I got turned on to Emily Wilson's translation by this great episode of the Ezra Klein podcast with Madeleine Miller on myth, nostalgia, and how power corrupts, which I found really compelling: https://www.vox.com/podcasts/2020/4/24/21233353/madeline-mil... Wilson's book is next in my pile!
If you're interested in enjoyable translations of Homer, I'd strongly recommend War Music by the British poet Chrisopher Logue. It's The Iliad, but he called it something like "a retelling" rather than "a translation" because it gave him more leeway. Unfortunately he died before he could finish it.
I think the "cliched, British empire part of our culture" aspect talked about by Alice Oswald is why I love Logue's version so much - it becomes much more vivid in his retelling for me, somehow using a modern idiom to bring an ancient story alive.
I've read both the Iliad and Odyssey translated by Fagles, and although I can't compare it to Wilson's version I think they're reasonably approachable versions without any stuffiness, although not exactly exciting, as you say.
If you're interested in enjoyable translations of Homer, I'd strongly recommend War Music by the British poet Chrisopher Logue. It's The Iliad, but he called it something like "a retelling" rather than "a translation" because it gave him more leeway. Unfortunately he died before he could finish it.
Another British poet Alice Oswald wrote an interesting version of the Iliad that tried to strip out the glamourisation of war and focus on the footsoldiers: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/oct/09/alice-oswald-h...
I think the "cliched, British empire part of our culture" aspect talked about by Alice Oswald is why I love Logue's version so much - it becomes much more vivid in his retelling for me, somehow using a modern idiom to bring an ancient story alive.
I've read both the Iliad and Odyssey translated by Fagles, and although I can't compare it to Wilson's version I think they're reasonably approachable versions without any stuffiness, although not exactly exciting, as you say.