This translation of the book reads like a novel, not a poem: It’s the first time I’ve been able to read poetry without forgetting each word the moment I read it.
This is in large part thanks to the kind of language Emily Wilson uses. In her introduction she explains that other translations often use some sort of old fanshioned English. Which makes reading the book unnecessarily complicated. The story itself is very old, filled with customs and ideas that are hard to understand for a modern western person like myself, there is no need to make it even harder by using some sort of English that people spoke 50 years ago.
Another reason I think this book reads so well is because Emily Wilson is a woman. She explains in her introduction that this is definitely of influence on the end result. While it is impossible to turn the Odyssey into a feminist manifesto — it will forever be a barbaric tale of a horrible brute — it is definitely possible to choose more positive descriptions of the women in the book when in doubt.
I’m very happy that I kept falling asleep during all my previous attempts to read the Odyssey, otherwise I wouldn’t have read this great translation by Emily Wilson. And I wouldn’t have read the introduction which is an excellent lecture about how Homer and the Odyssey were perceived throughout the centuries, and which places the story in a modern day western context. A true eye opener.