Bedford Public Library

The siege of Troy, Theodor Kallifatides ; translated from the Swedish by Marlaine Delargy

eng

no index present

non fiction

The siege of Troy

Theodor Kallifatides ; translated from the Swedish by Marlaine Delargy

Bombs fall over a Greek village during World War II, and a teacher takes her students to a cave for shelter. There she tells them about another war--when the Greeks besieged Troy. Day after day, she recounts how the Greeks suffer from thirst, heat and homesickness, and how the opponents meet -- army against army, man against man. Helmets are cleaved, heads fly, blood flows. And everything had begun when Prince Paris of Troy fell in love with King Menelaus of Sparta's wife, the beautiful Helen, and escaped with her to his homeland. Now Helen stands atop the city walls to witness the horrors set in motion by her flight. When her current and former loves face each other in battle, she knows that, whatever happens, she will be losing. Theodor Kallifatides provides remarkable psychological insight in his version of The Illiad, downplaying th role of the gods and delving into the mindsets of its mortal heroes. Homer's epic comes to life with a renewed urgency that allows us to experience events as though first hand, and reveals timeless truths about the senselessness of war and what it means to be human