Homer called on the muse of poetry to help him tell his tale. In
this stunning retelling of Greek myth, Elizabeth Cook has found her
muse and conjures up prose that stirs the story into vibrant life.
We follow Odysseus to the very mouth of Hades where he ventures to
ask the prophet Tiresias if he'll ever return to his homeland.
Achilles surfaces, ravenous for morsels about his son and father,
the King of the Myrmidons. He needs no news of Thetis, his mother.
She's the immortal sea nymph who despite her powers was unable to
prevent the loss of her child. When she plunged the infant Achilles
into the waters of the Styx his heel remained vulnerable. Even
raising him as a girl on Skiros failed to shield him from the
dangers of the Trojan wars and the astute Odysseus, who tricked him
into revealing his identity. But Achilles is no mere cipher of
fate. His journey may have been predestined but Cook makes it clear
he had choices in the way he conducted his personal odyssey. She
interweaves the stories of Hector, Helen, Paris and the centaur
Chiron, Achilles's teacher. Like Achilles, Chiron is not fully of
either world. When wounded his mortality causes him to feel pain.
Immortality provides the time to use pain as a laboratory';
humanity supplies the motivation to understand and ease the
suffering of others. Into these musings Cook draws John Keats, poet
and physician. Through Achilles and Keats she explores immortality.
Just as our bodies erode and are renewed, there's a physical and
spiritual continuity between man and man. She likens our heritage
to a game of Chinese whispers, the message changed by each
individual yet still carrying forward the authentic spirit of life.
A gem of a book. (Kirkus UK)
Elizabeth Cook's mesmerising poetic voice weaves the interlocking
stories of Achilles and the central figures of his legend into a
many-layered exploration of achievement and loss, of choice and
inescapable destiny. Born of the sea-nymph Thetis by the mortal
King Peleus, hidden as a girl on Skiros until Odysseus discovers
him, Achilles becomes the Greeks' greatest warrior at Troy. Into
his story come others - among them Hector, Helen, Penthiseleia the
Amazon Queen and the centaur Chiron; and finally John Keats, whose
writings form the basis of a meditation on identity and shared
experience. An unforgettable and deeply moving work of fiction,
Achilles also affirms of the story's enduring power to reach across
centuries and cultures to the core of our imagination.
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