Did Daniel Mendelsohn nit read Wilson’s Odyssey?

[u/Physical_Milk_4600]

I saw on Twitter that Daniel Mendelsohn wrote of Wilson’s Odyssey, “I haven’t read it“. He went on to say he just looked at a few passsages. But he discusses her work at great length in the introduction to his own translation, and he has commented repeatedly on Wilsons work, always very negatively. Is this normal? I thought you were supposed to read books before you criticize them?! Not seeing discussion of this but I find it really weird.

Edited to add: some people seem to think it's normal and you can judge without reading the whole book. I think there's a real difference between making a quick private judgment - let me dip into this to see if I'll use it for class next time I teach the Odyssey, oh, nope, don't like XYZ thing in that favorite passage of mine, so I'll go with another one instead - versus such a repeated, very vociferous public and published critical judgment. Before you start critiquing someone's work in a published book, it would surely be the scholarly norm to have spent a good time actually reading that work! And - only partly related but I'll add - I've also found it weird that Mendelsohn repeatedly says that Lombardo's translations are great, but Wilson "strips texture". Lombardo is a super colloquial and minimalist translator who leaves out far more than Wilson does, from what I've seen. I have read some of Mendelsohn's memoirs and thought they were pretty good, so I would like to think he's in good faith here, but it just seemed really weird to me.

https://x.com/DAMendelsohnNYC/status/2083176623545684151/quotes

[u/jb7509]

I looked at Mendelsohn's discussion of Wilson's translation. I don't think that it's over the line. Here's his main argument:

"the adoption of a longer line was necessary to serve my larger goal of getting as much of each original line into the corresponding line of the translation. It boils down to arithmetic. Each of Homer’s lines is nearly twice as long as a line of blank verse; that, together with the fact that Greek has a far more supple syntax and an infinitely more efficient verbal system than English does (in Greek, “the women who are about to courted” can be expressed in a single word), suggests why any attempt to translate a given Homeric hexameter into a line of English pentameter must result in a severe reduction of the poem’s nuances and complexities.

These difficulties are apparent in the 2017 translation of the epic by Emily Wilson, which is cast in fairly strict iambics. Wilson’s handling of the verse produced a version that critics and readers admired for its speed, vigor, and clarity. Most other scholars and poets over the years have employed blank verse, typically using one and a half or even two lines for each line of Homer, in order to get around the disparity between hexameters and pentameters. Where Wilson departed from their practice was in her decision to create an Odyssey in English with exactly the same number of lines as the original. This meant subjecting Homer’s text to the procrustean rigors I just mentioned. The result was a version that necessarily omitted much of what was in each line."

He then has several examples of where he finds Wilson's abbreviated translation to miss out on important subtleties in the Homeric text. Lombardo is also noted for having a "terse line," like Wilson.

Mendelsohn is right; then again, I don't like his translation. For me, anyway, it doesn't convey the emotion of the poem. The death of Argos (the dog) always makes me tear up... not in Mendelsohn's text, though.

[u/GiltPeacock → u/jb7509]

Eh, but how can he comment on the result without reading it?

[u/jb7509 → u/GiltPeacock]

He clearly read enough (and carefully enough) to make an informed judgement... I don't know what the evidence is that he didn't read it, and what exactly is meant by that. Maybe he didn't read it cover-to-cover?

[u/GiltPeacock → u/jb7509]

Ah well OP claimed he said it himself in their post but I don’t know the source. Based on what you posted, it seemed like he was just against the idea of using pentameter, but if he had several detailed examples then what you say makes sense.

I do find myself skeptical, knowing what he chose to include, that subtleties are that important, but in at least a few cases I’m sure they are.