I had high expectations for Colm Tóibín's new novel. His Testament of Mary was so powerful, so raw in its evocation of a mother's grief, that I thoughI had high expectations for Colm Tóibín's new novel. His Testament of Mary was so powerful, so raw in its evocation of a mother's grief, that I thought his treatment of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon would be equally striking. And the opening line seemed to bear that promise out: 'I have been acquainted,' muses Clytemnestra, 'with the smell of death'. Unfortunately, however, the book has a strangely detached quality, as if all the emotion of this shocking story has been cauterised out of the characters...
Summary review: An engaging and well-written take on the Robin Hood myth, the first in a series telling us the story from the minstrel Alan's point ofSummary review: An engaging and well-written take on the Robin Hood myth, the first in a series telling us the story from the minstrel Alan's point of view. With a young, cynical and dangerously charismatic Robin, this is full of adventure, plotting and gritty battles. Good fun - if with some leaps of faith - and I'm looking forward to making a start on the sequel.
I'm afraid I'm going to take a slightly more critical angle than many reviewers here have done. First, the good stuff. Margaret George ambitiously setI'm afraid I'm going to take a slightly more critical angle than many reviewers here have done. First, the good stuff. Margaret George ambitiously sets out to retell Helen's story from beginning to end, which is no mean feat. She manages to marshal several different myth cycles into a coherent whole, which is an admirable achievement and shows the depth of her research. Unfortunately, however, this hefty novel lacks the grandeur and spirit I'd hoped for in a tale about the Trojan War. While the early part is enjoyable, dealing with the less familiar territory of Helen's childhood, the pacing and characterisation begin to struggle by the time we reach the period of the War itself - despite the fact that this is when all the great heroes turn up. (Homer himself, possibly foreseeing the pacing issues of a ten-year siege, just skipped straight to the good bits at the end.)
Unfortunately the book doesn't seem to be terribly interested in the War. The climactic moments, such as Achilles's clash with Hector, are presented in a very perfunctory fashion, and the novel seems more interested in Helen's and Paris's breathless romance going on behind the battlements. This romance element was a little too heavy for me: we're constantly told they're both beautiful, but neither of them is really given enough depth for us to feel the same obsessive interest in them. (The same is true of the secondary characters: even those who should raise strong passions, such as Hector or Achilles, feel one-dimensional.) Helen herself comes across as improbably naive, alternately consumed with desire for Paris and fretting like a schoolgirl about her popularity among the women of the Trojan royal family. Her erratic gift of foresight seems to be little more than a convenient plot device to make sure readers don't miss out on any good moments on the battlefield; and the gods are dealt with in a similarly indecisive way. Although Zeus and Aphrodite address Helen, and Oenone is a genuine water nymph, Apollo makes an appearance only as an object of worship, and his arrows are rationalised away as metaphors for the spread of the plague. It feels odd to be stranded in a middle ground where sometimes the gods are real and sometimes not - perhaps I would have felt more comfortable if the book had plumped either for one or the other.
All in all it's a strangely flat novel, which gives the impression of the Trojan War and its heroes being something of a sideshow for Helen's and Paris's doe-eyed scenes of mutual adoration. I would have enjoyed it more, probably, if I were more into historical romances, but unfortunately I felt it was something of a missed opportunity.
The Idle Woman
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