Review: "The Graveyard Book" By Neil Gaiman

I loved this little book!  What a wonderful reimagination of Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book.  Neil Gaiman is just a born story-teller, and The Graveyard Book is such a terrific example of his talents.  While there is a touch of horror and macabre in the book, it is very much a book that should appeal to young readers as well as adults.  It is also lavishly illustrated by the author-artist Audrey Niffenegger which adds ever so much to the tale.

The premise of The Graveyard Book is of a mysterious man who slays three members of a family, but the fourth member--an 18-month old little baby boy--toddles off in the night and ends up in an old graveyard.  He is adopted by the 'residents'--all dead themselves--who range in age from Roman times up to the present.  He is taken in and 'raised' by a couple, Mr. and Mrs. Owens, who've been dead for something like 300 years, and is named "Nobody Owens" (nick-named "Bod").  Bod also has a living caretaker, 'Silas', that provides for his material needs whilst keeping him safe as he lives and grows up on the grounds of the cemetery.  Bod is in the unique position of being able to essentially cross-walk, if you will, between the land of the living and that of those dead and residing in the cemetery.  Bod is given a basic education from former teachers who are now permanent residents in the cemetery.  His teachers send him out to practice his reading of English and Latin by studying the plethora of headstones in the cemetery.  Bod also learns some nifty little survival tactics, like how to haunt and fade, from all of his dead 'family' and 'friends', and this serves him very well as the mysterious man is still earnestly looking for Bod in order to finish the job.  Bod also begins to learn more about his protectors Silas and Miss Lupescu.

Like much of Gaiman's fiction this is a quick read, but the plot and the writing are immensely satisfying.  There are all sorts of allusions and references to fairy tales and bits of folklore scattered throughout the book that, taken together, truly cements Gaiman's reputation as a master story-teller in our modern age.  The Graveyard Book is a story that I'd love to see somebody (i.e., like Tim Burton, maybe?) endeavor to bring to the 'big screen', as it such a wonderful, wonderful story from start-to-finish.

The Graveyard Book
By Neil Gaiman
Harper Collins, Hardcover, 2008
312 pp.
ISBN 0060530928

***

Review: "Great North Road" By Peter F. Hamilton

In reading Peter F. Hamilton's Great North Road I certainly stepped out of my reading 'box', but then I've been doing that a lot over the past few years.  This massive tome--nearly 1,000 pages--is a rock-solid and riveting example of the sub-genre of science fiction known as 'space opera', and I have to say that I enjoyed every moment reading this book.  I had never read anything by Hamilton before, but I am quite sure that I'll be looking at some of his other fiction in the near future.

Simply put, Great North Road is a tale that takes place approximately 150 years in the future, and is a wonderful combination of a police-procedural murder mystery and the story of a military expedition and exploration on the new and strange world of St. Libra, an Earth-like planet, orbiting the Sirius star system (about 8 light years from our own Solar System).  St. Libra is a planet that is mostly covered with water, but with several large land masses that contain a dense and virtually impenetrable jungle.  St. Libra also happens to be the location of a large "bioil" facility that manufactures petroleum products created from algae that is 'farmed' in large paddies.  This oil is then transported through a "trans-spacial connection", or gateway, back to Earth where it is used by European countries in what is now known as "Grande Europe" (a nod to the current European Union, I'm guessing).

Much of the police procedural elements of the novel are centered on the city of Newcastle in England, where there is a corresponding 'gateway' that allows instantaneous travel and transportation of people and equipment from Earth to St. Libra.  Many countries around the world have also established gateways to other worlds and have either created quasi-Utopian settlements, or have engaged in economic- or ethnic-cleansing and have transported their undesirables to these new worlds (i.e., much like the English used to transport criminals, and others, to penal colonies in Australia in the early 19th century).  Additionally, there is the added tension throughout much of the novel of the risk of invasion and attack by a truly horrific alien life-form, the "Zanthswarm", which has attacked and destroyed several of the human settlements on other worlds with millions of human casualties.  The Human Defense Alliance (HDA) exists to protect all humans (and the gateways) from alien threats, and kind of reminded me of our NATO alliance today, or even the U.S. Homeland Security Department.

Hamilton's world-building and his information-dumps are well handled through the use of a timeline that hops back and forth over a span of a century or more, and seen through multiple points-of-view of the various characters in the novel.  There are also some really well thought out notions associated with human cloning, and gene modification (if you have the money) that slows and even reverses the effects of aging, some seriously cool and advanced medical procedures.  I also really found fascinating Hamilton's vision of how artificial intelligence (AI) and information technology is used in this novel.  People are essentially hard-wired into the 'world-wide-web' and can pull up and utilize their own personal 'net' to communicate and access and process all kinds of information and technology--pretty much all 'virtual reality'.  Obviously, this technology allows the police to accomplish some pretty amazing things when it comes to trying to solve crimes, and the soldiers on St. Libra to coordinate and stay linked together as they search for a dangerous alien entity that may, or may not, be involved in the murder that occurred back on Earth.

While some readers may balk a bit at the slightly ponderous pace of the first third of the novel--mostly involving the murder mystery and the Newcastle police--I encourage readers to stay with it as the pace picks up dramatically as characters and plot-lines begin to converge, and then one finds oneself fully engaged as the book roars to its very satisfying conclusion.  I have to say that I was mightily impressed at the overall tone and tenor of the novel and its subtle, and sometimes not-so-subtle, moral messages that invite the reader to periodically stop and reflect upon a whole of host of issues, including things like population and emigration/immigration control, medical and bio-ethics, control and use of nuclear and biological weapons, and environmental stewardship and the harvesting and utilization of natural resources.  Without being 'preachy' in the novel, I think Hamilton wants his reader to think about these issues and the moral and ethical responsibilities that humans--as an intelligent species--have, and that as we move forward in exploring our Solar System that we do so in a thoughtful, deliberate, and responsible fashion.

The Great North Road is an excellent novel on many levels, and I unhesitatingly recommend reading it.  If you like scifi you'll probably love the book; and even if you don't, the plot and science elements in Great North Road are still close enough to our time frame such that it makes sense and isn't too abstract.  For me, Great North Road is a solid four out of five stars.  A good read indeed!

Great North Road
By Peter F. Hamilton
Del Rey/Ballantine Books, 2012
948 pp.
ISBN 978-0-345-52666-3 

***

Review: "Red Country" By Joe Abercrombie

Wow!  Joe Abercrombie's Red Country is one of the first books that I've read in 2013, and I'll wager that it ends up being one of the best I've read this year.  I found the dark gritty fiction of Abercrombie a few years ago when I read his First Law trilogy (2006-2008), and then followed it up with his brilliant, and my favorite, novel, The Heroes (2011).  Red Country is right up there with The Heroes and is somehow an incredibly clever blend of cinematic gorefest ala Sam Peckinpah and the unrelenting violence and pathos of the writing of Cormac McCarthy; and while Red Country is a fantasy novel of the first order, it reads and feels like a western.

The plot is really quite simple.  Farms in the hinterlands have been burned, people brutally killed, and a lot of children have been captured and kidnapped by a gang of desperadoes.  The novel's primary protagonists are all a group of misfits and deeply flawed characters that have come together to trek across a brutal landscape, some in search of the missing children, others in pursuit of gold, and others just trying to find themselves and start new lives.  'Shy South' and 'Lamb', a father-figure to Shy and her younger siblings, are in pursuit of the kidnapped children.  And if you've read any of Abercrombie's earlier novels you'll be delighted as you encounter a goodly number of rogues who reappear in Red Country.  Additionally, there is a whole group of fascinating new characters that range from utterly monstrous and despicable to some that are honorable and good-hearted.  Having said that though, it is amazing to me that at times it is still hard to sort out who is really good and who is really bad, and that is solely a function of the quality of Abercrombie's plotting and writing.

Abercrombie has a way with words and can truly turn a phrase.  One thing I've come to expect when reading his fiction is the earthy and pithy philosophical one- or two-liners from his characters.  They're really quite priceless, and I've taken to marking them as I encounter them whilst reading.  Here's a sampler of Abercrombie witticisms--

My old commander Sazine once told me you should laugh every moment you live, for you'll find it decidedly difficult afterward.

'Severed heads,'Cosca was explaining, 'never go out of fashion.  Used sparingly and with artistic sensibility, they can make a point a great deal more eloquently than those still attached.'

There is no bad living, and no good death.

The bottle's a shifty banker--it might lend you courage but it's apt to call the debt in sudden.

'Death loves me.' Lamb smiled, black-eyed, wet-eyed, and the smile was worse even than the snarl had been. 'All the work I done for him? The crowds I've sent his way? He knows he ain't got no better friends.'

'Why does everyone pout so over children?' Cosca called after him. 'They'll turn out just as old and disappointing as the rest of us.'

'Men are animals.  Conscience is a burden we choose to bear.  Morality is the lie we tell ourselves to make its bearing easier.'

Well, you get the picture.  Abercrombie sure can write, and Red Country is a relentless torrent of words and writing that simply compels you to keep reading and turning pages, one after the other until you reach the immensely satisfying conclusion.  This is a great book with awesome characters that is sure to please any reader encountering Abercrombie for the first time.  If you've had the pleasure of reading any of Abercrombie's other books, oh are you in for a hell of a delightful surprise.  Finally, even if you're the type of reader who swears they don't like fantasy fiction, give Red Country a try, I'm gonna bet that you're gonna find Abercrombie's fiction is well worth it and in the 'wheel-house' of many, many readers.  Red Country gets a solid five out of five stars from me.

Red Country
By Joe Abercrombie
Orbit Books, 2012
453 pp.
ISBN 9780316187213

***

Reviews: A Neil Gaiman Cornucopia

2012 found me discovering, or rediscovering, the British author Neil Gaiman, and I am so glad that I did.  A few years ago I read his novel American Gods, and I was really not all that impressed.  However, after my most recent experiences with Gaiman's fiction I must confess that I am prepared to give American Gods another chance at some point.  Anyway, over the past couple of months I've read Stardust, Neverwhere, and Coraline.  Here are my brief thoughts about each of them--

Stardust is an elegant and poignant little novel, and is truly one of the very best books that I've read this year.  Gaiman is a brilliant story-teller, and this is a tale for the ages.  Stardust is a story that has the feel and threads of a fairytale that has been handed down and greatly loved through the generations.  There is something in this beautiful and compelling story that re-galvanizes one's faith in the good-heartedness of most people, and that Fate and Chance can also work for good.

You'll note that I am not sharing one jot about the plot of this tale, as I don't want to influence you other than to simply say that it is my humble wish that each and every person read Stardust at some point during their lives, and maybe bring a little extra Magic and Love into their hearts and souls.  Upon finishing this lovely little story you simply can't help but look at the world around you just a little differently, and that'll be a mighty fine thing, I think.

***

I finished Neverwhere over a three-day period while on Christmas vacation, and loved every moment and every word.  In my humble opinion, Neil Gaiman is the undisputed master of the 'modern British fairytale'.  He is a sorcerer with words as he successfully weaves new twists and turns into the fables and fairytales that we've all probably encountered over the course of our lives.  Neverwhere is a brilliant story that looks at the 'other' world below modern London--the world of abandoned 'Tube' stations, trains from odd places and going odd places, ancient sewer systems and its denizens--in other words, the 'Land of Faerie' in an urban setting. 

The story's protagonist, Richard Mayhew, falls through the cracks and emerges into this other London, and is immediately thrust into an epic adventure with a Dickensian cast of characters.  The adventure rapidly turns into a titanic struggle between the forces of Good and Evil (and the Evil forces are really quite horrifyingly awful).  Like most, if not all, of Gaiman's protagonists, Richard Mayhew has to dig deep within himself to find his courage, but once he commits himself he is a stolid and reliable friend to the young woman, Door, who is in desperate need of his help.  Again, I dare not say more about the plot, other than I loved this book immensely and I simply loved the ending--it was perfect! Neverwhere is a marvelous, marvelous novel.

***

I loved Coraline!  This beautiful little book can, and should, appeal to readers of all ages, including my precocious and intelligent seven year-old grandson (who, by the bye, is reading The Hobbit right now).  This little fairytale is all about the notion of "the grass is not always greener on the other side"; courage and fidelity to one's beliefs; the love of family and friends; and most importantly perhaps, that one must stand up and fight injustice whenever it is encountered.  Little Coraline does all of this in spades.  In short, this little girl is my hero.

As a bit of a sidenote, something else that I've noticed is that Gaiman has a thing for doors, doesn't he?  Hmmm...Think about it.  In his novel Stardust there is a gate to Faerie; and in Neverwhere the young woman, Door, is able to find, open, and pass through doors that are portals to other planes and places; and then our own Coraline and the 'fourteenth' door in her parents' flat that opens upon the alternate world of her "other Mother" and "other Father" and some other creepy doings.

Being the father of two beautiful daughters, this little tale cast me back to the days of watching their inquisitive natures and insatiable curiosities as they began exploring the world around them and the people they encountered. So, while there are some superb moral lessons for children in this book, there are an equal number of lessons for the parents and grandparents of children too.  Foremost is to pay attention to and unconditionally love our children, and in so doing that is likely enough to prevent them from seeking out or, worse yet, actually finding a set of "other parents" behind the "fourteenth door".

Coraline is a wonderful little book to pass around to all of the adults and children in your life.

***

Neil Gaiman is certainly one of my great literary discoveries of 2012, and I'm so glad to have most of his fiction sitting on my bookshelf now.  Both Stardust and Coraline made my "Year In Review" list too.  Finally, I have Gaiman's The Graveyard Book sitting in the queue on my TBR shelf.  I can't wait!

"A Sound in the Night" by Thomas Hardy

Woodsford Castle (c) Mike Searle

Here is another one of my favorite poems by Thomas Hardy.  This well-crafted macabre poem even features a spooky castle on a cold, dark, and stormy night.  Woodsford Castle is considered an excellent example of a fortified medieval manor house of the mid-14th Century.  The construction of Woodsford Castle was completed in 1370, and it is located just a few miles south of Dorchester in Dorset County, in the heart of the 'Wessex' countryside that Thomas Hardy lived in and wrote about in much of his fiction and poetry.  In fact, Hardy's builder father, Thomas Hardy, Sr., was involved in an extensive restoration effort at Woodsford Castle in 1850.  One simply has to imagine that the ten-year-old Hardy would have accompanied his father to the castle during the restoration and must have prowled about all of the nooks and crannies of this old building.

A Sound in the Night
(Woodsford Castle: 17--)

"What do I catch upon the night-wind, husband?--
What is it sounds in this house so eerily?
It seems to be a woman's voice: each little while I hear it,
And it much troubles me!"

''Tis but the eaves dripping down upon the plinth-slopes:
Letting fancies worry thee!--sure 'tis a foolish thing,
When we were on'y coupled half-an-hour before the noontide,
And now it's but evening.'

'Yet seems it still a woman's voice outside the castle, husband,
And 'tis cold to-night, and rain beats, and this is a lonely place.
Didst thou fathom much of womankind in travel or adventure
Ere ever thou sawest my face?'

'It may be a tree, bride, that rubs his arms acrosswise,
If it is not the eaves-drip upon the lower slopes,
Or the river at the bend, where it whirls about the hatches
Like a creature that sighs and mopes.'

'Yet it still seems to me like the crying of a woman,
And it saddens me much that so piteous a sound
On this my bridal night when I would get agone from sorrow
Should so ghost-like wander round!'

'To satisfy thee, Love, I will strike the flint-and-steel, then,
And set the rush-candle up, and undo the door,
And take the new horn-lantern that we bought upon our journey,
And throw the light over the moor.'

He struck a light, and breeched and booted in the further chamber,
And lit the new horn-lantern and went from her sight,
And vanished down the turret; and she heard him pass the postern,
And go out into the night.

She listened as she lay, till she heard his step returning,
And his voice as he unclothed him: "'Twas nothing, as I said,
But the nor'-west wind a-blowing from the moor ath'art the river,
And the tree that taps the gurgoyle-head."

"Nay, husband, you perplex me; for if the noise I heard here,
Awaking me from sleep so, were but as you avow,
The rain-fall, and the wind, and the tree-bough, and the river,
Why is it silent now?

"And why is thy hand and thy clasping arm so shaking,
And thy sleeve and tags of hair so muddy and so wet,
And why feel I thy heart a-thumping every time thou kissest me,
And thy breath as if hard to get?"

He lay there in silence for a while, still quickly breathing,
Then started up and walked about the room resentfully:
"O woman, witch, whom I, in sooth, against my will have wedded,
Why castedst thou thy spells on me?

"There was one I loved once: the cry you heard was her cry:
She came to me to-night, and her plight was passing sore,
As no woman . . . Yea, and it was e'en the cry you heard, wife,
But she will cry no more!

"And now I can't abide thee: this place, it hath a curse on't,
This farmstead once a castle: I'll get me straight away!"
He dressed this time in darkness, unspeaking, as she listened,
And went ere the dawn turned day.

They found a woman's body at a spot called Rocky Shallow,
Where the Froom stream curves amid the moorland, washed aground,
And they searched about for him, the yeoman, who had darkly
  known her,
But he could not be found.

And the bride left for good-and-all the farmstead once a castle,
And in a county far away lives, mourns, and sleeps alone,
And thinks in windy weather that she hears a woman crying,
And sometimes an infant's moan.

***
A Sound in the Night was published by Hardy in 1922 in a volume of poetry entitled Late Lyrics and Earlier.

A Poem for the Day: An Excerpt from "All Day Permanent Red" by Christopher Logue

Whoo-Whee!  I have something new and definitely very, very different to share with all of my readers.  As all of you know, I am still working my way through many of the classics of ancient Greece.  The more I have read, the more I have discovered and realized that these ancient poems and plays are truly the foundation and building blocks of much of the great works of literature that we all read today.

These are some of the oldest recorded works in what we call the western canon, and the connections, themes, and ideas from these early works are clearly evident in subsequent literary works from antiquity all the way to the present.  Authors and poets, over the centuries, have reached back to these classics as they tell their own tales.  It never fails but to amaze me when I find these connections in whatever novel or poem I happen to be reading, or as I'm reading one of the Greek tragedies, I realize that I've seen the plot spun out as a poem by Keats, or a satirical novella by Margaret Atwood.

Well, what I have for you now is a bit of an epic modern poem that bridges the span of nearly 2,500 years back to Homer's The Iliad.  Since 1959, a British poet, Christopher Logue has been slowly but steadily working on his own interpretation of The Iliad.  He has carefully studied most, if not all, of the English-language translations, and has crafted his version, and published it in bits and pieces over the past nearly fifty years.  Of the 24 books in The Iliad, I think he has retold about a dozen so far.  I don't know if he plans to retell each and every book, but I believe he does intend upon publishing a combined, or unified, interpretation of his vision of The Iliad for our time.

I have three of Logue's books of poetry retelling portions of The Iliad, including the following:

War Music--An Account of Books 1-4 and 16-19 of Homer's Iliad (University of Chicago Press, 1997);
All Day Permanent Red--The First Battle Scenes of Homer's Iliad (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003); and
Cold Calls--War Music Continued (Faber & Faber, 2005).

All I can tell you is that this is some of the most visceral and shockingly intense poetry that I've read in a long, long time.  It is poetry that is elegant, beautiful, biting, emotionally gut-wrenching, painful, humorous, lyrical, cinematic, and extraordinarily powerful.  It screams to be read aloud, and it screams to be shared with everybody.  On my train home from work tonight, I had an uncontrollable urge to stand up in the car and just begin reading out loud--I didn't, but maybe I should have.

I'm going to dip into Logue's second book, All Day Permanent Red--The First Battle Scenes of Homer's Iliad for the bit of his work I'm sharing here.  The material covered by Logue in this volume is that generally contained in Books 4 and 5 of The Iliad.  What a great title too--"All Day Permanent Red"--to describe the vicious and desperate hand-to-hand combat between the Achaean and Trojan warriors; but Logue apparently took the title for this slim volume from an old Revlon lipstick advertisement!  It reminds me very much of the statement a veteran of the American Civil War made as he recalled the combat at the Battle of Antietam (September 17, 1862), "...that for a moment in his mind's eye the landscape around him turned red."

Without further ado, here is an excerpt from this brilliant poem--

All Day Permanent Red--The First Battle Scenes from Homer's Iliad

"Headlock. Body slam. Hands that do not reach back. Low dust.
Stormed by Chylabborak, driven in by Abassee
The light above his circle hatched with spears
Odysseus to Sheepgrove:

'Get lord Idomeneo from the ridge.'

Then prays:

'Brainchild Athena, Holy Girl,
As one you made
As calm and cool as water in a well.
I know that you have cares enough
Other than those of me and mine.
Yet, Daughter of God, without your help
We cannot last.'

Setting down her topaz saucer heaped with nectarine jelly
Emptying her blood-red mouth set in her ice-white face
Teenaged Athena jumped up and shrieked:
'Kill! Kill for me!
Better to die than to live without killing!'

Who says prayer does no good?

Seeing Athena's cry raise fight and fire in lord Odysseus,
Hera, Heaven's creamy Queen, told Diomed
(Still near the strip, content amid the crackle of snapped spears):

'Odysseus needs you. Go.'

Beneath a rise
300 paces downslope from
Chylabborak and Abassee
A party of 500 wandering Greeks
See Hector parked and praying:

'Lord of Light...'

While Lutie fills a bucket from the well
Where the Skean road that runs from Troy
Straight up the slope to the ridge
Crosses the track.

'...I shall be busy until dark.
If I forget you, do not you, me.'

Out from the wanderers the Teucer boys
Iolo, 16, from a wife, and Parthenos
Bred from a she Teucer inherited
Come crouch-down hurrying convinced that this
Their chance for fame Prince Hector dead etc. has come.
Parthenos set to plant his spear by Hector's spine,
Iolo, well...

Boy Lutie is astonished by their impudence
But not enough to not, in one,
Put down the bucket thrash his whip, its crack
Recalling Hector to his fate, its tip--as Parthenos
Jumped for the chariot's tailgate
And Hector's mittened hand snaffled his wispy beard--
Circling Iolo's wrist.

Parthenos kisses Hector's wrist.
His eyes are full of words.

'Take a deep breath before you speak, Greek boy.'

He does.

'Please, Prince of the Gate, take us alive.
We did not want to come to Troy.
We could not disobey our father's words.
His mother was your aunt Hesione.
He has a wall of swords--'
'With silver hilts,' Iolo says--
'And gold--a chest of gold.
Please. Please. Please. Please.'

The wanderers edge in.

Hector steps down.
The Teucer boys may not have been the brightest on the slope
But they are bright enough to know death when they see it.
'Keep your lives,' he said. 'A gift from Troy.'
And as they ran, made
'Go' to Lutie with his head,
Studied the wanderers,
Lifted the bucket, doused himself
And charged.

See an East African lion
Nose tip to tail tuft ten, eleven feet
Slouching towards you
Swaying its head from side to side
Doubling its pace, its gold-black mane
That stretches down its belly to its groin
Catching the sunlight as it hits
Twice its own length a beat, then leaps
Great forepaws high great claws disclosed
The scarlet insides of its mouth
Parting a roar as loud as sail-sized flames
And lands, slam-scattering the herd.

'That is how Hector came on us.'

Despite the few who ran
Out from the rest to get at him and died
Or ducked and dodged his restless spear
And came away covered with blood and died,
Like shoppers trapped by a calamity
The rest pressed back onto the rest.
And he, partly to please his comet's tail,
Took sideways jumps--one foot up to the other in the air--
Chattering his spear along their front.

The ridge.

Sheepgrove (as asked).

Idomeneo does not wait.

Dustlight.  Far off
A woman with an infant on her back
Is picking fruit."

(Pages 16-21)

***

Holy Cow!  Can you believe this stuff?  Every time I read these lines I am simply gobsmacked, and I need to reach down and pick my jaw up off of the floor.  Logue forces you to recall your mythology--Zeus' "brainchild," Athena--the petulant, teenaged, ice-white faced Athena.  This is great stuff!  The description of Hector charging into battle was awesome and flat-out terrifying--the simile simply could not be better--equating Hector to a ferocious male African lion!  And the perspective of young Lutie, Hector's nephew and chariot driver, sort of overlays the entire scene.  The ending of this section of the poem is such a juxtaposition too, an almost jarring contrast from the shocking combat to this pastoral moment of a woman off in the distance up on the side-slope of the hill with her child on her back quietly picking fruit. In other words, even in the midst of all of this drama and pathos, life goes on.  Trust me, all three of these books of poetry are like this.  Your eyes are wide, wide open as you read each page, your brain is a sponge just taking in Logue's metaphors, his use of simile and allegory, and his just plain masterful use of language in turning phrase after phrase.

I also think it is important for me to add that I want you to know that I don't think that this is Homer modernized.  No, this is a version--an interpretation--of Homer squarely landed in the oral tradition from whence it came, and somehow I think that Homer, and all of those who've translated The Iliad over centuries, would thoroughly approve of what Christopher Logue has done (and is continuing to do) and embrace his work wholeheartedly.

I plan to share more from Christopher Logue's volumes of interpretations of the books of The Iliad in the coming days, and I also plan to compare and contrast his poetry with my upcoming evaluation of Stephen Mitchell's new translation of The Iliad that is being released on October 12, 2011 (see my posting here).  Stay tuned!