Richard's Reviews > The War at Troy

Interesting that there's no Kindle edition listed, though that's what I read, and that this is listed as "Troy #1," when it's the second of the quartet. Maybe they were published out of order...

I've also posted a review of A Prince of Troy, which is book one. Anyway...

The War at Troy is just that. Paris has absconded with Helen, and because of oaths taken to defend Menelaus' "ownership" of Helen, the kings of Greece gather to get her back. Lindsay Clarke has taken to giving depth in the way of backstory, plausibility of myth, historical background, and character development to Homer's epic, and delivered a read that never gets bogged down as it cracks the story open. The classics, and here I'm thinking of Homer, and the Hebrew Scriptures move with "the speed of summer lightening," and are notoriously short on psychology and character - Homer less so than Moses. That being said, what these "authors" accomplish is absolutely amazing in that they lay the groundwork for Western literature - but that's a different review.

Back to Mr. Clarke, and other interpreters of The Iliad - there are plenty of re-tellings of various success. Mr. Clarke takes the time and has the imagination to give what I consider the best - as a read. Others that are of great value are: Pat Barker's The Silence of the Girls; David Malouf's Ransom; the astounding War Music by Christopher Logue; and the chilling Memorial by Alice Oswald.

Worlds are created, we get to inhabit them, what a thrill.