Customer Reviews

Orpheus

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This is a simple retelling of the legend of Orpheus by Charles Mikolaycak, who also created the passionate, dramatic illustrations. [The tale of Orpheus has a number of variations, especially concerning his death; Mikolaycak illustrates the terror and pain of his chosen variant with the same intensity with which he depicts the love between Orpheus and Eurydice in happier times.] This is a stunningly beautiful book...

The Orpheus myth continues in many forms, theatrical, musical and artistic, retelling the ultimate loneliness of Orpheus after the loss of Eurydice. This allegory of grief is subject to many interpretations, but this particular book contains no controversy, rather a series of stunning illustrations that give voice to a man's grief in a manner that is evocative of the most basic human emotions. This is an accessible Orpheus, a man whose music was so exquisite that "mountains bowed and wild animals ceased their hunting to listen". Even the sea interrupted the dance of the waves, the trees bent to catch his plaintive notes, when the young Orpheus is rewarded by marriage to Eurydice, their brief happiness already foreshadowed by loss.

After the death of his beloved, passionate wife, Orpheus is inconsolable, haunted by despair, the images stark, a man lost to his former self. Determined to bring Eurydice back to life, Orpheus takes leave of his senses, descending into the caves of the Underworld. Orpheus' lament touches even the cursed souls who dwell there, their faces distorted by desire. But Eurydice is never again to be part of his world. In baleful, sorrowful degrees, Orpheus sinks into his mute state, the divine music of his soul forever silenced, his discarded lyre the only symbol of a once enchanted life.

Set against stormy, sky-darkened pages, the illustrations are exceptional, vividly colored, capturing in elegant line the demise of the tortured young man. Deeply shadowed, with hints of the orange-hued glow of the Underworld, Orpheus' human form struggles from page to page until his demise. This is a striking and imaginative take on a familiar myth, elegant in its simplicity, adorned with the power of lost love and the skill of an award-winning illustrator. Luan Gaines/2005.