By: Adèle Geras Publisher: Harcourt Paperbacks Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Harcourt Paperbacks Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 376 Publication Date: September 01, 2002 Reading Level: Young Adult
The siege of Troy has lasted almost ten years. Inside the walled city, food is scarce and death is common. From the heights of Mount Olympus, the Gods keep watch. But Aphrodite, Goddess of Love, is bored with the endless, dreary war. Aided by Eros's bow, the goddess sends two sisters down a bloody path to an awful truth: In the fury of war, love strikes the deadliest blows. Heralded by fans and critics alike, Adèle Geras breathes personality, heartbreak, and humor into this classic story.
Amazon.com Review: Homer's mighty epic poem, The Iliad, is the earliest written literature of Western civilization. Adele Geras, best known for her trilogy based on Sleeping Beauty, takes on the seemingly impertinent task of retelling the siege of Troy as a young adult novel, but manages to carry it off without trivializing the original. The great battles of the bronze-clad warriors and the clashes between Achilles and Hector and Odysseus are seen at a distance from the walls of the city, where the Trojan townsfolk gather to sit each day and cheer the action like spectators at some archaic football game.
The passion of Helen and Paris, Hector's farewell to his ill-fated infant son, and other familiar domestic scenes are seen from a closer perspective, through the eyes of the four teenage protagonists. Marpessa is Helen's young servant, and her sister Xanthe is nursemaid to Hector's baby son, while Iason, who is secretly beloved by their friend Polyxena, tends the horses and yearns for Xanthe, who has a crush on Alastor, who has impregnated Marpessa. These complicated, interlocking infatuations and love affairs work themselves out against a background of siege and bloodshed watched over by the gods. Artemis, Mars, Poseidon, and Pallas Athene appear in visions to reveal their plans to the characters (and to us), but their words blow away like mist as soon as they are gone. Meanwhile, the bawdy gossip of three old serving maids in the kitchen emulates a Greek chorus. The story winds to its inevitable destination with the emergence of the Greeks from the wooden horse and the bloody sack of the city--a suitably violent end to an ancient and violent tale. (Ages 12 and older) --Patty Campbell
History as a domestic tragedy Movies about Troy concentrate on matters as seen from the perspective of the powerful .Thus the recent Brad Pitt movie Troy spent most of its time dealing with the trials and tribulations of such personages as Achilles and Psris .Likewise the 1950's epic Helen of Troy and even such modest peplum as Achilles focus on the movers and shakers. Homer -who kickstarted the whole shebang ,let's not forget,-paid a lot of attention to the Gods and their role in proceedings .
Adele Geras brings in the Gods when she retells the ancient tale .They appear to various figures in the novel .Ares ,God of War is shown as a sleek black clad warrior .Aphrodite meanders in and out of proceedings and there is a particularly spectacular intervention by Poseidon.For the most part however the writer focuses on relatively humble and less powerful people especially women .The main protagonists are Xanthe and her sister Marpessa ,servants in King Priam's palace .The war is into its tenth year when the novel opens .Food is short and tempers shorter .Marpessa is a visionary ,prone to seeing the Gods and talking with them.Xanthe is a more grounded figure ,a practical woman and nursemaid to the infant son of Prince Hector and his wife Andromache.Both sisters fall in love with the same young man -a well connected individual names Alastor whose snobbish mother will not entrtain the notion of his marrying into any circle but the aristocracy.Xanthe meanwhile is beloved of Iason ,a groom in the royal stables .in trur Greek tragedy style we even have a Chorus -a trio of elederly kitchen gossips casting their own light on proceedings .
The rich and famous are not ignored but are treated as having feet of clay -Paris is paunchy and dissipated,Achilles a petulant gay thug and the royal household tired ,old and at the end of their tether .This is the war seen as domestic tragedy.through the eyes of the young whose hopes are frustrated because of the war
The style is penny plain but effective and the book ends on a note of hope both for the survivors in the ruins of the city and for tjhose bound for Greece .In reminding us that the price of war is often heaviest for non -commabatants the book performs a service but if you want a story about the conduct and battles of the war and the doings of the high and mighty then this is not for you.Try David Gemmell's trilogy instead
Troy From A New Perspective This book is a beautiful, poignant retelling of one of the most ancient and enduring stories of all time. The tragic events that have haunted and thrilled us for generations are brought brilliantly to life under the skilled hand of Adèle Geras, and made fresh by an interesting new perspective. The story is romantic and utterly exquisite, the language poetic and lovely but easy to understand.
The new, non-Iliad characters in the novel, Marpessa, Xanthe, Iason, Alastor, and Polyxena, are all believable and very human. For the most part they are servants, and all of them are lower in class then the heroic, royal characters that we usually associate with Troy. This puts them in a prime position to witness important events and interact with all of the tragedy's important characters without interfering with the normal flow of events.
The traditional characters, both the gods and the humans, are for once in the background, but they are still highly important and their personalities are explored. Often, from the perspectives of our main characters, we see wholly new sides of the characters of the Iliad, which adds interest and innovation to the novel.
As for the novel itself, it is nicely balanced and layered. The story takes place during the war, but it is not essentially about the war, but rather about the experiences of the young people who are living in Troy during the war. For the story of the war, read the Iliad. You are likely to be disappointed if you pick up this novel expecting multiple battle descriptions and gory details. Instead, expect a novel about the nature of the human soul, and how both love and war can warp and change it.
Failboat! I was a sophomore in high school, and it was the summer, and the summary made for a promising read. However, having just taken a Latin class where we concentrated study on the Trojan War that year, there were (and still are) no words for how disappointing, disturbed, and sorry that book was. I haven't picked it up since then, but I have no intention of selling it, because it's just not worth wasting the money. I had so many expectations for this story. I had actually expected it to be a refreshing view on a familiar story. No dice. Whatever this was, it wasn't what I expected it to be. It was actually far from it. I didn't buy that book to read about two teenage girls pining over the poor boy who was only in the war for... what was it? Five minutes? It made the drama in my circle of friends look like no big deal. I'm going to need mind bleach to forget this book.
The female and Trojan side of the war. Remember that movie from a few years ago with the same title? Remember how much it sucked because sanitized the legend and took out all the gods? Well, here's a novel for us true lovers of "The Iliad" and Greek Mythology. Told beautifully (though sometimes meanderingly) from the perspective of the Trojans, most particularly the women, is the fall of Troy. The women stand perfectly for Troy, a city at the mercy of the masculine forces of the war. The women will be the only survivors of Troy, and they will be the ones that lose their loved ones after years of starvation and sacrifice. It is the women that survive to grieve. The book is perfectly faithful to the original work, complete with the meddling gods (beautifully described in poetic imagry), particularly Troy's patron goddess, Aphrodite, who complicates the lives of three women and two men, by creating yet another juicy and mythological soap opera. The characters are well-drawn, and the action--though told second-hand (as is fitting)--is emotionally powerful. Grade: A-
FLOP! There are many reasons I liked this book, but even more reasons that I absolutely hated it. I love stories and mythology, and was very excited to get to read another book on this subject. I really enjoyed the scenes where it talked about the war and different conflicts between the Greeks and Trojans. However, more then half of the book is about girl fights, illicit relationships, and unwanted pregnancies. The author obviously didn't research the war enough, because she hardly ever talks about it, although it usually is interesting when she does. Instead of this book being an epic, which was my first expectation, it turned out more like a soap opera. I read several reviews of this book before I actually read the story, and all of them claimed that the book was a sure hit for people interested in mythology. The book hardly ever has anything to do with this, and most of it's views of the Greek Gods are wrong. No character in the story seems to be paying attention to the fact that their entire city is collapsing around them and that they are all probably going to die soon. There are a few parts of the book about old ladies gossiping, which is utterly pointless and seems to have nothing to do with most of the rest of the story, and the rest is about two teenage sisters who are obviously the most important beings in the world, because they seem to believe that there is nothing more important to pay attention to in the world of Troy besides themselves and the beautiful boy Alastor, who was brave enough to spend all of five minutes fighting in the war before getting wounded and withdrawing for good. The book is generous enough to lend one paragraph of it's bazillion-page sea of disgusting boringness to Hector's death, probably the most important event of the entire war. I can not honestly recommend this book to anyone, and suggest just reading the Iliad instead.
Anything Goes Trivia
Megaton Man
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