Homer's Daughter [Paperback]

Robert Graves (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Academy; Reprint edition (1987)
• ASIN: B000YGLYIM
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)

More About the Author

ROBERT GRAVES (1895-1985) was an English poet, translator, and novelist, one of the leading English men of letters in the twentieth century. He fought in World War I and won international acclaim in 1929 with the publication of his memoir of the First World War, Good-bye to All That. After the war, he was granted a classical scholarship at Oxford and subsequently went to Egypt as the first professor of English at the University of Cairo. He is most noted for his series of novels about the Roman emperor Claudius and his works on mythology, such as The White Goddess.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful conceit: A Sicilian princess plays Homer, March 22, 1998

By 

Stuart W. Mirsky "swm" (New York, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Homer's Daughter (Hardcover)

Robert Graves, poet, novelist and scholar of things Greek, here explores the possibility that The Odyssey, successor to Homer's Illiad, was written by a princess of mixed Greek and other ancestry in a Greek-Trojan settlement in ancient Sicily some time after the Trojan War. Using internal evidence which suggests female authorship and a relationship of the terrain described to areas in the western Mediterranean, Graves speculates that the true author told her own story, possibly a true one, buried within the Homeric epic which has been handed down to us via the ancient Greeks. To get it included among the Homeric canon this young, energetic and extremely intelligent woman manages to get the tale incorporated into the body of Homeric songs through the auspices of a member of the Homeric guild. But, scholarly speculation aside, this is basically a tale of adventure and intrigue as it recounts the events surrounding the siege of a king's household by rebellious nobles using a suit for his young daughter's hand as an excuse to undermine and destroy her father's rule. The princess, clever and indomitable by turns, first investigates the mystery of her elder brother's disappearance and then organizes a shrewd counterplot, reminiscent of Odysseus' triumphal and bloody return to Ithaca, to reclaim her father's holdings and the honor of his house. A bit slow and ponderous in the beginning, and somewhat too scholarly, it nevertheless comes sharply to life in the second half of the book as the plot to undo the suitors' predations hurtles toward its bloody resolution. A good tale and worth the read, though it's not quite as compelling or erudite as Graves' other work in this vein: Hercules, My Shipmate -- a tale of Jason and his Argonauts on the quest for the Golden Fleece. -- Stuart W. Mirsky author of The King of Vinland's Saga

10 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great premise -- Disappointing novel, January 7, 2000

By 

Inna Goldenberg - See all my reviews

This review is from: Homer's Daughter (Paperback)

Robert Graves had a great idea: he wanted to elaborate on the idea that "The Odyssey" was written by a woman and that the woman-author was one of the characters in the epic poem. Since the only virtuous human women in the poem are Penelope and Nausicaa, Robert Graves concluded that Nausicaa is a good candidate to be the poet.

The idea itself is quite brilliant. "The Odyssey" has always been called a "women's" epic because except for Odysseus, all other important leading characters are women and the story focuses more on domestic life than on war-like exploits. Thus, imagining Nausicaa as the epic's author is not so outlandish.

That said, "Homer's Daughter" the novel is hugely disappointing. One of the major reasons why it failed to impress me is that the tone of the novel was very impersonal. I was always aware that Robert Graves was telling the story instead of the proper narrator -- Nausicaa. Speaking of Nausicaa, she is extremely unappealing. She seems to be very intelligent and clear-headed but so cold and closed-off that I could not care less about her. All the personal stories failed to impress me because either they were almost cartoonish, like Laodamas and Ctlimene, or plain boring, like Nausicaa and Aethon. The meeting between Odysseus and Nausicaa in "The Odyssey" is one of the best parts in the epic. Especially, when Odysseus says to Nausicaa that best of all, he wishes that she would know harmony in marriage. The meeting between Nausicaa and Aethon in "Homer's Daughter", patterned after Odysseus' and Nausicaa's in "The Odyssey, cannot compare. Also, Aethon pops up in the novel but I do not learn anything about his character except that almost everyone who meets him has an immediate trust and affinity for him. Instead of telling us that, Graves could have shown better why Aethon inspires such trust.

Robert Graves is extremely good at telling myths and whenever characters do that in the novel, the stories come alive. This is why it is such a disappointment that he cannot reproduce the same magic when the action is between the characters in the novel. He also writes good speeches and the confrontations in the Council and between Aethon and the suitors are also well-realized. But when the characters try to related to each other, the result is unremarkable.

Robert Graves should have tried harder to expand on his idea but he seemed to be so enthralled with the premise that he pays little attention to anything else. All in all, this is not a bad book but not as interesting as it could have been or as other books that are historical novels based on mythology, such as Graves' own "Hercules, My Shipmate" and Mary Renault's "The King Must Die".

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An Interesting Concept, August 14, 2006

By 

Calliope (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Homer's Daughter (Paperback)

"Homer's Daughter" does not compare favorably to "I, Claudius"--Graves does not write a woman's voice convicingly. Still, the idea behind this novel is an interesting one. I can well believe after reading it that the "Odyssey" could have been written by a woman. The main character, Nausicaa, is likeable and spirited.

As an "Odyssey" fan, it was a lot of fun seeing how Graves set up the story as parallel to "The Odyssey"--the sort of situation that could have inspired it. The setting, in actual historic Greece/Mediteranean, not a mythical setting, was well-drawn and interesting. I would recommend this novel as a thought-provoking read for someone who is well-familiar with "The Odyssey".