Quantity:

More Buying Choices

23 used & new from �0.06

Have one to sell? Sell yours here

See larger image

Share your own customer images

The Leto Bundle (Paperback)

by Marina Warner (Author)

3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)

RRP:	�9.99
Price:	�6.99 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
You Save:	�3.00 (30%)
	o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o

In stock.
Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk. Gift-wrap available.

Only 1 left in stock--order soon (more on the way).

Want guaranteed delivery by Tuesday, November 10? Choose Express delivery at checkout. See Details

11 new from �4.79 12 used from �0.06

Other Editions:	RRP:	Our Price:	Other Offers:
Hardcover (1 Amer ed)			9 used & new from �0.92

Frequently Bought Together

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

The Little Black Book of Stories

by A.S. Byatt

4.0 out of 5 stars (2) �6.99

Love

by Toni Morrison

3.2 out of 5 stars (4) �5.08

Oryx and Crake

by Margaret Atwood

3.9 out of 5 stars (52) �6.64

The Night Watch

by Sarah Waters

3.7 out of 5 stars (100) �5.97

The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox

by Maggie O'Farrell

4.2 out of 5 stars (84) �4.86

› Explore similar items

Product details

Paperback: 408 pages
Publisher: Vintage; New edition edition (7 Feb 2002)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0099284650
ISBN-13: 978-0099284659
Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 13 x 3 cm

Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)

Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 249,784 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
Popular in this category:
#11 in Books > Fiction > Authors, A-Z > W > Warner, Marina

Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review

Leto, the endlessly fleeing heroine of Marina Warner's new novel The Leto Bundle is the mother of twins born without a navel. She is a minor Greek goddess, or a Christian martyr, or the heroine of a mediaeval romance; she is a castaway ambiguously rescued by a travelling scholar and a refugee caught in the chaos of the Balkans. She is also a bundle of manuscript scraps and jewels and carvings that was for a while mistaken for a mummy--and becomes the obsession of a charismatic young political leader, a fading pop star and a feminist scholar. This is a startling and impressive novel about documentation and identity--Leto is who the documents say she is, just as we all are. Kim, an adopted war orphan, is keen to assert a new Britishness that takes its roots from the here and now, rather than from a history that is itself a product of ideologies. This novel draws together many of the obsessions of Marina Warner's work on fairy-tale; it is a search for lost parents and children and a vehement protest against inhumanity which asserts the role of the poetic in a struggle for human rights that too often relies on reason alone. --Roz Kaveney --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Description

On the run, in a far-off era of civil strife, Leto gives birth to twins, shelters with wolves, survives in a desert stronghold as the lover of its commander, amongst other adventures. Sweeps from mythological times and the Middle Ages to the treasure hunting of Victorian Europe and then into the present day.

Tags Customers Associate with This Product

(What's this?)

Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.

marina warner(1)

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

	51% buy the item featured on this page: The Leto Bundle 3.5 out of 5 stars (2) �6.99
	29% buy The Little Black Book of Stories 4.0 out of 5 stars (2) �6.99
	8% buy Things 5.0 out of 5 stars (1) �35.00
	7% buy From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and Their Tellers 5.0 out of 5 stars (1) �12.33

Explore similar items

Customer Reviews

2 Reviews

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

Average Customer Review

3.5 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)

Share your thoughts with other customers:

Create your own review

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An odd book, 20 Sep 2002

By A Customer

I wonder whether I am the first person to try to review this because no one else can think of anything to say either. The synopsis is accurate. The style is approachable and the book is easy to read - perhaps a bit too chatty and like an email (indeed, there are emails as part of the story). I was left however thinking, "so what?" I felt like I missed something. Perhaps the stories changed too often. I'm not sure the attempt to mix the plight of refugees with Greek myth was wholly successful. Nevertheless, I'd recommend this if you're thinking of reading it.

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

3.0 out of 5 stars A Mythological Puzzle, 7 Jun 2009

By	LittleMoon (UK & China) - See all my reviews

Marina Warner's The Leto Bundle is nothing if not ambitious in its chronological scale, stretching from 400BC to the 1990s. The novel concerns a collection of artefacts found with a mummy, that talk of the life and wandering of a mysterious woman known as Leto.

Housed in the Museum of Albiom, the mummy begins to draw around it a ragtag group of followers of "various nationalities" first noticed by the dedicated cleaners who must dispose of the "tideline[s] of hair of flakes of skin... [the] mortal rime of leavings". One of the group is eccentric school teacher Kim McQuy, who "hears" Leto talking to him and is determined to uncover her "truth" as part of an online public campaign to restore the Leto Bundle to a more appropriately high-profile setting. The straight-laced Museum Curator Hortense Fernly is his sceptical source of information, and the two communicate largely through emails. Mellowing wild-child folk/pop singer Gramercy Poule, who notices Kim virtually plagiarising her lyrics on his website, is also slowly pulled in. Pulled into what?

Pulled into the wider story, the greater context, the uncontrollable vortex that represents the destiny of the woman, Leto: whose life the novel pieces together through fragments of translated documents and chance encounters. Leto is born firmly in the realm of classical mythology, raped by a God and bearing twins, but as the story progresses she transcends time and reality, in what ultimately becomes the search for her lost son. Although, Warner seems to have grander schemes, and Leto becomes the Patron Saint of the dispossessed, the homeless, the immigrant, the exile; her life physically embodying the emotional and spiritual wrenches of refugees throughout the ages.

It's a winding, puzzling story that does involve the reader (along with the characters) slowly making sense of the information revealed. However, the novel at times seems overly complex, or perhaps it is just this reader who is uninformed. I was confused by the sense of place, and couldn't visualise anything other than a vague backdrop against which events unfold. There are no recognisable modern names, though surely the places are London, Britain and America. I don't quite understand why "places" are thus obscured, unless Warner intends her readers to be similarly displaced?

Overall, The Leto Bundle is bold in scope, thought-provoking in content, and written with delicate prose, but is definitely for those who like their novels intricate, and their authors erudite.

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review

› See all 2 customer reviews...

.jsOffDisplayBlock { display: block; } .jsOffDisplayInline { display: inline; } .jsOffVisibility { visibility: visible; } .jsOnDisplayBlock { display: none; } .jsOnDisplayNoneBlock { display: block; } .jsOnDisplayNoneInline { display: inline; } .jsOnDisplayInline { display: none; } .jsOnVisibility { visibility: hidden; } .jqOnDisplayBlock { display: none; } .jqOnDisplayInline { display: none; } .jqOnVisibility { visibility: hidden; } .jqOnDisplayNoneBlock { display: block; } .jqOnDisplayNoneInline { display: inline; }

Customer Discussions

This product's forum

Discussion	Replies	Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight

Start a new discussion

Topic:

First post:

Receive e-mail when new posts are made

Prompts for sign-in

Guidelines

Active discussions in related forums

Discussion	Replies	Latest Post
fiction Word of Mouth	16	12 minutes ago
fiction Good comedy novels?	46	1 hour ago
fiction Books that started well and finished disappointingly	33	1 hour ago
fiction I want to read your self published book	27	1 hour ago
fiction Atmosphere!	30	2 hours ago
fiction Announcement Amazon Rising Stars--Autumn 2009	31	2 hours ago
fiction What is the saddest book you have ever read?	203	3 hours ago