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Product Description
Review
Praise for The War at Troy:
‘I found The War at Troy a triumph of retelling the ancient story of the siege and its aftermath, a readable and freshened version that keeps one turning the pages’
Alan Sillitoe
‘It is an engaging retelling of the whole story, neatly blending mythic archaism with modern psychodrama and satire.’
Guardian
Product Description
The second part of a masterful retelling of the stories surrounding the Trojan War. RETURN FROM TROY begins after the sacking of Troy, covering Odysseus’s trials and Agamemnon’s fate.
The Heroes Return is the second volume in this masterful retelling of the myths surrounding the Trojan War. In two parts the final novel begins by covering the return of Agamemnon to Mycenae, his murder by his wife Clytaemnestra in revenge for sacrificing their daughter and the consequences of that killing. The second part focuses on the adventures of Odysseus on his long struggle to return home to Ithaca and his wife Penelope.
Both volumes end in an Afterword; relating the mythological themes and motifs of the stories to crucial aspects of contemporary experience.
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Customer Reviews
after victory is won at troy, agamemnon returns home with cassandra to meet his fate; whilst his brother, menelaus has to decide how to deal with the beautiful helen, over whom the war was fought.
odysseus, completely traumatised by the bloodshed and slaughter, caused by his ingenious plan, finds it impossible to return home, to ithaca, where his wife and son await him. tormented, he embarks on a long voyage, needing to purge both his heart and his soul after all the cruelty and violence he has been a part of. during his journey, covering many miles and moving deeply into his own wounded soul, he has meetings with wise women, consults oracles, takes part in mysterious ceremonies and initiations, and , eventually returns home a much chastened and wiser man.
although he is true to the original sources of the story, clarke somehow implicitly reminds us that this is a tale very relevent to today, and the urgency that we learn these lessons, has never been more critical.
a good read, that remained with me long after the last page.
I am a self-confessed Greek Myth Geek and have also studied 'The Odyssey' in various translations over many years.
What Lindsay Clarke has done is actually very impressive. He (I believe it's 'he' despite the female spelling) has written a book that cleverly meshes contemporary belief in the gods with a C21 more psychological approach to trauma and belief. Clarke makes so many clever adaptations that explain the original story that I hardly know where to start - one of the most impressive is the use of the Libyan boy who becomes a messenger and is named 'Hermes' by Odysseus's crew - if you read the book, you'll see what I mean.
Odysseus is a man tormented by what he and others have done during the siege and sacking of Troy and a man who fears to go home with the blood still metaphorically on his hands. His wanderings are, at first, the result of contrary wind and sea conditions and then become a search for absolution during which he feels he cannot go home.
In the same way that Homer keeps parallel narratives running, Clarke also tells the stories of Penelope, Telemachus, Helen, Menelaus, Hermione etc. Again he does so in a way that is wholly convincing and fits in seamlessly with Homer's original.
I don't understand why he leaves Odysseus's sister Ctimene out of the story - it is her husband (Eurylochus of Same) who is effectively the 2nd in command on the return journey as he is a relative of Odysseus and, presumably, more equal in status than the other sailors/Ithacans. It's an odd omission that seems unnecessary to me.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who's a Greek Myth Geek and/or loves The Odyssey and would welcome a very interesting and convincing re-telling of the classic epic.
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