Customer Reviews

Achilles: A Novel

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I would most certainly not describe this book as a historical novel as other reviewers have. It is a kind of short story  actually more like a sequence of episodes cast with a poetic hand. And it is not strictly a retelling of Achilles story  Cook offers us a highly selective and even eccentric conception of Achilles. She gives us an Achilles who will be unfamiliar to many readers of the poem, for Cooks Achilles is sapped of much of the mettle and psychological consistency with which Homer endowed him.

If you believe like me that the Iliad is all about the education of Achilles, then you may have trouble with Cooks interpretation. She seems to miss the entire point of the story. And dont just take my word for this. When Priam begs Acilles for the return of Hectors body, Cook has Achilles respond as follows: Its Zeus wish that I give you the body and thats why youll get it.

If you believe this, then you have to believe that Homer wrote a story about nothing. This meeting is the crux of the Iliad. It constitutes one of the most poignant moments in the entire corpus of western literature. Yet here Achilles decision to return Hectors body is reduced to a reflex action dictated by a god. In truth, Achilles returns the body (and disdains the gifts of Priam, though bizarrely Cooks has him pawing through them and picking out the softest robe) because he ALONE among the Greeks has finally come to an understanding of the cost of war, and the meaningless of trophies. It took the death of his friend to do it (a death that he comes to see was a direct consequence of his own pride). Achilles grew as a person -- a fact Cook seems to have missed altogether.

There are false notes here as well which undermine Cooks credibility with the reader. For example, at one point she refers to Hera as Juno -- this is the Roman name for Hera. This isnt poetic license, this is an error of the first magnitude and there are more where this came from.

Cook is also wilfully crude; one of the other reviewers euphemistically characterised these elements as adult. The appearance of these terms is so crude and so repugnant that it has the effect of wrenching the reader from the narrative flow. The point is that Cook perhaps wants to give her writing an edge. Well, there are better ways.

However, this is not a bad book; it is filled with beautiful, poetic passages. Such as this one:

Hectors feet are sure.As he runs he remembers each part of his life: the bushes and rocks of his boyhood hideoutsthe routes of his huntingthe waterfall he led Asytanax first bathing.the shallow rock pools where the women did the laundry before the war. He remembers, his life spread out before him like a giant sheet in the sun..

I was very moved by this. And you wont find anything like this in Homer. But you know what? You wont find it for a reason. Have you EVER been scared? I mean scared for your life? Terrified that you were about to die? I have. I spent years rock climbing and got into some very compromising situations. And let me tell you, in moments like these you are not dreamily recalling episodes from your past. Every fibre of your being is striving to keep you alive. Your higher intellectual functions shut down, your autonomic nervous functions take over, you become animalistic. Homer knew that. Hector had a killer bearing down on him -- Achilles was never more than a few footsteps behind him. Hector would have probably heard his laboured breath and felt his presence. He would have known the certainty of his approaching death. Believe me, he wasnt thinking of women doing laundry or Asytanax first bath.

And so this leads to my final judgement on this book. You may enjoy it. You may be touched from time to time. Impressed here and there by a particularly well turned phrase. However, at its bottom, the problem with this book is that it is an imperfectly realised conceit. Men, particularly men at war, simply do not act or think the way Cook imagines that they do. But if you are a fanatic like I am, you will want this book in your collection.

Although the dust jacket identifies "Achilles" as a novel, make no mistake about it -- this is poetry, even if it happens to look like prose on the page. (Interestingly, "A Novel" does not appear on the title page or anywhere else -- perhaps this was just wishful thinking by a publisher scared of marketing the book as poetry.) The spare, concentrated language, the interwoven images of water, fire and blood, the recurring themes of mortality and immortality -- life, death and something in between -- all are masterfully handled in this brief but deep book.

Although Achilles' life and death provide the framework for much of the book, in some ways he remains always apart from us. In the underworld he is different from the other dead, just as in life he was different from other mortals. Perhaps his choice, to die young but with a name that will live forever, sets him apart (undying, like the figures on Keats' Grecian urn). We know Achilles' actions, but we seldom see into him in the way that we see into the other characters -- Peleus, Thetis, Priam, Helen, Chiron. Cook is nothing short of brilliant in taking us into the hearts and minds of these "subsidiary" characters. Thetis' grief at the funeral of Achilles and Helen's lonely life are particularly harrowingly drawn.

As others have noted, the concluding transition to Keats is initially disconcerting, but as I ponder on it, I see more layers on which it works for me. As demonstrated by the subject-matter of many of his poems, Keats was drawn to the classical past, and to the question of immortality -- what is it that endures? Truth, beauty, art, a life that embodies those qualities -- whatever you call it, this book is one that will endure in my mind.

I gave it three stars for ambition, but, unfortunately, the language doesn't live up to the ambition. Also, structurally it's weak, with Achilles dying in the middle and the remainder coming across as padding. The Keats section in particular is attached by paperclips to the prior passages. (They both had red hair--so what? I'm dirty blond, does that make me the same as Brad Pitt? {answer: No})The Keats section came across as, "Look how much I know about Keats."

Indeed, the contrast between the actual Keats quotations, with all their power, and the fluttering efforts of the author to reach for majestic language is quite telling.

As noted in other reviews, there are a few moving or innovative passages, and, ok, I liked the rough sex. But for a truly great modern re-telling of the Iliad, check out Christopher Logue's works.

This short novel by Elizabeth Cook chronicles the life of one of Greek mythology's greatest warriors: Achilles. It focuses on many of the lesser-known events in Achilles's life, like his cross-dressing adventure in Lycomedes's court and his marriage to the young princess, Deidameia, but still leaves time to get him to Troy in time for his heroic death. The book feels very rushed, hardly giving the reader a chance to take a breath. Perhaps this was one of Cook's strategies, because anyone who stops long enough to think about what they've just read might realize they don't want to read anymore.

Cook attempts to delve into Achilles's psyche, a place that many writers have already ventured and were far more successful than she is. Hardly anything about Achilles's personality feels real, maybe because Cook hastens through what should be crucial and life-altering events, stating exactly what needs to be said to get the point across, and no more. This doesn't work because Achilles is a much too complex character to be sparing with the emotional details. Still, the premise for this book is not bad, and I admire Cook's efforts to shed some light on the Achilles who is human, not the Achilles who is one step away from being a god. I think the main problem isn't the story's speed or the inaccuracies; it's just not very good writing.

I'll admit that some of it was poetic. In fact, a lot of it was poetic. "Would [the river] have colour if the sun gashed it? Yes. Then it is sapphire blue; but mostly it appears black. Nothing lives in this water. It is anoxic: hostile to life." Ooh, anoxic. What a great word. So why does a woman with such a good vocabulary feel the need to use phrases like, "The Trojans sh** themselves"? It's obvious from the frequent use of sentence fragments and unconventional formatting that Cook is trying (perhaps a bit too hard) to sound poetic, but how can I take someone seriously as that type of poet when she uses an expression like "sh** themselves" to describe fear? There are other vulgarities, too, and they stick out like sore thumbs.

As I already mentioned, I have to admire Cook for being daring enough to attempt this story in the first place, but that's all it was: an attempt. I love Greek mythology, and I love Achilles, and I wanted to love this book, but I can't even come close. The ending is thought-provoking and certainly original, but it didn't seem to connect with the rest of the story as well as Cook had hoped, and I'm not really sure what she was trying to prove. Though, to be fair, this could be because I was already so bored of the book by that point that I didn't have any willpower left to devote to trying to unravel the enigmatic ending. By that point, I just didn't care.

I'll start by saying that you need a working knowledge of Greek Mythology and the Iliad to really follow this very dense short book. Given that, it is a beautifully written, creative story that got me to think about fate, choices, and the connections between people and history. This is a book I can picture reading many times, and I expect to give it to others to read.

I have to disagree with those who dislike the Keats chapter near the end of the Achilles. While it might seem tangential to some people, I see it as the tie that binds the theme through the ages to today's world ... and Keats is the perfect kindred spirit to Achilles as he faced the same "choice" that Achilles faced.

As an English teacher, I enjoyed this work on many levels, and I would love to teach the book (though there are some "adult" elements to it that could make it difficult). If you would like a brief, philosophical, and satisfying reading experience that engenders meditative thought, then this book would be for you. It also spurred me to open my Complete Works of Keats again.

I usually don't like to make predictions about any modern book becoming a classic. Yet, every now and then a work comes along that is so original and vibrant that it screams out its stature as a Major Work. The last time I found such a book it was Anne Carson's Autobiography of Red, my first edition of which has increased much in value. This time, the book that haunts me is Achilles.

The comparison between Carson and Cook's works is not fatuous. Rather, I see Achilles as a literary successor to Autobiography of Red. They are both hybrid works, combining verse and narrative into another form. Carson called her work "a novel in verse." Surely, Achilles is an epic poem as narrative.

Achilles is a modern reworking of the story of the Trojan War, but it is not a modernized work. The setting is still ancient Troy (and environs), Achilles and Hector both remain caught in the limbo between mortal and immortal love, and the Gods are as petty, devious and full of trickery as ever. This is a stripped down and muscular Achilles. The book captures the incendiary passion of the story. Here is the immense sadness and isolation of Helen, the most beautiful woman on all of the earth. Here is not only the thunderous wrath of the godlike man named Achilles; there is also the tenderness and sadness of a mortal man who is all too aware of his losses. The Gods here are powerful, but they are not omnipotent. Things go wrong for the powerful here just as they go wrong for the meekest among us.

The language of Achilles is sparse, pared down to essentials. Some of the words, the expletives and such, may seem jarringly out of place here for some. At first they seem pandering to modern audience. Ultimately they are necessary, for this is the story of men who were mighty and brave, but also vindictive and cruel. The language is base when the circumstances are base. This is an epic story, and poetry demands an economy of words where the novel form is unbound. The common tongue has been a valid poetical device ever since Dante transformed poetry over 700 years ago.

Cook has created a classic, a volume that does not supplant a classic, but is in itself a classic. At times dreamlike in imagery, at other times crushingly commonplace, Achilles demands to be read.

The book does have some truly great moments; including the beginning where Odysseues confronts his old comrade, Achilles, in the Underworld, and also a creative portrayal of the centaur Chiron, Achilles' friend & mentor. However, Ms. Cook fails to do justice to Achilles and his unveiled Rage, which is the very 'Kleos' of the hero and the mantra of the Iliad: "Sing muse of the wrath of the Son of Peleus." Cook's narrative is short story snippets of interesting anecdotes that span the full length of AChilles' life. However, she never succeeds in capturing the depth and morose fire of this proud hero...instead much like the Trojan Horse this seemingly great gift is hollow...the ending with Keats is a mistake as well--evidence that Cook is an armchair academic and lacks the warrior's heart to face the wrath of the son of Peleus with worthy words, falling far short of the Homeric mantle.

OK, I like this book, but the end almost ruined it for me. The begining was beautiful, a poetic retelling of the journey of Achilles. But the last part, with John Keats ruined the flow, it just jumped from Troy to odd. If you want to read this, get it from the library and don't read the last part "Relay".

Elizabeth Cook's short novel is actually a poem, full of dream imagery of violence and eroticism. Ulysses draws Achilles up from Hades with a ditch of blood, from which he lures the dead like thirsty vampires. Thetis the ocean goddess makes love to the human (...) in a vast range of substance and form, from fire to lioness. Helen contemplates as the Greeks kill all Priam's family around her. Chiron the Centaur raises the mischievious boy Achilles, who trys to find his sheathed penis. Achilles bears down on Hector and then drags the body for 12 days, yet the body never deteriorates since it is favored by the gods. Priam begs for his son's body and Achilles emotionally moves to the point or stage where he can release the body of the man who killed his lover Patroclus. Elizabeth Cook washes the reader in dream image after image, making Achilles less real with each passage and more archtypal, residing in the unconscious.

Elizabeth Cook's Achilles is a brave undertaking.

Taking its cue from the outstanding (and somewhat surprising) success of the recent retelling of Beowulf, Achilles mines the depths of this Homeric hero in a slim 100 page volume.

Beginning with the early mythological birth of the Greek warrior Achilles and following his growth into his role as slayer of Trojans, Cook spins her words into gold. The language and imagery rival that of the best mythologists. Cooks research has been thorough and she manages to tell the story completely wihout straying into esoteric lit-babble.

The one problem with the Achilles story is the final section. Obviously mining the territory she covers as a professor, Cook relates a class with Keats to the Achilles legend. This contemporary blast at the end of an otherwise transportational piece is jarring and unnecessary. If Elizabeth Cook had stayed in Ancient Greece, the magic she created would have resonated long after the last page. As Achilles stands now, it merely drifts into denouement.