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Review
‘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
‘I’m awed by the web you’ve spun. Not only the beautiful complexities of it but the fine texture of the threads …Full of wise things.’
Ted Hughes
Product Description
Vigorous new life is breathed into the myth's of Homer's Iliad in Lindsay Clarke's new dramatic retelling of the wars fought for the Bronze Age City of Troy.
Paris and Helen, Agamemnon and Clytaemnestra, Achilles, Odysseus and Hector are skilfully rejuvenated in this startlingly contemporary drama of the passions.
"The people who lived in those days were closer to gods than we are, and great deeds and marvels were commoner then, which is why the stories we have from them are nobler and richer than our own. So that those stories should not pass from the earth, I have decided to set down everything I know of the stories of the war at Troy – of the way it began, of the way it was fought, and of the way in which it was ended."
With these words, Phemius the bard of Ithaca and friend to Odysseus, opens Lindsay Clarke's compelling new retelling of the myths and legends that grew up around the war that was fought for the Bronze Age city of Troy and have magnetized the imagination of the world ever since.
Here are the tales of two powerful generations of men and women, living out their destinies in the timeless zone where myth and history intersect and where the conflicts of the human heart are mirrored by quarrels among immortal gods. Peleus and Thetis, Paris and Helen, Agamemnon and Clytaemnestra, Achilles, Odysseus and Hector – all are given vigorous new life in a version of their stories which remains faithful to the mythic form in which they first appeared yet engages the reader in a startlingly contemporary drama of the passions.
THE WAR AT TROY speaks to a world still racked by violent conflict in ways which address important aspects of our own experience while at the same time providing imaginative access to the rich store of mythology which is our heritage from the ancient world.
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Customer Reviews
Clarke uses great descriptions and language to set the surroundings and bring the reader into Ancient Greece where "they were closer to the God's" than we are. I felt totally immersed in the story and even with the massive number of names and places I never felt lost in the story, but more involved in the struggle of the war.
All in all I would say this was a fantastic read that gives a real insight into life in ancient times, as well as retelling the most famous story in the world.
Simple, but genius and I can't think why no one has done it before.
As such, whilst there is nothing new in the story other than to give us more detail of the protagonists heritage, it is retold with a flowing style that breathes the kind of life into these myths that Hollywood is doing with its current round of sword and sandals films.
We open with the parentage stories of the great Illiad heroes, of Peleus and Thetis, Telamon, Priam, Hesione et al before moving swiftly into the infamous Paris contest, the Golden Apple and the three vainglorious Goddesses, Athena, Hera and Aphrodite. Here, over a small contest does a cursed man (who's father Priam could not bear to see murdered on the prophecies of Cassandra) set in motion a chain of events that has resounded through history - the Trojan War.
Clarke breathes real life into the Argive Princes, Odysseus, Menelaus, Palamedes, Achilles, Patroclus, Ajax - all names that echo through history - giving the reader a palpable sense of empathy with each of them. In here we have Achilles overbearing contempt for his King, Agamemmnon, Odysseus' cunning mind, Ajax's heroic directness all of which are pitted against the Trojans. Paris, a devotee to Aphrodite is given a starring role (Hector is not - in direct contrast to the latest Brad Pitt effort) and Clarke spends much of his prose giving us a real sense of destiny and fate with his stealing of Helen and their eventual fateful despair as Troy falls and Menelaus ends up sitting at his wife's bedside. The battles are majestic and epic in their scope, the intrigue crafted with skill, the characterisation deliberate, painstakingly drawn and a credit to Homer and the story is retold in a manner that honours the craft of the original.
Lindsay Clarke has repainted The Illiad for a modern audience in a manner that is breaktaking at times, done with a touch of humilty and in a grandiose style. In taking on a new rendition of one literature's greatest texts, he has opened himself to failure against the higest standard and, whilst one cannot better the Iliad, he has not done himself and his audience a disservice in making the attempt.
Read it.
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