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Christopher Logue

War Music: An Account of Books 1-4 and 16-19 of Homer's Iliad Paperback – October 12, 2003

by Christopher Logue (Author)

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In his brilliant rendering of eight books of Homer's Iliad, Logue here retells some of the most evocative episodes of the war classic, including the death of Patroclus and Achilles's fateful return to battle, that sealed the doom of Troy. Compulsively readable, Logue's poetry flies off the page, and his compelling descriptions of the horrors of war have a surreal, dreamlike quality that has been compared to the films of Kurosawa. Retaining the great poem's story line but rewriting every incident, Logue brings the Trojan War to life for modern audiences.

Print length

215 pages
Language

English
Publisher

University of Chicago Press
Publication date

October 12, 2003
Dimensions

6 x 0.7 x 9 inches
ISBN-10

0226491900
ISBN-13

978-0226491905
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Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

In his brilliant rendering of eight books of Homer's Iliad, Logue here retells some of the most evocative episodes of the war classic, including the death of Patroclus and Achilles's fateful return to battle, that sealed the doom of Troy. Compulsively readable, Logue's poetry flies off the page, and his compelling descriptions of the horrors of war have a surreal, dreamlike quality that has been compared to the films of Kurosawa. Retaining the great poem's story line but rewriting every incident, Logue brings the Trojan War to life for modern audiences.

About the Author

Christopher Logue is a poet who has also written screenplays and acted in several films. His works include All Day Permanent Red and Selected Poems. He lives in London.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ University of Chicago Press (October 12, 2003)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 215 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0226491900
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0226491905
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 11.6 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.7 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,688,314 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #447 in Step Parenting & Blended Families (Books)
- #1,405 in Epic Poetry (Books)
- #1,460 in Ancient & Classical Poetry

Customer Reviews:
36 ratings

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Richard Wells

Astounding

Reviewed in the United States on October 17, 2003

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Christopher Logue has a lot of guts. He's gotten into the ring with the likes of Fagles, Lattimore, Fitzgerald, Pope, and most courageously, Homer himself - and acquitted himself well. Mr. Logue has pulled "The Iliad," into the 21st Century with less a translation than a re-write. It appears there are numerous volumes containing sections of Mr. Logue's work, and it's a little hard to keep track, but two editions offered on Amazon.com's website, "War Music," and the wondrously titled, "All Day Permanent Red," seem to contain it all.
Mr. Logue writes in a robust verse form that retains the epic language while exploring possibilities for a cinematic look on scenes and situations, as well as opening the field to modern metaphor. Unlike Barry Unsworth's interpolations in "The Songs of the Kings," Mr. Logue's don't jar, but rather deepen. A sample line, "Ajax, grim underneath his tan as Rommel after `Alamein..." lifts the story from some mythical past to something that is played out continually. A great device considering "The Iliad" is arguably the blue-print for every war story ever written.
When "War Music," opens outside the actual text of "The Iliad," and introduces us to Achilles - angry, petulant, bent on revenge, summoning his mother and laying grief for Agamemnon - Mr. Logue provides character depth missing from the original, and immediately lays out his plan to re-write and enrich rather than re-tell. His plan unfolds magnificently through both books.
I think "War Music" would work for readers with no pre-knowledge of the source, and I know it worked beautifully for me, and I've been through at least three previous translations.
Five Stars!

18 people found this helpful

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Wilbourg

Only Professor Fagles

Reviewed in the United States on December 27, 2001

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This is a flat-out triumph. Logue fills his take on Homer with dazzling imagery and stunning word-music. The Iliad falls right into our laps because Logue has given it a mighty shove. Only Professor Fagles' recent translation of the poem betters it and that is because Dr. Fagles has actually rendered the WHOLE poem in crisp, biting English that for the first time actually walks Homer up to our faces. In Fagles we can smell the breath of the blind poet, Logue brings us to the sweaty armpits.
As a styling, however, "War Music" has no peer and if Dr. Fagles has a slight edge it is because he has, after all, wrestled with the Greek text and got us into Homer's world all the way. Logue brings into the world but chooses to give us a whirlwind tour while Fagles allows us to slum awhile.
Still as much as I adore Dr. Fagles now celebrated translation, I am haunted. Logue's great re-imagining has left me shaken. The worship scenes are boffo and the Pax chapter that ends this fine "War Music" contains some of the sharpest, most moving, most eloquent, most rugged, and most manly, epic English verse since Marlowe's majestic "Tamburlaine" made kings into footstools.
And finally, there is this: As a work of English poetry, leaving Homer on the rocks for just a moment, "War Music" stands as one of the great collections of modern verse in the 20th Century.
"War Music" turns staid old men like me into groupies.
Bravo!

71 people found this helpful

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Deb V

A vibrant dream

Reviewed in the United States on September 25, 2009

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Nothing is easy. Nothing is free. Pain is the price of gain. You know the story -

Logue breathes startling and vivid life into this translation. Yes, translation.
Interesting to me (my experience) is how the presentation slipped poetically, logically from the ancient to a more sudden and visceral chronicle of events; something happening perhaps now in the Middle East or about to happen - his version seamlessly tapping into the heated river of the Iliad and then extending the argument vibrantly to the present.

2 people found this helpful

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R. G. G.

More Fun to Read Than a Novel, Better Poetry Than 99% of the Academic Refuse Out There

Reviewed in the United States on June 27, 2016

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Buy two. You'll want to give your copy after you're done reading it, mass underlines and ecstatic marginalia and all, to a literate friend. So good.

2 people found this helpful

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Obelisk1

Brilliant

Reviewed in the United States on March 31, 2017

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Amazing book. Can't recommend strongly enough...

2 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

Best poetry.

Reviewed in the United States on September 2, 2005

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This is just about the best, most beautiful, most powerful poetry I've ever read. I'd also suggest this book for reading and discussion groups, as it has so much to talk about in it, while being a pretty quick read. I've been told more than once that it is very difficult for non-native English speakers, however.

5 people found this helpful

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Dikran Utidjian

Fighting words

Reviewed in the United States on December 9, 2009

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I have looked for a dramatic adaptation of the Iliad for years. This is Logue, not Homer. But we don't really have Homer unless we speak, and think, Ancient Greek. So the book is excellent in so far as Logue is excellent and he is. Time and time again. Now, if a soldier were to write it we would have perfection.

2 people found this helpful

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Stephen McCormick

Spectacular

Reviewed in the United States on February 15, 2014

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Like discovering "The Waste Land"... and extraordinary poetic accomplishment. Read it side-by-side with Pope's (for effect) and Fagle's (for clarity)...

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disturbedchinchilla

Rough Music

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 7, 2014

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This is just fantastic. I'm quite an avid poetry reader, but I can honestly say that it's rare to come across something so compelling. 'War Music' sucks you in and pulls you along, surfing on a roller-coaster wave of ultra-violent verbs, mordant-wit and breathtakingly cinematic imagery.
If this sounds like hyperbole - it's justified. Logue's 'versioning' of episodes from Homer's Iliad is one of the great works of modern literature, offering a window into a brutal, alien world and a mirror to our own voyeuristic culture, where wars unfold on rolling news and our own Gods and Goddesses bask in the sickly sheen of celebrity.
I can think of few contemporary poets who can manipulate the blank iambic line with such effortless aplomb - this really is 'Music' in its truest sense - Logue's lines sing. There are echoes of Pound (minus the obscurity), Old English alliterative verse, the photographic zen of haiku and even the scatological slang of a Tarantino film-script.
If there is a criticism, it is perhaps that this is unashamedly male writing, although this is as much a reflection of the original Greek as anything. It's muscular and visceral, and when emotions arise, they do so bare-chested with a howl at the moon. It's got balls.
It is, perhaps the mark of any great piece of writing to leave you begging for more. 'War Music' ends just as Achilles rejoins the conflict following the death of Patroclus - we are left with the image of a 'spear stuck in the stand'. Sadly, following Logue's death, it will always remain just that - a marker pointing to a future that will never come.

Logue completed two subsequent volumes, 'All Day Permanent Red' and 'Cold Calls'; the first deals with the early skirmishes of the war - if anything the grand guignol splatter-core is raised to a feverish tempo, including a brilliant sequence that borrows from Celine's own 'Guignol's Band'; the second slots oddly between the original 'War Music' sequence and 'Patrocleia' and features some uncharacteristically poignant moments peppered in between Olympian pornography and yet more feverish slash and burn. Both are essential.

3 people found this helpful

JMS Amazon Customer

Ideal introduction to Homer

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 13, 2013

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This is NOT a translation. Logue read all the versions available and then used his poetic skills and (considerable!) poetic licence (helicopters in Troy??) over a couple of decades to produce this. You'll love it or hate it.

Guy

Fresh and Modern

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 2, 2014

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I have never read the Iliad - this was recommended to me. It feels so fresh and raw and gives a powerful sense of Homer's world but crucially informs our understanding of our own world. In particular, the horror of war.

Donald Moy

Modern Day Homer

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 6, 2012

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Logue's accounts of the Trojan War are spellbinding. Would recommend to anyone with a love for dramatic usage of the English language.

Tom McGreevy

It is such pure pleasure to read brilliant verse. I now understand why The Iliad is ...

Reviewed in Canada on March 12, 2015

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It is such pure pleasure to read brilliant verse. I now understand why The Iliad is an epic. The previous translations I had read had left me cold, if not totally bored. This work is a retelling rather than a translation proper; it transforms the story into a living breathing masterpiece, just as it must have been in its original form. The verse is powerful and even shattering in spots, the lives of the Greeks and Trojans made meaningful to the contemporary reader. I cannot recommend a work more highly than this. I intend to read more of Logue, as much as I can lay my hands on.

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