Genre: Literary, Adventure
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication Date: February 2010
Marianne Peters’ Review:
Most high school students have read the story of Odysseus, his long journey from the fields of Troy to his home in Ithaca and his adventures along the way. Zachary Mason’s version, as he says in the Preface, is a “translation” of the story before it was canonized, when “the Homeric material was formless, fluid, its elements shuffled into new narratives like cards in a deck.”
Reading Mason’s debut novel, The Lost Books of the Odyssey, is like looking through the other end of the telescope. Each chapter answers the question, “What if?” What if we had the Cyclops’ side of the story? What if Penelope wasn’t faithful to her long-absent husband? What if Helen of Troy never married Menelaus? What if Achilles had died a natural death as a traveling beggar? The familiar landmarks of Homer’s tale disappear, and the effect is both fascinating and disconcerting. Odysseus himself has a reputation as a smooth-talking, truth-bending survivor. Truth is a slippery commodity in this novel. Each chapter’s story, each one just a fragment or episode, makes us wonder what truth looks like. Is it one story, or is it made up of many stories? And what of history? With so many points of view, how do we decide what really happened?
It’s helpful to have read Homer’s Odyssey recently, or a synopsis of it, to appreciate Mason’s interpretation. His references to Greek mythology are sometimes explained by footnotes, but as with everything in this novel, the reliability of these references is up for grabs. Even if your last reading of Odyssey is a distant memory, there’s so much to enjoy about this novel. Sometimes hilarious, sometimes ironic, sometimes even poignant, Mason’s playful interpretation of this classic is a delightful read. It’s like seeing a familiar company of players asked to read a different script, reminding us that stories are always open to interpretation.
“I hope that this translation reflects the haunted light of Homer’s older islands, “ Mason writes, “where the familiar characters are arranged in a new tableaux, but soon become restless, mercurial – they turn their backs, forget their names, move on.”
Jonathan Schindler’s Review:
The Iliad and Odyssey, we are told, circulated in oral tradition before they were ever fixed in written form. Homer is given credit for writing them down, but his epics are really the product of nameless bards reciting and refining the stories over time. As Zachary Mason notes in his preface to The Lost Books of the Odyssey, before the Odyssey was written down, “the Homeric material was formless, fluid, its elements shuffled into new narratives like cards in a deck.” It is this fluidity that provides the context for Mason’s book.
The Lost Books of the Odyssey is a collection of forty-four variations on the traditional Homeric stories, each lasting between one and eleven pages. The preface explains that these variations were unearthed in Egypt and just now translated by the author. Mason carries this conceit throughout the book with footnotes that explain “translation” choices, but which mostly fill in necessary information for those less familiar with Homer’s epics than the author.
Mason’s variations range from the standard deviations—What if Odysseus came home to find that Penelope hadn’t waited for him? What if Penelope was already dead? What if Odysseus decided to stay with Calypso?—to the more creative, bizarre ones—What if the story of Odysseus’s exploits and return to Ithaca was invented by the blinded cyclops or a cowardly Odysseus? What if Odysseus had a doppelganger? What if the Homeric epics are really just aids for memorizing an ancient chess primer? He also explores ideas in between, like, What does a fighting man do once there’s no more fighting to do? What is the nature of storytelling? What side adventures might Odysseus have had? Mason’s variations, whatever tangent they follow from the story, are well written, well thought out, and most of all engaging.
Mason’s main strength in The Lost Books of the Odyssey is not the writing—though this is top-notch and Mason is an adept storyteller. Mason’s greatest strength is his restraint—knowing just how much of a story to tell and no more. He doesn’t belabor any point (indeed, a 228-page book comprising 44 variations of the Homeric epics cannot be accused of verbosity), and he doesn’t provide bullying details that restrict the reader. Instead, he allows the reader’s imagination to do the main work. He provides the skeleton and the muscles, but it is up to the reader to flesh out each tale. Mason’s restraint works and pays dividends: many of his variations could (but hopefully won’t) become full texts in their own right, and after finishing the book I feel almost as if I’ve read these full texts.
Another aspect of The Lost Books of the Odyssey that I enjoyed is Mason’s wit in handling the source material. He doesn’t treat the Homeric epics as hallowed texts (as his preface makes clear), and he uses some of the gaps in the source as a springboard into new explorations of it. For example, in one of my favorite variations, “The Myrmidon Golem,” Agamemnon forces Odysseus to recruit Achilles for the Trojan War. Odysseus reluctantly agrees and goes ashore to convince Achilles to join, only to find that Achilles is already dead, “bitten on the heel by an adder.” Odysseus fears Agamemnon’s unpredictable rage and sculpts a clay Achilles to join in the war against Troy and fool Agamemnon. Now, this story is a bit far-fetched, but it provides an interesting (and entertaining) window into why Achilles, a key player in the Iliad, acts like he’s made of stone and is almost completely unlikable.
Not everyone will enjoy The Lost Books of the Odyssey, and reading the Iliad and Odyssey is probably prerequisite for enjoying Mason’s book. Nevertheless, for those who are captivated by Odysseus’s adventures in particular or Greek mythology in general, The Lost Books of the Odyssey will be a welcome addition to your library.
Review copies provided by Farrar, Straus and Giroux
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