The War at Troy [Hardcover]

Lindsay Clarke transforms Homer's epic and immortal Iliad and related stories into an easier to consume and pleasurable to read literary form in his most recent work, War at Troy. Within this transformation he removes aspects of the Iliad that did not deal specifically with the events leading up to, occurring during, or as a result of the epic conflict. This process has produced a trim, clear, satisfyingly paced, and dramatic version of the personalities and events of the most epic of conflicts. None of this pacing and literary inflection come at the expense of detail, Clarke is meticulous refreshingly intent on delivering not just an entertaining but an accurate version. He succeeds.

Within the pages of War at Troy Lindsay Clarke further distills the conflict into a form focusing almost entirely on the human drama. Save for their role as instigators and agitators most of the whims and more importantly the occasional direct action of the deities of the Grecian pantheon, which featured prominently in the Iliad, are removed in favor of focusing on the events of Greeks and Trojans themselves. This ever-so-slight shift of focus delivers a story that is less fairy tale and more history.

Most modern readers are unaware that the Trojan War is covered in numerous poems aside from the Iliad many of them difficult to locate and read. Lindsay Clarke has done the work for you; he has correlated this information into one concise, entertaining, and reasonably accurate depiction of the events. His writing is at times insidiously evocative and rises to the occasion of the difficult task of living up to expectations of the one of the greatest epic poems of all time.

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Lindsay Clarke takes on a daring assingment with "The War at Troy." By taking on Greek myths that have been the cornerstone of "Western Civ" since, well, the creation of "Western Civ," you had best be prepared for some intense criticism.

From an academic perspective, Clarke has done a magnificent job of placing the Trojan War, most widely known to modern audiences through Homer's "Iliad," in a logical context. One of the problems of "The Iliad" is that it begins in the tenth year of the war, and there's not a lot of time spent on back story. Clarke's story of the Trojan War kicks off during the formative years of the conflict, and we get to see a lot of the world that Paris and Helen brought to the brink of destruction with passionate affair.

In marked contrast to the recent summer blockbuster, "Troy," Clarke still finds room for the Gods in "The War at Troy." Paris is forced to choose "the fairest" between Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite, and his choice of Aphrodite casts his doom. On a personal note, I was hoping that Clarke would get deeper into how Athena, supposedly the Goddess of Wisdom, was able to be out-debated by the sexpot Aphrodite. The Goddess of Love makes one heck of a sales pitch, but shouldn't Athena have been able to anticipate Aphrodite's tactics and trump them somehow? Obviously not, or we'd have no story . . . but I digress.

With the Gods taking generally a back seat in this story (Zeus barely factors in at all), Clarke spends a lot of time putting the Trojan War into the "real world." We learn a lot about how the Argive spent the first nine years of the war (it wasn't all spent on the Plains of Troy), the political scheming of Odysseus that bound so many Argives to Menelaus's cause, and the young life of Achilles. These are all strong points, and Clarke's deviations from established myths seem appropriate (for example, the Centaurs who raise Achilles are not half-men, half-horse, but instead barbarians who spend a lot of time with horses, consequently gaining an equine odor).

Clarke's novel only really stumbles when he gets to the final year of the war. Despite all the storytelling that has gone before, we still don't know that much about Hector, the most noble of the Trojans. Instead, we know a great deal about the craven Paris, but I was hoping to have a better picture of the Trojan hero rather than the Trojan coward. Similarly, while we spent a lot of time with Achilles as a child, we really don't know that much about him as an adult and his Myrmidons. Clarke "tells" us that Achilles is a mighty warrior, but doesn't really give us all that much meat to digest on that front prior to the war.

While Clarke drops some delicious hints of future events (Odysseus on several occasions pines for his home and wife in Ithaca, having no idea of his travails to come, Cassandra occasionally pops up with unheeded prophecies, etc.), but the novel occasionally grinds under some awkward prose. For example, Hector offers up this tooth-grinding line, "He (meaning Paris) freely concedes that his actions is the cause of this great quarrel, and has no wish to see many good men die needlessly on his account." Yeesh. And I wish I could say that this was the only passage that abused the ear, but unfortunately there are more.

Clarke is no Bernard Cornwell, much less Cormac McCarthy, when it comes to describing the battlefield. He does so in a workmanlike way, but there are few passages in "The War at Troy" that set the heart to pounding. Indeed, his romantic scenes are better, but still do not reach any fantastic heights. This wouldn't be a huge problem (he's good, not great), but again, he's writing about one of the fundamental stories in Western literature, and the bar is set pretty high.

The only emotion Clarke nails is anguish. This is important in a story of war, loss and betrayal. But it would have helped if Clarke's range extended to other emotions as well.

All in all, "The War at Troy" is a good read if you're looking to flesh out your understanding of "The Iliad" and the Greek myths that surround it. Clarke's scholarship is much better than his prose, and while "The War at Troy" rarely sings, it does

does tell a darn good story.

A worthy read for fans of Greek myth, to be sure.

When I was a child my father used to enthrall me with Bullfinch's Mythology, a book that brought together all the Greek myths (amongst others) and became my night-time reading stories. Heroes and Gods abounded, romance and war filled the childish imagination and it was a delight to hear. What Lindsay Duncan has done is tantamount to the same thing. She has taken the Greek and Trojan legend of Troy and, in a more prosaic style, rewritten down Homer's epic for a modern generation.

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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