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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 892.1
EAN num: 9780140449198
ISBN number: 0140449191
Label: Penguin Classics
Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 304
Printing Date: April 29, 2003
Publishing house: Penguin Classics
Release Date: April 29, 2003
Sale Popularity Level: 111145
Studio: Penguin Classics
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Product Description:
Translated with an Introduction by Andrew George.
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Rated by buyers 
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Note that the other comments here (both professional and consumer) are for the Andrew George version of "The Epic of Gilgamesh." Amazon does note this above with a disclaimer stating that the "comments are for an out of print or unavailable edition." But you might miss if you don't read carefully. The edition that I received is a translation by N.K. Sandars. There is a brief half page introductory note, but nothing else in the way of commentary, notes, or references. If you are looking for an annotated version, you must buy a different edition. However, if you are just looking for a translation of the story and are able to do your own research, then this is the edition for you. The four stars are for the work itself and its place in history.
Rated by buyers 
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This is absolutely one of the best translations of Gilgamesh available. Andrew George gives us a taste of what the original versification was like. He also translates all the extant versions and fragments of versions of the epic, and this is important. Not only do the versions augment each other and fill in the gaps that time and entropy have literally carved, shattered, and eroded into the original tablets, but they key us into the variations that the generations of years of cross-cultural retellings have wrought. Gilgamesh becomes Bilgames, etc. etc. Finally, an appendix at the back of the book discusses the process of translating the text from the tablets. In many ways this is the most fascinating part of this volume. Along with these good points, we are treated to line drawings taken from period artwork illustrating the epic, so we see the gods, goddesses, and strange monsters as they were visualized by the Babylonians. Highly recommended!
Rated by buyers -
This is another from my "what haven't I read that maybe I should have" period. This is a difficult read - part of which is because of the way the text and variants are put together (though I don't know how to make it any better). So, have patience.
This is the very first translation I have read of Gilgamesh (and probably my last unless new material adds significantly to the text) so I can't comment on other versions. The Penguin Classics edition has many illustrations that did add to the pleasure.
Highly recommended as one of those "to be read before I die" books.
Rated by buyers -
I recommend this Penguin Classic, but it offers more thorough scholarly apparatus than usual for the series. This is not meant as a criticism! But, a beginner may find a "version" such as Stephen Mitchell's easier to start with for an overview of the storyline, and a briefer introduction and helpful endnotes. The poem itself is not lengthy, but the ancillary texts and sources, as Andrew George shows us, do take up considerable space which may please enthusiasts but discourage newcomers to this epic poem.
George prepared for Oxford UP in 1999 a two-volume edition, and this Penguin adapts the core of the English translation for a wider audience. It appears ideal for a college classroom or the reader wanting to learn more about the lacunae, the gaps, the language, and the editorial decisions made by George and fellow translators. A fascinating appendix shows how out of grammatical markers, syllabic, and half-syllabic cuneiform incisions the sounds and rhythms and absences that fill this most ancient of narratives turn into what we can understand. To a point.
Terms such as "louvre-door," "glacis-slope," "hie to the forge," and notably Ishtar's exhortation to "stroke my quim" give a rather archaic diction to parts of the translation. George aims obviously for precision in such terminology, but this does clash with the more demotic vernacular chosen by Mitchell in his popularization. Mitchell's also considerably more erotic and develops passages that in their original state, reading George, remain terse. Again, George approaches the thousands of fragments that are still being assembled nearly 150 years after their discovery and observes that this epic is still, amazingly and poignantly, one in progress as we await trained Assyriologists able to decipher not only the later Akkadian but the considerably more challenging and often cryptic Sumerian sources. It's a shame that in a region where so many billions have been spent to destroy the area between the Tigris & Euphrates that a few thousands can not be provided for the study and restoration of the oldest story text we have ever found.
Rated by buyers -
I recently ordered this version to prepare for teaching Giglamesh in a Humanities I course. I had read the famous Sandars version, which compiles the various tablets into one coherent prose narrative. However, Andrews' new version attempts no similar gloss: the work is revealed as a fragmentary masterpiece, with gripping passages of narrative trailing off into maddening gaps and uncertainties. The Introduction offers a very informative, concise overview of Gilgamesh scholarship and the state of the work itself. It is truly humbling to realize how little we have of this great work, yet what we do have literally changed our understanding of the ancient world. And as Sandars suggested in his Introduction to the earlier Penguin volume, it is amazing that such an old, fragmentary work from a forgotten culture still has the power to move us. This sounds like academic hyperbole, but even in its most authentic state, the work is powerful; we see Gilgamesh's grief, his desperation, and his bitter defeat upon losing Enkidu and the possibility of eternal life. The translation carries some powerful imagery that somehow surpasses the more fluid prose translation; perhaps this is a bit of chiaroscuro (sp?), the lost passages showing the more complete, brilliant ones in greater relief.
Even better, this translation includes all the various fragments of the Gilgamesh story, as well as the ealrier Sumerian version of the epic, which is much different than the Standard version. It's a remarkable volume which is fun to pour through and reconstruct this ancient world on the dawn of civilization. It truly inspired me to teach this work to my students, emphasizing how such a powerful work can rest on only a handful of broken tablets.
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