Tibor Fischer<\/a><\/p>\n 28 January, 2019<\/p>\n The poet Homer, who is thought to be working on a sequel to his hit epic \u201cThe Iliad\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n The novel in verse is nothing new, of course; it\u2019s a phenomenon of the literary world that pops up every few years with varying success: Vikram Seth\u2019s The Golden Gate<\/em> or, more recently Robin Robertson\u2019s\u00a0 award-frequenting The Long Take<\/em>.<\/p>\n Homer\u2019s Iliad<\/em> impresses from the off. There\u2019s no author mugshot, not a sliver of bio, which is how it should be.\u00a0 Nor are there any copious acknowledgements, the blunderbuss of name-checking that\u2019s attached to many works striving to curry favour or gain recognition. <\/p>\n I find the single name thing a little pretentious (cf\u00a0 Socrates, Liberace, Madonna), but you\u2019re allowed to do that and this is a novel in verse. Homer should be congratulated, whoever he or she or they may be (a collective like Luther Blissett?), for simply handing over the goods.<\/p>\n The title is in some ways misleading. The Iliad, the \u201cTrojan Poem\u201d, doesn\u2019t have that much to do with Troy. The opening lines give a clearer indication of the book\u2019s content, spelling out the anger of Achilles, but a more fitting title for the work might be The Greeks Bicker For Ten Years, On A Beach<\/em>.<\/p>\n The Iliad<\/em> is divided into 24 \u201cbooks\u201d (or chapters as the rest of us would call them) and the first book is certainly one of the most powerful things you\u2019ll ever read. It launches you in medias res<\/em>, or rather towards the end of the Trojan war. It demonstrates that in any war, the first adversary you have to deal with, and probably the most intractable, is your own side (as is amply illustrated by a score of war novels such as James Salter\u2019s The Hunters<\/em>, Derek Robinson\u2019s Goshawk Squadron<\/em> or Vaino Linna\u2019s The Unknown Soldier<\/em>). The first line of The Iliad<\/em> may be an invocation to a poetic muse but the following lines immediately offer the reader the spectacle of dogs and birds devouring the corpses of warriors. The horrors of war are patently not going to be glossed over in this account.<\/p>\n The furious exchange in the Greek camp between Agamemnon and Achilles over strategy, which in fact boils down to who gets the booty, is utterly convincing. And it\u2019s interesting to see how accusations of drunkenness, cowardice and ugliness are always standard in a row between men. Agamemnon is saved from being filleted by the unbeatable Achilles by Athene appearing to restrain Achilles. Athene appears, but can be only seen by Achilles, in that old trick that allows all sorts of witches, imps and deities to dish out favours and advice or meddle while remaining invisible to the crowd.<\/p>\n Athene\u2019s intervention also manifests another universal truth about war. They\u2019re like parties: once you throw one, everyone wants to join in. All of Olympus takes an interest in the outcome of the Trojan War, just as much of the world has beaten a path to Syria\u00a0 in the last decade. <\/p>\n Book One of\u00a0 The Iliad<\/em> can\u2019t be bettered. It\u2019s fast-paced and full of surprises. Who\u2019d expect ultra-hardman Achilles to run to his mother in tears? In Book Two, however, Homer makes a classic mistake: he has fallen in love with his research. Research is important in order for the author to be on top of his subject, but most of it should stay on his bookshelves. Homer\u2019s meticulous catalogue of ships that sailed to Troy is a dead weight that blocks the action that started so well in Book One. Did Homer ignore his editor? Or did the editor have to fight hard to get this laundry list shifted to Book Two?<\/p>\n However, this awkward change of gears is the last time Homer loses control. The rest of the book is gripping. Certain reviewers, nevertheless, have carped about some of the detail. Where are the fish? <\/p>\n We all know the Greeks love their seafood and here you have a Greek army, on a beach, and there\u2019s not so much as an anchovy or whelk in sight, just gargantuan barbecues, with beef, not shrimps. Plato argues this is quite deliberate, that Homer is making the case for roast meat as the food of champions, the right diet for heroes. I\u2019d argue against this. No writer can put everything into one book. The fish are a red herring. Homer doesn\u2019t mention fish because he doesn\u2019t need to. None of his heroes has a bowel movement. No one has constipation. No one gets the runs, something that must have happened on a daily basis with an army camped out on a beach. Not everything is relevant. I suspect that Homer is working on a sequel, and a prequel. I look forward to them.<\/p>\n <\/i><\/a><\/i><\/a><\/i><\/a><\/i><\/a><\/i><\/a><\/p>\n The novel in verse is nothing new, but Homer’s Iliad is fast-paced and full of surprises<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6958,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/standpointmag.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/files_u28_books_homer.jpg\" "\\"Feature")
<\/p>\n
The Iliad <\/em>closes with the death and burial of Hector, the great warrior of Troy and Achilles\u2019s great rival. Homer, though writing from a Greek perspective, does a skilful job of presenting war as a plague on both houses. The end feels a little sudden, a trifle abrupt. Readers will doubtless feel they have been left with a cliffhanger. What will happen next in the Trojan War?<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n
\n![\"\"](\"\/standpoint\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/books-banks.jpg\"\/)
Defence against the dark arts<\/a>
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\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/standpointmag.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/standpoint1.jpg\"\/)
An ark in the deluge<\/a><\/p>\nWhat to read next<\/h6>\n
<\/h3>\n
\nDefence against the dark arts<\/a>
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\nAn ark in the deluge<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"