Robert W. Watson

The book begins with "an author's apology for his work" and, well, I think instead of an apology, simply not writing the book in the first place would have been a better option.

I don't see a purpose for this book. The author has never read the original in the original language. He doesn't understand the poetic complexities of the original work and doesn't try to. There are so many versions of the original work that accomplish Watson's stated goals are but do it better and have a better understanding of the original. It's hard to recommend or even read this book knowing that much much better versions exist.

This book changes several original meanings (apparently to be more palatable and sanitized?) and takes several poetic liberties. It's meant to make the original easier to approach, but then changing elements because they don't fit with the reader's modern conservative sensibilities doesn't make sense. For example, changing a "prostitute" into a "priestess" is putting the author's ideals in instead of reflecting on the work for what it is: an ancient religious work from a non-Christian, non-Jewish, etc. background. Changing to suit the author's or current reader's religion takes away from the importance of the work and cheapens this version. It also makes it seem like the writer's goal isn't to enhance appreciation of this ancient work: It's to sanitize and make it more palatable for him.… (plus d'informations)

The Epic of Gilgamesh, the truly ancient of ancient stories, is vitally important to civilization for several reasons. First, it’s a really good story talking about the meaning of life, much like Job is to the Bible. Second, it provides a window into early civilization with the view that humans have always been, well, relatively human. It’s a timeless classic. Finally, it’s a religious work from a non-Roman, non-Hebrew, and non-Greek source. It illustrates the religious nature of humanity, for better or for worse. That’s why I have deeply loved this story for the past two decades.

Robert Watson’s poetic paraphrase seeks to retell this story, especially to students who may be required to read it in school. In author notes, it seems focused on the homeschool community. Exposing students to primary source material in an engaging way is a noble goal that I amply applaud.

However, this work seems to fall short in its philosophy. The introduction lacks a clear rationale of why a new version of this tale is needed. Many good translations already exist, some in more archaic, scholarly forms and others using more modern language. This is not an unknown story that was newly found. I’m concerned that this book is just a whitewashed rehashing of the story. It recasts one character from being a “prostitute” (its traditional form) to being a “priestess” with the only scholarly justification of citing one book, outside of the mainstream. As scholars of the Ancient Near East and of the Hebrew Bible understand, temple prostitutes were far more prevalent than priestesses. Further, its graphic illustrations show seemingly white people instead of those with Middle Eastern (Semitic) skin tones. I appreciate abstracting stories from a race-conscious format, but do we really need more reappropriated stories told from a Caucasian perspective?

Further, Watson’s book is a paraphrase – that is a rewording of an English translation. Watson does not know any ancient language that this tale was originally recorded in. There is nothing wrong with paraphrases, but a paraphrase should be reworded to reach a broader audience who presumably use more modern forms of language. A paraphrase can be seen, for example, with versions of the Christian Bible like The Living Bible. However, here, Watson uses “thee” and “thou” instead of the abundantly common “you.” Reading this book feels like it would have been a cutting-edge paraphrase a century or two ago. Modernity is not its goal; perhaps sheltering is.

For those reasons, I take issue with the concept of this book. It could hit its targeted audience with a little more polish. Watson’s life work focuses on Christian homeschool education. Nothing wrong with that, but that audience can be a bit insular and monolithic – read, not diverse – compared to the broader English-speaking world. Exposure to the wisdom of life’s diversity is a big part of education. For readers interested in reading a truly modern retelling of this superb tale, check out Stephen Miller’s Gilgamesh: A New English Version.… (plus d'informations)

I must confess to having two other versions of the Gilgamesh epic.[1] I must further confess to never having finished either.

So: This is an improvement. I managed to read the whole thing -- though not rapidly; it certainly didn't flow very well. This raises the reasonable question: How much of this is the underlying text and how much the rendition?

At least part of it is the text. We have versions of Gilgamesh in at least four languages[2], and all of them are somewhat damaged and all of them span multiple tablets (usually about ten cuneiform tablets); in some versions it is not even sure which order the tablets go in! Between all the translating and miscopying and reconstructing, it seems pretty clear that the original epic has been somewhat compromised. This explains some of the choppiness. And yet, translator Watson says that he has made some minor changes to try to improve the continuity. It seems to me that he should either have gone all-out and truly fixed it, or not done it at all and put his suggestions in the notes. It's too easy to get stuck on something hard to understand.

Also, the only scholarly apparatus is a single page of explanatory notes at the end. It's not enough, and it's too easy to miss the footnotes. Better to put them on the same page -- and increase them in volume by at least a factor of four. A factor of ten would be better.

Obviously what I'm saying is, "This needs more scholarly apparatus." The various versions of Gilgamesh have substantial differences, and it would be nice to know what they are. It would be nice, too, to know what is Gilgamesh and what is Watson -- the ending, e.g., looks nothing like the ANET ending; I checked. I realize that it wasn't Watson's purpose to make a scholarly edition. But sometimes scholarship makes a popular edition more accessible to the readers! An obvious example: Utnapishtim's flood is a clear parallel of Noah's Flood in the Hebrew Bible. This is the biggest reason people read Gilgamesh! Some notes on the parallels -- and the differences -- would really help.

I now can say I've read Gilgamesh, but I still feel disappointed. If I try again... I'll probably try the Penguin. If nothing else, it's taken from the originals, rather than being a translation of a translation.

The other thing about this edition is that it is illustrated. To me, this added nothing except extra paper -- it looked like a bunch of images lifted from a Conan the Barbarian cartoon. But I am not a visual person. I ignored the pictures, in both my reading and in my rating of the book. Your usage may vary.

FOOTNOTES:
[1] The Penguin and the one in Pritchard's The Ancient Near East Volume 1: An Anthology in Texts and Pictures.
[2] Akkadian, Hittite, Hurrian, and Old Babylonian, according to Pritchard, p. 40.… (plus d'informations)