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Gilgamesh
The Epic of Gilgamesh is the first great book of man's heart. Inscribed onto clay tablets around 2400 BC, it enthralled the ancient world with a story of love, heroism, friendship, grief and defiance of the Gods. That it continues to speak to us today, despite its fragmentary state, is testimony to the power and humanity of its King Gilgamesh's lament for his dead friend Enkidu is still among the most powerful poems of mourning in literature.
Inspired by the universality of the Gilgamesh story, the poet Derrek Hines has produced a magnificent reworking of the epic, which brings it into a modern idiom whilst maintaining its timeless quality. His striking imagery breathes a new sensuality and vigour into the characters; his poised and energetic language moves seamlessly between the lyric and the bellicose, the comic and the tragic, the classical and the contemporary.
Like Christopher Logue's War Music , or Seamus Heaney's Beowulf , this is a work that will communicate to today's reader the sheer excitement and wonder that its first audiences must have felt five thousand years ago.
Inspired by the universality of the Gilgamesh story, the poet Derrek Hines has produced a magnificent reworking of the epic, which brings it into a modern idiom whilst maintaining its timeless quality. His striking imagery breathes a new sensuality and vigour into the characters; his poised and energetic language moves seamlessly between the lyric and the bellicose, the comic and the tragic, the classical and the contemporary.
Like Christopher Logue's War Music , or Seamus Heaney's Beowulf , this is a work that will communicate to today's reader the sheer excitement and wonder that its first audiences must have felt five thousand years ago.
80 pages, Paperback
First published January 10, 2002
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
October 15, 2008
I really enjoyed this version of Gilgamesh - perhaps one of the most accessible to the general reader. Gilgamesh is pretty much a required read, in my book, not just because it is the oldest (mostly) surviving narrative, but because it is about stuff that matters, namely that we're all gonna die, and there isn't really anything we can do about it. I'm not sure how many basic human stories there are, but this has to be one of the most basic, and most human. For more, see Ernest Becker's 'The Denial of Death,' which basically traces most of what we do - civilization, etc. - back to our awareness of the coming end and its permanence.
February 21, 2011
"In which Gilgamesh and Enkidu are bros"
This one was surprisingly wonderful; I will have to think about it more to come up with coherent comments!
Hines doesn't translate directly - there are bombs, airplanes, and other contemporary things and ideas, and entire passages that are written in a perticular time period but not ancient Mesopotamia (World War One? Okay?). I will seriously have to read other translations to see how the relationship and its repurcussions plays out there - is it similar? is there a critical narrator there as well (because if so, my prejudices about old literature have been shattered again!).
This is not like the poetry that I am used to (where you want to learn lines by heart because thy are beautiful, or catch something complicated in a few words and stop you short) - it seems to be more about the emotion than the sound or the idea, and it doesn't really stay in your head the way poetry can. I haven't pulled out any sections to quote here, because there was nothing that could really give a good impression of the whole.
Instead it’s a genuinely exciting/moving text, and some of the passages (e.g. the war against Humbaba) really work in terms of evoking sentiments.
This one was surprisingly wonderful; I will have to think about it more to come up with coherent comments!
Hines doesn't translate directly - there are bombs, airplanes, and other contemporary things and ideas, and entire passages that are written in a perticular time period but not ancient Mesopotamia (World War One? Okay?). I will seriously have to read other translations to see how the relationship and its repurcussions plays out there - is it similar? is there a critical narrator there as well (because if so, my prejudices about old literature have been shattered again!).
This is not like the poetry that I am used to (where you want to learn lines by heart because thy are beautiful, or catch something complicated in a few words and stop you short) - it seems to be more about the emotion than the sound or the idea, and it doesn't really stay in your head the way poetry can. I haven't pulled out any sections to quote here, because there was nothing that could really give a good impression of the whole.
Instead it’s a genuinely exciting/moving text, and some of the passages (e.g. the war against Humbaba) really work in terms of evoking sentiments.
March 25, 2016
So many mixed feeling about this book. To fully appreciate it I think I need to read it again.
Gilgamesh is the oldest text, 1000 years before the bible and 2000 years before Christianity, or Catholicism. You have legends and stories told and retold, based on.....some fact, but mixed in with the myths of the time.
Gilgamesh has parts that ring true, a man that survived the flood that wiped out the earth. Landing on top of Ararat Mountain, sending out a dove that found no rest and returning. You can find more truths in Genesis. Of course the earth God and the Mountain God and the God that formed Man from the dust and breathed life all get credit.
I think this is how man is....God creates the cloud. HE creates it to hold tons of water. If the cloud released all the water it would crush a car. But in HIS wisdom He creates the cloud to release slowly and lightly that even a tiny petal can hold a drop. And Man, we turn and thank a cloud and do a rain dance.
While I can appreciate the literature and the hidden meaning.....man is lost without direction from our Jesus.
Gilgamesh is the oldest text, 1000 years before the bible and 2000 years before Christianity, or Catholicism. You have legends and stories told and retold, based on.....some fact, but mixed in with the myths of the time.
Gilgamesh has parts that ring true, a man that survived the flood that wiped out the earth. Landing on top of Ararat Mountain, sending out a dove that found no rest and returning. You can find more truths in Genesis. Of course the earth God and the Mountain God and the God that formed Man from the dust and breathed life all get credit.
I think this is how man is....God creates the cloud. HE creates it to hold tons of water. If the cloud released all the water it would crush a car. But in HIS wisdom He creates the cloud to release slowly and lightly that even a tiny petal can hold a drop. And Man, we turn and thank a cloud and do a rain dance.
While I can appreciate the literature and the hidden meaning.....man is lost without direction from our Jesus.
May 15, 2021
Okay, this one won't be everyone's cup of tea. Some will strongly dislike the anachronisms; others will dislike the surrealism; others, the...I don't even know if there's a word for it, but I guess the technique of relying heavily on imagery and association without real consistent threads? Which sometimes is a swing and a miss. When it lands, though, man...I loved the image of the edge of a city lifted up in order to sneak into someone's dreams and kill them, and the image of an armored army gleaming in a parking lot in memory.
Worth a try if you like sensation-based poetry, maybe try the Mason translation if you like sense-based poetry. (This one has less of a focus on grief, more focus on ego.) I loved both and plan on having a blast filling my copies w/marginalia.
Worth a try if you like sensation-based poetry, maybe try the Mason translation if you like sense-based poetry. (This one has less of a focus on grief, more focus on ego.) I loved both and plan on having a blast filling my copies w/marginalia.
January 6, 2021
Everyone needs to read this book...
April 9, 2020
An updating of the Epic of Gilgamesh. This is probably the earliest known epic, (around 4000 years ago) but I have some reservations about this poetic version. As an epic, it is really a straightforward story of the arrogant Gilgamesh, his bro Enkiddu and Enkiddu's death (after many adventures), causing Gilgamesh to venture into the underworld. The main themes are there: love, friendship, grief and I liked when Hines stayed close to the version but some choices were ridiculous and tacky - one of the main characters appearing in Dietrich Blue Angel drag can be a bit much, but there are some superb effects with the defeat of Humbaba and the lament for Enkiddu. This version is enjoyable and poetic in some ways, but I'd read a more authoritive version for complete depth.
November 28, 2019
I had never read Gilgamesh before, so I was coming into this one fresh. I was excited to finally read about the origins of these well-known names and references. Ultimately, this was interesting from a historical perspective, but not so entertaining by our modern-day standards. George Guidall does a most excellent job, of course, and really makes the book come alive. I would definitely say it's worth a listen once.
August 31, 2017
A really enjoyable modernized telling of Gilgamesh. It was not at all what I expected when I picked it up, but I'm glad I did. It's what every Shakespeare-but-in-the-modern-day update wishes it were, in terms of revitalized relatability.
March 26, 2025
It was cool. I had heard of Gilgamesh before reading this, knowing the outline of the story already the poem was easy to follow. The free verse style was really eloquent and gut-wrenching when it needed to be.
June 12, 2020
Not my favorite version but interesting read.
August 6, 2025
It was ok; this translation is not for me I think. There are anachronisms sprinkled throughout.
I prefer the translations that are more true to the original text I suppose.
I prefer the translations that are more true to the original text I suppose.
March 26, 2020
This is short and bright. Don't let reviews capsize you if you love the regenerative nature of myth, and you don't mind a bit of the avante-garde.
Giddy first impressions--then a link to the words of a well-known author--and then impressions again:
What a discovery is this! The Derrek Hines Gilgamesh is open next to me. Reviews on Amazon were mixed--my copy was 92 cents used--but when I began reading the orange volume and then grew more and more delighted, I wanted to see who else thought highly of its modern sights. And it seems the author of The Life of Pi, as part of an admirably funny project, has a few elegiac lines on the subject here:
http://www.whatisstephenharperreading...
"For as long as Stephen Harper is Prime Minister of Canada, I vow to send him every two weeks, mailed on a Monday, a book that has been known to expand stillness. That book will be inscribed and will be accompanied by a letter I will have written. I will faithfully report on every new book, every inscription, every letter, and any response I might get from the Prime Minister, on this website.” - Yann Martel
One thought, maybe an apologia. Myth is always anachronistic. My older brother made fun of the movie Excalibur because the suits of armor were more 14th century than 8th century. For a few moments of my life, that ruined the movie, that Arthur could never have looked like Nigel Terry in stage regalia. But I soon realized that the mixing of age and ages is the very marrow and love of mythology, the "myth," as Mircea Eliade called it, "of the eternal return."
With Gilgamesh--yes, the Canadian travesty that Amazonians say should be retitled to cordon off the new "riffing" (as Yann Martel puts it) from the historic "footprints of the mind's bird / in its take-off scramble across wet clay tablets" (as the perpetrator Hines refers to his flood's source in its opening chapter)--the oral tradition is carried. The body of the myth is not treated irreverently so much as without excessive reverence. Homer we see as a visionary despite blindness, but we know nothing of which parts he invented. If you've once read Terry Pratchett and enjoyed the experience, you can read Hines' Gilgamesh and see an old world reflected and supported in beams up to the atomic age. The characters are more than human, and the synesthetic forces work their fusion.
Giddy first impressions--then a link to the words of a well-known author--and then impressions again:
What a discovery is this! The Derrek Hines Gilgamesh is open next to me. Reviews on Amazon were mixed--my copy was 92 cents used--but when I began reading the orange volume and then grew more and more delighted, I wanted to see who else thought highly of its modern sights. And it seems the author of The Life of Pi, as part of an admirably funny project, has a few elegiac lines on the subject here:
http://www.whatisstephenharperreading...
"For as long as Stephen Harper is Prime Minister of Canada, I vow to send him every two weeks, mailed on a Monday, a book that has been known to expand stillness. That book will be inscribed and will be accompanied by a letter I will have written. I will faithfully report on every new book, every inscription, every letter, and any response I might get from the Prime Minister, on this website.” - Yann Martel
One thought, maybe an apologia. Myth is always anachronistic. My older brother made fun of the movie Excalibur because the suits of armor were more 14th century than 8th century. For a few moments of my life, that ruined the movie, that Arthur could never have looked like Nigel Terry in stage regalia. But I soon realized that the mixing of age and ages is the very marrow and love of mythology, the "myth," as Mircea Eliade called it, "of the eternal return."
With Gilgamesh--yes, the Canadian travesty that Amazonians say should be retitled to cordon off the new "riffing" (as Yann Martel puts it) from the historic "footprints of the mind's bird / in its take-off scramble across wet clay tablets" (as the perpetrator Hines refers to his flood's source in its opening chapter)--the oral tradition is carried. The body of the myth is not treated irreverently so much as without excessive reverence. Homer we see as a visionary despite blindness, but we know nothing of which parts he invented. If you've once read Terry Pratchett and enjoyed the experience, you can read Hines' Gilgamesh and see an old world reflected and supported in beams up to the atomic age. The characters are more than human, and the synesthetic forces work their fusion.
June 8, 2012
This is not a translation of the old poem: it's a re-interpretation in poetry of the original epic. The story is the same, but the language crackles with vivid imagery that connect with our time. The language in parts was so startling and new that I had to read it over a few times, impressed by the efficient metaphors and the energy behind each line. Some examples:
A description of Gilgamesh:
Pulls women like beer rings.
Grunts when puzzled. A bully. A jock. Perfecto.
But in love? – a moon-calf,
and worse, thoughtful.
Then Enkidu is next:
Sour electric fear, desert mirage at your throat,
strong enough to hold back the night,
so handsome he robs the world
of horizon – for no one’s gaze lifts beyond him
When Gilgamesh remembers fondly his battle moments with Enkidu their systematic killing is described as "piston-like". The other soldiers are suspicious of the mission against the Huwawa monster and notice how Gilgamesh keeps looking at "pretty-boy Enkidu"
It's funny, it's profound, it's tragic, just as the original epic is supposed to be.
I am more then a little familiar with the original, so a warning: you might not understand what's going on based on this version a lone.
A description of Gilgamesh:
Pulls women like beer rings.
Grunts when puzzled. A bully. A jock. Perfecto.
But in love? – a moon-calf,
and worse, thoughtful.
Then Enkidu is next:
Sour electric fear, desert mirage at your throat,
strong enough to hold back the night,
so handsome he robs the world
of horizon – for no one’s gaze lifts beyond him
When Gilgamesh remembers fondly his battle moments with Enkidu their systematic killing is described as "piston-like". The other soldiers are suspicious of the mission against the Huwawa monster and notice how Gilgamesh keeps looking at "pretty-boy Enkidu"
It's funny, it's profound, it's tragic, just as the original epic is supposed to be.
I am more then a little familiar with the original, so a warning: you might not understand what's going on based on this version a lone.
February 14, 2011
I thought this was going to be an interesting take on Gilgamesh... instead it was the worst kind of editorial mutilation. Hines somehow managed to take one of the oldest written works in history and turn it into an unrecognizable pile of steaming kitsch. In his efforts to update the language and story he destroyed utterly all sense of narrative. Most of what I'm sure he considered clever emendations and additions left me repeatedly bewildered, and it was so difficult to follow and enjoy that I can't believe anyone in the world liked it. I strongly regret wasting time on this when I could have read a decent prose translation of the original work instead. Then I might have had some sense of the story itself instead of an overpowering odium directed at the "author." Stick to original poetry, Mr. Hines, and leave existing works alone, for the love of literature.
September 12, 2013
The last month I've been reading various editions of Gilgamesh. This one will be the last – at least for a long while. As he explains in his introduction, Hines attempts to do for Gilgamesh what Christopher Logue did with the Iliad and what Ted Hughes did with Metamorphoses – make great, sometimes shocking modern poetry out of great ancient poetry. That's setting the bar high, it's to his credit, but in this case it didn't work. The result is a travesty that surrenders everything interesting in the original work for puerile pyrotechnics. I salute his courage, but I won't be keeping the book on my shelves.
October 15, 2008
This has to be one of my favorite retellings of Gilgamesh. Hines narrates the story in 60 pages, never wasting a word, but sometimes telling the story obliquely, through other characters who interact with the great (and not-so-great) Gilgamesh. The writing shines, the characters are simultaneously human and divine, and the story has an interesting pacing to it.
April 2, 2009
I thought, going into this book, that the 'updating' for modern audiences would be cheesy & gimmicky. Ishtar breaking the sound barrier? CAT scans? In a translation of the oldest recorded epic?
But, it's actually done quite well, if only for the strength of Hines's poetry. It's punchy, vivid and exciting. The anachronisms don't really feel out of place.
But, it's actually done quite well, if only for the strength of Hines's poetry. It's punchy, vivid and exciting. The anachronisms don't really feel out of place.
January 27, 2014
'Talk dries in the cafes,
as when the soldiers of an occupation
enter a restaurant, and a coded silence
becomes speech. Where silence is language,
meaning is everywhere.'
A contemporary-language and -metaphor rendition of the Sumerian poem. Quite a lot of energy from this poet. Pretty interesting, though it makes me want to read a closer, more 'direct' translation.
as when the soldiers of an occupation
enter a restaurant, and a coded silence
becomes speech. Where silence is language,
meaning is everywhere.'
A contemporary-language and -metaphor rendition of the Sumerian poem. Quite a lot of energy from this poet. Pretty interesting, though it makes me want to read a closer, more 'direct' translation.
July 28, 2013
I love this interpretation just as much as I love Christopher Logue's interpretation of The Iliad. I'd recommend some familiarity with the history and a good translation before reading this.
It is an absolute thing of beauty.
It is an absolute thing of beauty.
August 17, 2013
The parts that were done well were AMAZING. But I felt like it really dropped off after the lament for Enkidu. If the quest for eternal life had been done as well as the other parts, this book would be 5 stars.
January 3, 2011
Riveting
May 30, 2013
It had me from the first stanza:
"Here is Gilgamesh, King of Uruk:
two-thirds divine, a mummy's boy,
zeppelin ego, cock like a trip-hammer,
and solid chrome, no-prisoners arrogance."
"Here is Gilgamesh, King of Uruk:
two-thirds divine, a mummy's boy,
zeppelin ego, cock like a trip-hammer,
and solid chrome, no-prisoners arrogance."
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews