the first to forsee this.)

Then "error" is the leitmotif.(pg. 102)

pg. 124-->
"the inadequacy of the earthy symbol be revealed,
the sadness and despair of beauty laid bare,
beauty stripped of intoxication and sobered,
its perception forfeited and itself lost in impercipience,
and with it, the sobered self,
its poverty--,"

How far is this from Emerson's idea of poverty?Broch is wise to so very much of the current of ideas that ran between Goethe and Nietzsche.German culture is ripening so beautifully even as it unravels.This is all viscerally potent (to me, anyway).

Page 127:
"god found himself again in man and man found himself again in the animal,"

Broch is toying with an angle on Nietzsche's idea of the death of god.
This leitmotif evolves in Mahlerian/Wagnerian style--pg.131:

"god tumbling down into a false-humanity or the man catapulted toward a false-divinity, both lured toward evil, toward calamity, toward the uncreated state of the animal...."

These problems lead to a discussion of beauty and art. (pg. 141)

Around pg. 180, Virgil starts to hallucinate two boys.Lysanius and a slave.They play interesting roles in his dialogue.(When the emperor comes with some literary sycophants, they can't see Lysanius & the slave.)

It is the Lysanius and the slave who speak to Virgil about "the new time arising".Beholding them (Lysanius & the slave), is the act that consummates Virgil's embraced of the new mode of being.

"For you have beheld us, Virgil, and in looking you saw the fetters, weeping the while you looked, you saw the new time arising, saw the beginning-anew that is destined to spring from our tears."

This kills me. I don't need to go on.

I will say that I understand only a small percentage of what Broch is talking about.One is half asleep most of the time while reading this book, but that is a blessing.I know there's always more to take in.

One more bit, about the animals:

"the snowy bull, the luckless Pasiphae, who lingered there beside the cows?Or the bucks stirring about and mounting the she-goats? Pan's midday quiet lay soundlessly over the flowering groves and yet it was already evening, for the fauns had begun their gambols, stamping their hooves, their heavy pahlluses stiffly erect."

This reminds me again of Emerson's, of his lines from Merlin II,"The animals are sick with love, lovesick with rhyme..." These things slay me.

A Masterpiece of a Lyrical Novel
This novel reads more like an epic poem than a novel, which is only right as the novel deals with the demise of the Aeneid's brilliant author. A sensitive and patient reader will be generously rewarded by the sheer poetry of the rich and meaningful language written by a first-rate, unheralded genius in Hermann Broch. One sees many shades of Aeneas in this tale about Virgil's trip to visit Caesar to present him the Aeneid. There is much in this tale about the challenges of writers to capture the true essence of life and the torment by Virgil about his inability to truly capture it in the Aeneid. Virgil is so tormented by the inadequacies he finds in his masterpiece that he threatens to burn the Aeneid but is forbidden by Augustus to do so. If it were not for Nora Barnacle, wife of James Joyce, much of that work of genius would have been lost to a fire from which in a bit of quick witted work she managed to retrieve it. Broch presents the rich, dense, intellectual sensibilities of Virgil with a style that will challenge and immensely satisfy readers of gorgeous literary novels. The innovative, prose style of Broch reminded me of Proust with some of the longest and most beautiful sentences that I have ever read. As beautifully as this book is written, the translation by Jean Starr Untermeyer utterly blew me away -- this is a highly nuanced and complex novel about poetic sensibilities which dive deep into the abyss and float high into the "second immensity" of the "cupola of the stars". Untermeyer provides full poetic justice in her translation to richly bring to life in English a truly memorable work and one of life's greatest literary treasures. Broch's novel ranks near the very top of the world's most masterfully articulated, literary novels and is truly worthy of the high critical acclaim it has received on this site by extremely bright readers. Seize the day: this novel is truly one of a kind --like the Aeneid, which so deeply inspired Broch, this novel is one for the ages.

The nature of art, the nature of dying
Broch twists the concept of "novel" here to throw at us avery long prose poem -of the highest order. Virgil arrives in Brindis with Augustus's naval convoy, coming from Greece, to spend there what will become his last 18 hours on Earth. Suffering from a strong fever, Virgil is in an almost constant delirium, dreaming with a young peasant (his guide from boat to palace), with Plocia, a former lover, and with an imaginary slave. The three of them will guide him to death. The central subject of the book is Virgil's obsession with the destruction of "The Eneid", for considering it imperfect and not worthy of survival. His two best friends, Lucius and Plocius, come to visit trying to confort him and to convince him not to destroy that major work of art (which in real life they actually did). Then Augustus himself arrives, and sustains with Virgil a long philosophical conversation, full of digressions and of Virgil's own hallucinations. The subject here is the nature of Art. Augustus maintains that "The Eneid" is the property of the people of Rome, as its national epic, while Virgil insists that any work of art is the sole property of its author and, in that capacity, he has every right -even more, the duty- to destroy it, by virtue of its imperfection. The long passage is full of Virgil's delirium in which he remembers his bucolic childhood and discusses with his phantoms the nature of love, happiness, success and life. Augustus, in turn, pronounces long and profound statements about the State, politics and community.

The final chapter, a mesmerizing one, is a long hallucination depicting the process of dying, in an absolutely vivid, hair-rising and beautiful way. I don't think there can be around another narration as impressive as this one about the passing from life to death. Virgil's soul sets sail in a ship, surrounded by the people he knew, who are left behind until Virgil metamorphoses into animal, vegetal, mineral, and spirit.

This is a hard reading, long, slow and obscure, and nevertheless it is a master treaty on death and what it means to be dying. That it will never have a mass of readers seems to be clear. But it is also clear that it pays to stay with it and get lost in the magic.

Turgid And Tendentious
Here we go: This book is the most turgid, arduous, impenetrable conglomeration of words I've ever come across (Finnegans Wake excepted).It brinks back memories of my school days in fourth year Latin and causes one to wish again that Virgil HAD burned The Aeneid, so as not to plague us fourth year A-level students, and - even more so, so that Broch would not have this pretentious trope on which to found a spurious Parnassus of fuddled and addled - dense to the point that all poetry is eclipsed - book of....whatever it is.

For -and this is the crux here - this book is not poetic, not the work of a master stylist at all.How many stylists use the same phrase, to wit, "humus of existence" at least fifteen times (I ceased counting after that)?Answer: None.They don't rely on the same phrase so often that it becomes cliché.

And then there is the prescient notion of Broch's Virgil of a coming saviour.I wonder if this has anything to do with Broch's conversion to Catholicism in the last years of his life.The point here is not pro or anti Christianity---The point is: What on earth does Broch mean by having his Virgil go on about a saviour of "perception" rather than mere poets, whose words occlude, rather than clarify perception?Perception implies an object.So, we are not amiss to ask: Perception of what?Broch goes on in such muddled prose that one gleans nothing from the book itself.But, of course, we all know what he is talking about when he brings in, time and again, the three-in-one godhead et cetera.

This book is best suited to theology and philosophy students who, for whatever reason, really do fancy quibbling over dense passages that lead nowhere, over abstruse points of doctrine, over meaningless verbiage.

Lovers of literature, take a pass.

the dreamlike state of dying
This work stands firmly as one of the masterpieces of 20th century literature, and is not to be missed by the thoughtful reader willing to spend some time with a great book.As mentioned by other reviewers, the writing, especially the feverish second part (it's a book of four parts), is dense and can be challenging to get through, though that effort will be well paid by the discussion with Augustus in the third, and the sublime death trip of the fourth and final part.The first part documents Virgil's arrival into burning Rome, and sets up what is to follow.One needn't have read anything by Virgil in preparation for this book, and to the best of my knowledge, Broch, though running from the Nazi's, never spent time in a concentration camp.And, for the curious, Broch's grave is in Connecticut. ... Read more

Product Description
This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishings Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the worlds literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone!Amazon.com Review
Arma virumque cano: "I sing of warfare and a manat war." Long the bane of second-year Latin students thrust intoa rhetoric of sweeping, seemingly endless sentences full of difficultverb forms and obscure words, Virgil's Aeneid finds a helpfultranslator in Robert Fitzgerald, who turns the lines into beautiful,accessible American English. Full of betrayal, heartache, seduction,elation, and violence, the Aeneid is the great founding epic ofthe Roman empire. Its pages sing of the Roman vision of self, theRoman ideal of what it meant to be a citizen of the world's greatestpower. The epic's force carries across the centuries, and remainsessential reading. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (70)

Should be the standard contempory translation
Fitzgerald's metrical poetic translation flows smoothly across the page.His vocabulary is largely contemporary, lucid yet noble, with few archaisms, which is as it should be.Highly recommended as one of the best, if not the best, English translation available.

To those new to Virgil:The epic, written at the time of Augustus Caesar, relates the flight of a band of survivors from the fall of Troy led by prince Aeneas, who eventually establishes a precursor settlement to Rome in Italy.(Aeneas' son Ascanius/Julus is also the mythic progenitor of the Julian tribe, and so of Gaius Julius Caesar.) A basic knowledge of the background myths and legends is of help in fully appreciating the epic, though not essential. (As a knowledge of his extensive fictional background mythology is perhaps not essential to enjoying Tolkien, to posit a contemporary analogy.) Perhaps the first few books of Livy discussing the mythic founding by Romulus would be somewhat of an introduction to the Aeneid, though Virgil's epic forms a "prequel" to that story.Also lost for modern readers will be Virgil's evocation of historically important figures and sites, which for the Roman reader would evoke connotations similar to "Pocohontas" or "Plymouth Rock" for Americans.

Homer v. Virgil: If in Homer Odysseus is the man "of many turns" ["polytropos", which has connotations both of "wily" and "wandering"], Aeneas is the man "in duty bound" [as Fitzgerald aptly translates the Latin "pius"].Though there is some peril in reading a modern sensibility into this, Odysseus is his own man, rather amoral, who loses all his companions during his voyage, in his personal goal to regain his throne and his wife Penelope.Aeneas is a man driven by the needs of a future imperial destiny, who must forsake one love (Dido of Carthage) to "bring home his gods to Latium."(Compare the blithe mutual termination by Odysseus & Calypso of their several years dalliance with Dido's suicide.)Still, modern readers may find less sympathy with the somewhat plodding Aeneas than with the more vibrant Odysseus.I'm not sure this wasn't intentional on Virgil's part.

For if the Aeneid is on one level a glorification of Roman might, yet Virgil reminds us throughout that "sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt" - "Tears there are in human affairs, and such things mortal touch the mind."And why, after Aeneas journeys to the underworld and is shown the yet unborn souls of Rome's future leaders, does he return to the earth through the gate of false dreams...the ivory gate, which would likely remind Roman readers of the ivory curile chair of office on which Roman officials - and Augustus - sat?

An Epic Masterpiece!
I actually translated The Aeneid from Latin to English when I was a junior in high school. However, I realized as I studied it for my Masters Epic/Mythology class, I was definitely not translating for comprehension. I must say that Homer has ruined me and I did not find Virgil's tragic view of life as inspiring... especially if we are to learn about Western civilization from it. If Aeneas went through the "ivory gate" of false dreams... what does that say about our fate as a country? This is a question still being debated about the propaganda this book supposedly represented of Roman history. Ultimately, I feel for Aeneas and his fate. It was his destiny to establish the foundations of Rome, and due to Juno's fury, those who loved him (especially Dido and Lavinia) suffered.

Beautiful translation of a Classic
Fitzgerald's version of the Aeneid is literature in its own right. Readable without being sing-songy, classic without being stilted, this translation kept me hooked on the Aeneas story long after high school Latin class ended at Book 6, and it stirred my imagination to such an extent that I got the impudent idea to emulate him in The Laviniad: An Epic Poem.

And as for the poem itself, this seminal work of Western literature deeply inspired everyone from Augustine to Dante, but unfortunately seems to be passing out of academic consciousness. Vergil's Aeneid is the very pinnacle of Ancient Roman literature, a classic story of piety, duty, and honor as opposed to immediate gratification and selfish interest. It represents the very best ideals that ancient Rome had to offer. Perhaps in this modern age those virtues don't seem relevant--but if so, that's why we need this poem all the more.

What kind of a dope...
Thinks the Aeneid begins with armis virumque? (For those missing the point, I'm poking fun at a reviewer who got the opening words of the epic in Latin wrong - it's "arma virumque cano")

I've read this translation several times and taught out of it, and I think it's quite readable and faithful to the original. I don't think you can go wrong with Fagles, Fitzgerald, or Mandelbaum, to be honest. Or Vergil in the Latin, of course.

The Aeneid of Virgil, translated by Fitzgerald
I use this translation as my primary source in studying The Aeneid.I also possess and refer to translations by Mandelbaum, Dryden, Humphries, Rhoades, and Dickinson as well as various commentaries.Regrettably, I know of none that translate the original in Latin to English on a line by line basis. ... Read more

Product Description
For this revised edition of the Loeb Classical Library's Virgil, G. P. Goold has corrected the text in accord with recent scholarship, revised the translation to reflect current idiom, and supplied a new Introduction and explanatory notes. Fairclough's edition, long a faithful standard, has thus been thoroughly updated. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Review of revised Loeb Virgil - 2 volumes
This new edition fulfils a longstanding need. The text is rightly updated, and the translation is modern. The explanatory notes are a useful feature.

Classics students depended on the older edition for its convenience and assistance (I used it myself nearly 40 years ago), but had to go to other editions for more scholarly purposes. This has now been remedied.

Not a Verse Translation
Don't get me wrong, the translation is fine, but if you're looking for a verse translation of the Eclogues, the Georgics, or the Aeneid, look elsewhere. Unfortunately, I had to purchase the item without knowing whether it was verse or prose, since none of the reviews indicates that it is, in fact, prose. I suppose I can't have too much Virgil, but it's nice to know ahead of time, right? Well, now all the other people in the world looking for a verse translation of Virgil's works (all twenty of them, right?) will know that this isn't what they want.

Loeb does it right
Roman society was enamoured of Greek culture -- many of the best 'Roman' things were Greek; the major gods were derivative of the Greek pantheon; philosophy, literature, science, political ideals, architecture -- all this was adopted from the Greeks. It makes sense that, at the point of their ascendancy in the world, they would long for an epic history similar to the Homeric legends; the Iliad and the Odyssey, written some 500 years after the actual events they depict, tell of the heroism of the Greeks in their battle against Troy (Ilium). The Aeneid, written by Vergil 700 years after Homer, at the commission of Augustus (himself in the process of consolidating his authority over Rome), turns the heroic victory of the much-admired Greeks on its head by postulating a survivor from Troy, Aeneas, who undergoes as journey akin to the Odyssey, even further afield.

Vergil constructs Aeneas, a very minor character in the Iliad, as the princely survivor and pilgrim from Troy, on a journey through the Mediterranean in search of a new home. According to Fitzgerald, who wrote a brief postscript to the poem, Vergil created a Homeric hero set in a Homeric age, purposefully following the Iliad and Odyssey as if they were formula, in the way that many a Hollywood director follows the formulaic pattern of past successful films. Vergil did not create the Trojan legend of Roman origins, but his poem solidified the notion in popular and scholarly sentiment.

Vergil sets the seeds for future animosity between Carthage and Rome in the Aeneid, too -- the curse of queen Dido on the descendants of Aeneas of never-ending strife played into then-recent recollections of war in the Roman mind. Books I through VI are much more studied than VII through XII, but the whole of the Aeneid is a spectacular tale.

True to the Loeb translations generally, this offers the Latin text on one page and an English translation on the facing page; this translation is done by G.P. Goold, working from H.R. Fairclough's standard edition (which is true also for the second half of the Aeneid, in the second volume of the Loeb printing). The translations are careful and work more at being faithful to the text in literal without being choppy manner; poetic license (which can often wreak havoc on a comparison of original language to translation analyses) is kept to a minimum, but not entirely absent here.

Vergil died before he could complete the story. He wished it to be burned; fortunately, Augustus had other ideas. Still, there are incomplete lines and thoughts, and occasional conflicts in the storyline that one assumes might have been worked out in the end, had more editing time been available. Despite these, the Aeneid remains a masterpiece, and the Loeb editions will remain standards for academic scholarship for some time to come.

Student Savior!
As a student preparing for the "AP Latin: Vergil" exam largely on my own, I can say from experience that this book is a great tool for students, regardless of the intensity at which you are studying Vergil.

Unlike the Mandelbaum or Fitzgerald translations, the Loeb is very literal, which helped me to see how the words fit together syntactically.A page of Latin text faces its translation, and it is easy to look back and forth to understand the translation.Because there are no vocabulary words or footnotes, the Loeb cannot be used alone by a student first learning Vergil.However, used in conjunction with the Boyd or Pharr edition of the Aeneid, it is a wonderful help.

Whether to help with translation or to study for tests, I highly recommend the Loeb.Because the Latin is on a page by itself with the English translation facing it, students can translate without any help whenever they are ready, making the Loeb a uniquely flexible aid to studying Vergil.

The Loeb series continues to deliver excellent translations
Just for those who have never seen a Loeb-it has the original Latin (or Greek) on one side with the translation on the following page.The Loeb series are known for their excellent translations and are vital to anyresearcher or historian who wants to return to the orginal for theirprimary source.Virgil's Georgics alone make this book a necessity (theGeorgics used to be standard reading before and after the revolution inuniversities) and the Aeneid provides an excellent balance to the Eclougesand the Georgics.Virgil's writings are fairly simple yet convey both themessage and the image of what he wishes to get across to the reader.TheLoeb series are a bit more pricey than the Penguin translations but theadded luxury of the Latin text make this series indispensable to thestudent or reseacher of Rome or the Latin language. ... Read more

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Virgil's affectionate poem of the land brings us the disappointments as well as the rewards of the countryman's year-round devotion to his crops, his vines and olives, livestock great and small, and the complex society of his bees. Part agricultural manual, part political poem and allegory, The Georgics' scenes are real and vivid, allowing the reader to feel the sights, sounds, and textures of the ancient Italian landscape.
This lauded new translation has been written by Peter Fallon, who, as a farmer and a poet, is uniquely suited to the task. It is coupled here with an introduction and notes by the classical scholar Elaine Fantham. Fantham's introduction considers Virgil's life and poetry in its historical context, while her notes gloss the many classical and mythological allusions. The combination of a faithful and lyrical translation with well-researched contextual information makes this edition the best possible introduction to Virgil's masterpiece. It is sure to delight all lovers of poetry and Renaissance literature. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Vivid Rendition of the Virgilian Original
Peter Fallon's translation seems anything but stilted--earthy, colorful, rhythmical, it is sheer delight.

I wasn't sure at first whether a long didactic poem on agriculture would be gripping, but I thoroughly enjoyed reading the "Georgics."Many of Virgil's images and descriptions of nature are meltingly beautiful, and the deeper philosophical stratum of this work produces a constant intellecutal tension--ultimately, this poem investigates to what extent "the good life" is possible in this world, what is the balance between good and evil, to what extent our good efforts and labors are rewarded, how we are to position ourselves spiritually in this ambiguous, hard-to-understand universe...From an ecological standpoint, Virgil examines how we are to relate and live in harmony with our environment.Many mythological stories are woven in, and Peter Fallon's notes help one understand historical and mythological allusions without any problem.The poem really is just brimming over with interesting content, and reading it to me felt like an utterly pleasurable meditative exercise.And I am truly grateful to Fallon for bringing this poem to me in a wonderfully "natural" and vivid translation, the best translation of the "Georgics" that I have been able to find.

I read the "Georgics" partly in order to understand Willa Cather's novels better, which allude to and are deeply influenced by this poem.Her works truly cannot be fully understood without a clear awareness of the Virgilian subtext.The "Georgics" are a supremely influential work of literature and should be read by anyone wishing to gain an in-depth understanding of the Western literary tradition.

Georgics is a book to savor
Virgil, a Roman poet who lived over 2000 years ago, writes with the same passion and vigor as Shakespeare.However, Virgil's language is Latin and his subject is country life.Peter Fallon presents this new translation of Virgil's Georgics. He calls the work, "a hymn to peace and people."
The Georgics contains four small books.This entire edition - complete with introduction, translator's notes and line notes to help modern readers through the many references to Greek and Roman mythology - runs a mere hundred pages.Book I covers farming topics that range from crop rotation and when to fallow fields, to seed saving and developing a weather eye. Virgil suggests that "if the goddess of the dawn rises wanly from her consort's saffron couch, beware ..." This ancient advice sounds similar to weather guidance I learned as a teen on the New England Coast."Red sun at dawning, sailors take warning." Book I ends with an eternal description of war and its effects on agriculture "For right and wrong are mixed up here, there's so much warring everywhere, evil has so many faces, and there is no regard for the labors of the plough....scythes and sickles have been hammered into weapons of war."
Virgil devotes Book II to the cultivation of grapes and olives while Book III discusses the breeding and care of domesticated animals.Virgil devotes Book IV to the keeping of bees.He encourages his reader to consider bees "a small society comprising systems worthy of our high esteem." He then describes the perfect site for a hive.It must be protected from winds, close to a tree-lined stream that provides shade and water.Near the hive "let all around be gay with ... spreads of fragrant thyme and masses of aromatic savory.Let there be gardens to amuse them with the scent of brightly colored flowers." Closely observing the habits of the hive, the author states that bees "mindful that winter follows ... set to work in summer and store what they acquire for the common good.Come night, the youngsters haul themselves back home, exhausted, leg-baskets loaded down with thyme."
Some would say that Virgil's verses, dense with out-of-date politics and mythology, is irrelevant to our modern lives. But I take a gardener's point of view here.In the garden, the presence of weeds does not mean the absence of flowers.
Georgics is a book to savor after a hard day's work in garden or field.When the air becomes still and the hammock beckons, open to find how your life matches that of an ancient peer.And heed his sage advice."The farmer's chores come round in seasons and cycles, as the earth each year retraces its own tracks.... So cast no hungry eye on a big estate if you're inclined, but tend a small one."
... Read more

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This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

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Aeneas the True - son of Venus and of a mortal father - escapes from Troy after it is sacked by the conquering Greeks. He undergoes many trials and adventures on a long sea journey, from a doomed love affair in Carthage with the tragic Queen Dido to a sojourn in the underworld. All the way, the hero is tormented by the meddling of the vengeful Juno, Queen of the Gods and a bitter enemy of Troy, but his mother and other gods protect Aeneas from despair and remind him of his ultimate destiny - to find the great city of Rome. Reflecting the Roman peoples' great interest in the myth' of their origins, Virgil (70-19 BC) made the story of Aeneas glow with a new light in his majestic epic. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (11)

The Tragedy of Dido
I read this book while on the beach in East Africa and was blown away. The beautiful descriptions of temples, castles, people, and their motivations for living and dying were incredible. Particularly, the Carthaginian Queen Dido and her disastrous love for Aeneas made me cringe as she cried in death on the fire. Buy this book---it will resonate within you for years.

What beautiful words these are!
I do not want to get into a discussion as to who was the greater poet - Virgo or Homer.One was Roman and one was Greek.Both wrote with wondrous and beautiful words, but this book by Virgo is a stunner.This lengthy poem in twelve books traces the mighty Roman empire from the end of the Trojan war to the beginnings of the great empire which was led by Julius Caesar.Aeneas was the first of the great Roman rulers.I had read this story many years ago, and as I read it again, I remembered why I enjoyed this Roman story so much.I have always liked the Roman gods and goddesses, and this epic poem was the reason why.In this poem Virgil presents a struggling Aeneas who has to fight and win many battles before he can claim his crown.We also see the mighty gods and goddesses getting involved in human strife while the drama is played out on earth.But it is the descriptive language that is the beautiful thing here.Words like these can truly live forever.

The classic Roman epic, better than I expected
I'm continually impressed by these classics written over two thousand years ago; some of them are astoundingly good.Seutonius' "The Twelve Caesars" or Plato's "The Republic" come to mind.Virgil's masterwork "The Aenied" lies comfortably in this category and is likely just his version of a tale that had been passed down by oration for generations.It's probably the goriest work of that time I've read too: in the battles heads are lopped off, blood jets out of wounds, torsos and groins are skewered by spears, etc.

The basic premise is that Rome was founded by Trojans who'd fled their home city (Troy) while it was being razed and plundered by the victorious Greeks.But it wasn't exactly a quick journey to a new homeland.A few of the gods (Hera in particular) despised the Trojans and did their utmost to prevent these people from reaching Italy.This epic is about the adventures of the Trojan prince Aeneas and his followers as they attempt to achieve their destiny as founders of Rome, which ultimately became the capital of the Roman Empire.

The translation is wonderful, no complaints at all there from a readability standpoint.An exciting adventure that hasn't worn out over time; it's still as fresh as it ever was and deserves its reputation as a classic of all time.The only nitpick I have is that the ending is rather abrupt, without a real sense of closure.I would have liked to know, for example, what happened in Carthage following Aeneas' hasty departure.

I sing of a great story
Roman society was enamoured of Greek culture -- many of the best 'Roman' things were Greek; the major gods were derivative of the Greek pantheon; philosophy, literature, science, political ideals, architecture -- all this was adopted from the Greeks. It makes sense that, at the point of their ascendancy in the world, they would long for an epic history similar to the Homeric legends; the Iliad and the Odyssey, written some 500 years after the actual events they depict, tell of the heroism of the Greeks in their battle against Troy (Ilium). The Aeneid, written by Vergil 700 years after Homer, at the commission of Augustus (himself in the process of consolidating his authority over Rome), turns the heroic victory of the much-admired Greeks on its head by postulating a survivor from Troy, Aeneas, who undergoes as journey akin to the Odyssey, even further afield.

Vergil constructs Aeneas, a very minor character in the Iliad, as the princely survivor and pilgrim from Troy, on a journey through the Mediterranean in search of a new home. According to Fitzgerald, who wrote a brief postscript to the poem, Vergil created a Homeric hero set in a Homeric age, purposefully following the Iliad and Odyssey as if they were formula, in the way that many a Hollywood director follows the formulaic pattern of past successful films. Vergil did not create the Trojan legend of Roman origins, but his poem solidified the notion in popular and scholarly sentiment.

Vergil sets the seeds for future animosity between Carthage and Rome in the Aeneid, too -- the curse of queen Dido on the descendants of Aeneas of never-ending strife played into then-recent recollections of war in the Roman mind. Books I through VI are much more studied than VII through XII, but the whole of the Aeneid is a spectacular tale.

Books I through VI show Aeneas on the journey, and a failed love affair with Queen Dido.Aeneas is shipwrecked, and Dido (also an outcast from her homeland, setting out to found Carthage) gets Aeneas to tell her his story, in which he recasts the tale of the Trojan War and his own journey in terms that will lead to Rome.Gods and goddesses factor in here - Jupiter (the Roman Zeus) is protecting Aeneas, but Juno (the Roman Hera) favours Carthage, and is the one who caused the storm to shipwreck Aeneas near Dido so that he might be thwarted in his plan to found Rome.There is jealousy and rage because Aeneas eventually has to leave; Dido dies in a dramatic fashion, but not before her soul being given a blessed release by the favoured gods.

The most dramatic part of the story over, the reader settles into other action that, while interesting, is somewhat pale in comparison to the first half.

The Aeneid is a fascinating text, one of the greatest epics of the ancient world; it takes up the task of the Iliad/Odyssey cycle and 'updates', if you will, the story line into the Roman era. Pharr's book helps the reader to work with it in its original language, easily and methodically, with only a minimum of Latin training (one year is probably sufficient) required for engagement.

Vergil died before he could complete the story. He wished it to be burned; fortunately, Augustus had other ideas. Still, there are incomplete lines and thoughts, and occasional conflicts in the storyline that one assumes might have been worked out in the end, had more editing time been available. Despite these, the Aeneid remains a masterpiece.

"Fated to be an Exile..."
[This review relates to the wondrous Penguin Classics
edition of THE AENEID, "Tranlated into English Prose with
an Introduction by W.F.Jackson Knight."]

If Virgil could lead the poet Dante through the wasteland
and Inferno at the end of the Middle Ages, perhaps the poet
Virgil, aided by the skill and inspiration of the translator
W.F.Jackson Knight, might perform the same needed function for
us, here at the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st
centuries.
W.F.Jackson Knight, in his very interesting and insightful
"Introduction," makes the argument that "the AENEID of Virigl
is a gateway between the pagan and the Christian centuries."
That much, itself, might serve as the basis for some excellent
essays of analysis and interpretation.But Knight has his own
path to tread. So we should let him.
-------------
"In the beginning, Rome had been a tiny settlement
surrounded by enemies -- and it had needed a strong will:
proud,disciplined, and sustained -- to survive at all.
Rome did survive and was led on by successive hard-won
victories to world dominion.
The early history is obscure, but the process seems
to have taken at least five centuries of almost continuous
warfare, and during that period the Romans achieved
unparalleled success, apparently through unique merits
of their own, combined with a special share of divine
favor and good fortune [a nice touch of Pagan sentiment,
there, to counter-balance the perhaps over-emphasis on
the Christian tie at the beginning]. This spectacular rise
of Rome was a matter for wonder and a certain reverence
to the Romans themselves, especially when, in the
later years of the republican period, new chances of peace
and prosperity, AND A NEW ACCESS OF SKEPTICISM threatened
THE OLD HABITS OF LOYALTY, INTEGRITY, and SELF-SACRIFICE"
[capitals are mine].
---------
Knight continues with his excellent "Introduction" and talks
of Publius Vergilius Maro [usually denoted as "Virgil"], the
excellent, visionary poet and artist who created the epic
poem for Roman patriotic pride, values teaching, and national
identity -- THE AENEID.
I especially like Knight's discussion of the influences on
Virgil as he wrote the epic.
--------
"The AENEID is the third, last, and longest of Virgil's
poems.It is a legendary narrative, a story about the
imagined origin of the Roman nation in times long before the
foundation of Rome itself.* * * The AENEID, as any epic should
be, is an exciting story extremely well told and full of
incident; it can be read as a story and nothing more.However,
besides being a story, it is a kind of moving picture --
carrying allusive, and in a sense, symbolic meanings. * * *
In the poem [the gods and goddesses]communicate with mortal men
either directly or through dreams, visions, omens, and the
words of prophets and clairvoyants. Virgil had no doubt that
the affairs of the earthly world are subject to the powers of
another world, a world which is normally, but by no means
always, invisible, but no less real for that....
* * * The great poets have a way of making what is seen
reveal the unseen; and they seem to do this better if they
collect an enormous quantity of observations on life, their
own and other people's, and then condense it under strong
pressure so that even a few words have a great power of
suggestion and persuasion.No doubt they are all the time

choosing with precise accuracy what is most important.The
result is an allusive and partly symbolic kind of language
able to communicate not merely single happenings but the
universal truth behind them.
These greater poets also reach back across past time, and
represent a view of the world which belongs not to one man
or one generation of men but to the men of many succeeding
generations or even a whole civilization.The experience
which is distilled may be the experience of many centuries;
and it may be condensed and focused by a single genius in
a single poetic statement.That is what Virgil did to the
experience of the Greeks and Romans in the AENEID."
["Introduction."W.F. Jackson Knight. AENEID. Penguin
Classics.]
-----------------
In talking of the other literary influences which helped
inspire Virgil and which he distilled into his own poetic
process with the helps of the fires of creative energy
and intuition, Knight mentions (of course) the fact of Homer
and his two major epics, the ILIAD and the ODYSSEY.
He also mentions the influence of Lucretius.But he says:
"Virgil knew his [Lucretius] work well and made free use
of many hundreds of his phrases in the AENEID, and let them
suggest ideas.But since HE VIOLENTLY DISAGREED WITH
THE MATERIALISTIC PHILOSOPHY of LUCRETIUS, he could not
adopt his thought.Indeed, he apparently delighted in turning
it upside down, and expressing something far more like the

idealistic philosophy of PLATO, even when the phrases of
Lucretius were influencing him."
I very much prefer Knight's "prose" English version of the
AENEID over most of the other ones which I have encountered.
His English prose flows like poetry, and is eminently readable
as well as instantly understood. One encounters that famous
opening, translated so well into intuitive, inspired English
prose:"This is a tale of arms and of a man.Fated to be
an exile, he was the first to sail from the land of Troy
and reach Italy, at its Lavinian shore.He met many
tribulations on his way both by land and on the ocean; high
Heaven willed it, for Juno was ruthless and could not forget
her anger. And he had also to endure great suffering in
warfare."
Inspiring and instructive, for Romans, for Dante, and
for us! ... Read more

Product Description
This collection of Virgil's poetry is part of the "New Poets in Translation" series, which offers verse translations of major classical works. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A must for all Virgilians
This commendium is a necessary and essential for all those involved in studying Virgil, Latin and translation.I think this alongside "Homer in English" are the most successful of the series "Poets in Translation".

If you love Virgil and love the art of translation comparison (as I do)than this out-of-print edition is for you!

Like "Homer in English", the compiliation gathers excerpts of translations from the start of Virgil's entrance into the English language up to modern times...using The Aeneid, Georgics and Ecologues as their primary selections.

Facinating and endlessly illuminating! ... Read more

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The Latin text with notes, vocabulary and introductory material in English. ... Read more

Product Description
Virgil Fox (The Dish) is a spicy biography of the lateVirgil Fox (1912-1980), who was the most successful and famousorganist in history. Prepared by the organist's managers for 17 years,the book is based on a 250-page memoir of Fox's artistic heir andprotege, Ted Alan Worth, with contributions by 17 other associates andstudents who knew Fox intimately. The book was commissioned by theVirgil Fox Society, whose scholarship fund benefits from sales. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Excellent
It is a wonderful read for lovers of the pipe organ! I remember seeing Virgil Fox in concert and being overwhelmed by his performance. The details of how he built quite a business really add to the book. It goes to show the ability of some to make a "niche" market for themselves and live the American Dream. Thanks for such a great entertaining book- I could hardly put it down.

Missing The Mark
I know the others reviewers liked the book, but I did not.I am a BIG Fox fan and REALLY wanted to like this book.I enjoyed the pictures and some of the reflections from musicians and other friends.However, the book includes unfortunate gossip--statements made in private among friends that Virgil, and any other sane person, would not have expected to be written down for public consumption many years later.There are also some statements about Mr. Fox's private life that I didn't want nor care to know.The book even lapses into bad taste (chapter title using sexual reference, as one example).So much for my great hope that this book would be appropriate to give to young people in order to inspire them.I just do not feels this book honored the life of such a great artist.I truly hope someone out there will write a definitive biography that emphasiez his positive accomplishments!

Extra Saucy please, Honey!
A loving, loyal, and often hilarious journey through the phenomenon that was Virgil Fox, "The Dish" lives up to its name from the moment you scan the Table of Contents."Foam All Over His Face, Raving Like A Madman!", "That Hog-Eye-Stink-Crotch!" and "I've Always Preferred My Organs Upright!" are not at all unusual among the chapter titles as the story of this supremely gifted organist bounces along.
Roughly edited by two of his proteges from the reminisces of a third, "The Dish" is clearly a work springing from true belief in Fox's genius and deep affection for Fox himself.The contrast between the gravitas of his chosen medium, in which he spent years as a church organist in several major national congregations, and the wild joie de vivre and flamboyance with which he embraced the world around him, are a marvelous ride from one extreme to another.I picked up this book on a whim, and was shortly completely unable to detach it from my hands.Fox was such a wild ride himself, and this book is a warm testament not only to the power of belief in oneself, but the devotion of friends even after they've seen their idol's feet of clay (and been charged a dollar for the privilege -- Fox nickeled and dimed his guests for refreshments at his house!).
Delightfully unpretentious, honest and tender, "The Dish" is a mix of high and low culture, tasty and good for you.I am delighted to have learned about the organ community, but even more delighted -- at this safe remove -- to have met Virgil."Thanks, Honey!"

Loved this book!
I loved reading this book and couldn't wait to pick it up a couple times a day!This book really tells the story of the man, good points, bad points, warts and all. You really got the essence of this great master of the organ.

VIRGIL AT LAST
"The Dish" is in many ways a sheep in Fox's clothing.This first biography of Virgil Fox is in reality a Ted Alan Worth (Fox's protegee) memoir of his time at the feet of the great organ virtuoso.It could also be described as the world's longest series of anecdotes with a healthy dose of inserted comments by Fox cohorts Richard Torrence, Marshall Yeager and many othersAs such it cannot be considered a true biography.That aside, it is the only large volume devoted to Fox, so for those interested in his life and loves (musically and otherwise) it is a must read.Worth was 14 when he first met Virgil in what must have been about 1946.The narrative starts at that point, omitting the first 34+ years of Fox's life.Why he learned to love the organ, his rise to prominence and early concert career before World War II are left out.Too bad.It would have been nice to have known the full story of his inspirations."The Dish" sounds like it was dashed off in one long paragraph, which in fact it was.
I found the stories relating to the organ companies themselves not too technical and full of the competitive spirit.Worth was on the forefront of both the Rodgers and Ruffatti organizations.
The little background, personal stories are a nice People magazine style break from the concertizing minutiae and other more solemn parts of the chapters. Everything from Fox's sex life to his wardrobe are given plenty of amplification.Few stops stay in regarding his personal life.Pictures abound giving faces to the many voices in the text.There are also quite a few variations on the themes of grammar and spelling (lightening for lightning as an example) which detract from the airy prose.
As a non-organist, I came to Fox through his "Heavy Organ" concerts that began in the 1970's.His magical way of introducing "us kids" to J.S. Bach with a pulsating light show behind him cannot be described and of course now cannot be experienced.It's been over 20 years since his death, so those who had the privilege will want to grab on to "Virgil Fox - The Dish" as a pleasant reminder of how great those mind-expanding nights at the theatre were, and how complex was the man who brought organ music to popular culture. ... Read more

Product Description
In the 1960s, rock and pop music recording questioned the convention that recordings should recreate the illusion of a concert hall setting. The Wall of Sound that Phil Spector built behind various artists and the intricate eclecticism of George Martin's recordings of the Beatles did not resemble live performances—in the Albert Hall or elsewhere—but instead created a new sonic world. The role of the record producer, writes Virgil Moorefield in The Producer as Composer, was evolving from that of organizer to auteur; band members became actors in what Frank Zappa called a "movie for your ears." In rock and pop, in the absence of a notated score, the recorded version of a song—created by the producer in collaboration with the musicians—became the definitive version.

Moorefield, a musician and producer himself, traces this evolution with detailed discussions of works by producers and producer-musicians including Spector and Martin, Brian Eno, Bill Laswell, Trent Reznor, Quincy Jones, and the Chemical Brothers. Underlying the transformation, Moorefield writes, is technological development: new techniques—tape editing, overdubbing, compression—and, in the last ten years, inexpensive digital recording equipment that allows artists to become their own producers. What began when rock and pop producers reinvented themselves in the 1960s has continued; Moorefield describes the importance of disco, hip-hop, remixing, and other forms of electronic music production in shaping the sound of contemporary pop. He discusses the making of Pet Sounds and the production of tracks by Public Enemy with equal discernment, drawing on his own years of studio experience. Much has been written about rock and pop in the last 35 years, but hardly any of it deals with what is actually heard in a given pop song. The Producer as Composer tries to unravel the mystery of good pop: why does it sound the way it does? ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

The Title Says it All
A great book for people wanting to understand the basics of record production and how it ties in with music composition.
There has been a strong trend lately for the composer to be a musician, engineer, arranger, producer... of their music.
This is a good book for music students or anyone who would like to understand modern music production.

Good Insights!
Mr, (Dr.??) Moorefield has collected a lot of research and experience into the process of production.Aside from some editorial errors, it's a good, quick read that warrants re-reading.

Using this for my class
This book is a nice study on production. I especially appreciate the classic tracks-style breakdowns of historic song productions. I will look into using it for one of my future production classes.

excellent
I've been trying to find a book like this for quite a while.It's an excellent academic, yet accessible, study of modern producers - their techniques, technology, and personalities.I only wish it covered more people....though the producers that were chosen were excellent choices.

A Unique View of an Essential Creator in the world of Popular Music
I love this book! It finally brings to light for the average popular music consumer as well as the scholarly directed the vital function that has made the producer the king of the studio.We members of the business side of popular music have recognized the financial rewards that come to producers from the likes of Phil Spector and Leiber and Stoler on to the producers of more current rap, hip hop and other genres including disco. But this book finally brings a search light of musicology to show the skills that warrant the status of producers as a vital contributor to the music scene.It is a worthy tribute to each of the many producers whose contributions are analyzed with skill by an author who combines his role as professor and working musician.
Bill Krasilovsky ( co author of This Business of Music) ... Read more

Product Description
The outstanding and long-lived ‘red Macmillan’ series of editions survived on the basis of T.E. Page’s perceptive and exemplary editions of Virgil, dating from the closing decade of the nineteenth century. In the early 1970s replacement editions were prepared by the outstanding Virgilian scholar R.D. Williams, to take account of more modern approaches to Virgil and of the needs of new generations of upper school and university students. The scale of the edition required brevity and immediate relevance to the text (rather than the fuller exposition of his commentaries for OUP) but Williams achieved his aim of being ‘concise rather than omissive’ and his notes remain an example of clarity and good sense for any student approaching the second half of the Aeneid in whole or in part. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Useful, but not the best
Although the notes contain helpful explanations of the mythology in the Aeneid, their grammatical commentary is a little sparse. I wouldn't recommend either this book or Williams' Aeneid VII-XII to the beginning Latin student. When I was beginning to study Virgil, I found this book to be incredibly more helpful: Virgil: Aeneid II (BCP Latin Texts) (Bk. 2).

For the more advanced student, however, the notes should be adequate. I like especially that this book and its sister edition (Virgil Aeneid 7-12 (Bks. 7-12)) contain the entire Latin text of the Aeneid in two neat packages. It is frustrating to try to piece together Virgil's complete text with expensive Latin-English translations of single sections of the Aeneid.

an incredibly helpful text
The first time I had ever read Vergil, I used this book, and the notes were essential to my understanding of what was going on.When I used it for another class on the Aeneid, years later, I had a much better grasp of the grammar, vocabulary and plot, and I found myself far better prepared than some of my classmates because I chose to use this edition instead of a naked text with no notes.The notes are useful for beginners and more advanced students of Latin, and I believe that even people who are secure in their knowledge of the Latin language will learn a thing or two from these notes.I really appreciated that the notes will tell you when Vergil is referring to a Homeric passage. ... Read more