From ancient wars retold through the eyes of forgotten women to modern myth-making with a twist – and a sweeping tale that flows through empires, archives, and rain-soaked memories – Philip Cottam dips into an autumnal reading listfor The Arbuturian stitched with drama, darkness and a dash of wonder…
The Voyage Home by Pat Barker
Pat Barker established her reputation in the 1990s with The Regeneration Trilogy, three novels set in the First World War. With her latest novel The Voyage Home she would seem, possibly, to have completed another trilogy this time based on the Trojan war and its aftermath. The Silence of the Girls and The Women of Troy tell the story siege and its aftermath through the voice of Briseis, the captured Trojan queen awarded to Achilles but, to his fury, seized by Agamemnon. My hesitation is because in The Voyage Home Briseis, the narrator and undoubted heroine of its predecessors, is left stranded on the shore as the Greeks sail home.
Barker’s new narrator is Ritsa, a Trojan captive, now maid to Cassandra, daughter of the dead King Priam of Troy and trophy wife of Agamemnon. Be in no doubt that these are definitely stories told from the point of view of women. Also, whereas The Silence of the Girls and The Women of Troy are based on the Iliad, Barker’s new story is based on the first part of the Oresteia. It is a bloody tale and Barker pulls no punches either in the frequently brutal language she uses or in the detail she presents.
Agamemnon is returning home after the long years of war hoping for a welcoming reception and a well-earned rest. It was not to be and a bloody tale unfolds. Clytemnestra, Agamemnon’s first wife, abandoned at home in Mycenae for the whole of the ten-year Trojan war, is filled with a bitter revenge-seeking rage at the sacrifice by Agamemnon of her daughter Iphigenia in order to ensure a safe passage home. To add to the turmoil, Cassandra, Agamemnon’s trophy Trojan second wife, is a seer and, although no-one will believe her, has prophesied the brutal killing of her husband, as retribution for the destruction he wrought on the city of Troy and its people.
The merciless violence that ensues is brought to life by the harsh and unflinching language that Barker frequently uses. As with its two predecessors Barker makes sure that the voices of the oppressed, usually the women, whether captive or not, are heard and their brutal treatment at the hands of men is described in painful detail. As other reviewers have already noted this is very much a feminist retelling of these well-known classical stories. That said, The Voyage Home is no more a manifesto than either The Silence of the Girls or The Women of Troy. It is a powerful and effective re-telling of an ancient story that gives voice to those who were treated as chattels even if they were not slaves or direct victims It is certainly not for the faint-hearted given that it is a story of retribution rather than one of redemption.
A Sunday Times Best Seller, The Voyage Home by Pat Barker is out now in all formats, published by Hamish Hamilton. For more information, please visit www.penguin.co.uk.
Dogs and Monsters by Mark Haddon
Mark Haddon, best known for his best-selling The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, has now produced a thought-provoking, wonderfully written, somewhat eclectic, collection of eight short stories entitled Dogs and Monsters. As one might expect from the title dogs play an important role from the gentle dog that befriended St Anthony to Acteon’s hounds and Laika, the dog sent into space by the Russians. As for the monsters they are frequently human. Following in the footsteps of his 2019 novel The Porpoise – a retelling of the Shakespearean version of the story of Pericles – Haddon is clearly still entranced with Greek myth as three of the stories are also retellings of Greek myths.
The Mother’s Story is a retelling of the myth of the Minotaur set in medieval England and is the least effective. It never quite matches the horror of the original. D.O.G.Z is a powerful retelling of the tragedy of Acteon who inadvertently came across Artemis, the goddess of hunting, as she was bathing. The third retelling, The Quiet Limit of the World, is based on the story of Tithonus who was granted immortality but not eternal youth when the Dawn fell in love with him. Haddon makes the most of the tragedy that inevitably follows in what is the most effective of his recasting of Greek myths.
Wilderness is a story of survival that has echoes of HG Wells The Island of Dr Moreau, but it gradually develops into a much darker and more tortured tale. The Bunker is an atmospheric ghost story set in a Cold War bunker at York that was originally written for a National Trust anthology. The Temptation of St Anthony is a retelling of the trials that beset the Saint and how a stray dog helped him retain his sanity. My Old School is very different to the other stories in this collection as it is about memories of boarding school life and bullying. It is in many ways the most powerfully written story of them all.
The eighth of the stories, St Brides Bay, was first published alongside a story written by Virginia Woolf in a special edition issued by the Hogarth Press to celebrate the 100th anniversary of its first publication. In parallel with the character of Woolf’s story, The Mark on the Wall, Haddon’s is an elegiac reflection on mortality and on a life having reached the eventide of its day. For Woolf the inspiration for her character’s stream of consciousness was a mark on a wall. For Haddon his characters reflections are sparked by the lights of a ship at sea. St Bride’s Bay has a very different mood from the other stories in this collection and exemplifies Haddon’s range as a writer and his ability to create such different settings, characters and atmospheres. Dogs and Monsters lives up to its title but there are moments of light amongst the darkness.
Dogs and Monsters by Mark Haddon is published by Chatto & Windus. For more information, please visit www.penguin.co.uk.
There are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak
Elif Shafak has established herself as a writer of novels that frequently illuminate the crosscurrents at the borderline between the traditional Islamic culture of her native Turkey and the liberal more secular culture of Europe and of the Turkey of Ataturk. Her success comes not just from her deep personal understanding of how these crosscurrents affect individual lives but also her ability to create characters and narratives that are real, complex and nuanced. Her latest novel There are Rivers in the Sky crosses centuries and cultures, from 7th Century BCE Assyria, to 19th Century Victorian England, to Yazidis, ISIS and hydrology in the 21st Century. What links them all is water. The result is a rich and evocative novel written on a grand scale that requires the readers attention. This is certainly no piece of airport fiction designed to anaesthetise the reader during a long flight.
Shafak starts her complex story with a raindrop in Mesopotamia where a cruel and clever Assyrian King, Ashur-banal, glories in the library of Nineveh his capital city and its copy of the Epic of Gilgamesh. The novel then leaps forward to Dickensian London and the first of its three main characters – Arthur Smith, who despite his impoverished background ends up deciphering elements of the Epic of Gilgamesh and conducting archaeological expeditions to Mesopotamia. The next element in the novel centres on the Yazidis through the culture and experiences of Narin and her family and, most especially, on their persecution by Christians and Muslims alike, not least by the extremists of ISIS.
The final element and third main character focuses on Zaleekhah, a contemporary hydrologist with contemporary concerns. The links between these three protagonists are perhaps too artificially coincidental: Arthur Smith meets Narin’s great-great grandmother on one of his expeditions and Zaleekhah meets Narin in the aftermath of the ISIS persecutions. The strongest part of the novel is the part that focuses on the Yazidis and on the attempt by ISIS to eradicate them. Not only does Shafak produce a searing description if the horrors that unfolded during the time of ISIS, she also provides an eloquent and moving explanation of their history, legends and beliefs.
With There are Rivers in the Sky Shafak has produced one of her most interesting and entrancing books even if some find the water metaphor somewhat overdone and the links between her protagonists somewhat contrived. That said, this is a most readable book, full thoughtful insight and written with the eloquent descriptive style one has come to expect. Existing fans will not be disappointed and, hopefully, those for whom this is a first initiation will be encouraged to look further.
There are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak is out now, published by Viking. For more information, please visit www.penguin.co.uk.
Header image by anotherxlife (courtesy of Unsplash)
