Book 38: The Epic of Gilgamesh by Anonymous

This will be the oldest book that I've read so far.  It was first written in ancient Mesopotamia sometime between 2000 and 1800 BC.  That makes it around 4,000 years old.  It was written in cuneiform script on clay tablets, some of which have been badly damaged in the intervening years.  Through painstaking efforts the tablets have been pieced together, cross-referenced with other tablets telling the same story, transliterated, translated and made mostly whole.  I've seen references to this epic in several other pieces of literature and I'm quite interested to read it first hand.

REVIEW:  I find that I still love reading classic literature.  Anything that transcends the ages comes across as deeply human.  I also find them very entertaining.  People get the idea that the Classics are all very prim and proper, but anything older than the Victorian era is really very far from proper.  There is a lot of sex, drinking and violence in any of the ancient works and this one is no exception.

The story follows the adventures of Gilgamesh and his friend Enkidu as the cause trouble throughout ancient Mesopotamia.  Enkidu was originally a wild-man who lived with the animals until he was seduced by a prostitute.  They had sex for 7 days and then she told him that he should enter the world of men.  Enticed by his new friend and the other luxuries of the ancient world, beer, bread, etc. Enkidu begins living as a human being.  He meets Gilgamesh for the first time as his future friend is intending on enforcing his right of prima nocta at a village wedding.  Enkidu prevents him and fights him.  After the fight they become fast friends and set off together on many adventures.

One of the bigger surprises to me was the story of the Deluge late in the narrative.  This story is a direct ancestor of Noah's flood from the Judeo-Christian mythologies.  In the Gilgamesh Deluge a man named Utnapishtim is ordered by the gods to built a boat.  On that boat he is told to load his family and the "seeds of all the animals".  After this is done great rains build up and flood the world.  He is afloat for 6 days and then lands at the peak of Mt. Nisir.  Utnapishtim then sends out birds to see if the flood is receding.  The first few fails to find land and return to the ark but, eventually, he sends out a raven who does not return, implying that it has found land elsewhere.  The similarities, I assume, are obvious.  Considering that ancient Mesopotamia contained the same lands as the middle-east today, I suppose it's not surprising that there would be similar myths from both traditions.

The Epic of Gilgamesh was a very entertaining read and I would highly recommend it to anyone.  The version that I read was translated from the original tablets by the author and included a lot of information about how it was put together and where missing information was found and added.  I really can't think of any negative aspect of the book except, maybe, that some of the passages were somewhat repetitive.  Though, honestly, I felt that the repetitions added a mystical quality to the narrative, so I didn't mind it.

10 out of 10.