It's the first book I've finished in French, and it's also special because I never read it in English. There were a few parts I didn't quite follow, but overall the book was fairly easy and very enjoyable. I thought I'd read this again to accompany Ulysses . Fitzgerald's translation seems to be the popular one, and it seems fine except he romanizes nearly all the names in nonstandard ways. Rereading it now, I like it a little more, but not much.
Homer goes on for pages and pages about boring things and spends almost no time on the main action.
I skipped a couple chapters toward the end which I could not stay awake through. Donard Barthelme's Paradise Mindless fluff. Interesting for a while, but I got bored halfway through and skimmed the rest, which assured me I hadn't missed anything. I also read some of the stories in Sixty Stories and Forty Stories . Jean Rouaud's Fields of Glory Beautiful writing at the beginning, which falls to average around the middle.