In the plain outside the walls of Troy, Agamemnon demands a fortress. With no materials except a few trees and unlimited sand, the Greeks dig a negative image of a palace into the white plain: a vast, inverted castle soaring into the depths of the earth. After ten years' journeying Odysseus returns, again and again, to Ithaca. Each time he finds something different: his patient wife Penelope has betrayed him and married; his arrival accelerates time and he watches his family age and die in front of him; he walks into an ...
Read More
In the plain outside the walls of Troy, Agamemnon demands a fortress. With no materials except a few trees and unlimited sand, the Greeks dig a negative image of a palace into the white plain: a vast, inverted castle soaring into the depths of the earth. After ten years' journeying Odysseus returns, again and again, to Ithaca. Each time he finds something different: his patient wife Penelope has betrayed him and married; his arrival accelerates time and he watches his family age and die in front of him; he walks into an empty house in ruins; he returns but is so bored he sets sail again to repeat his voyage; he comes back to find Penelope is dead. Made up of forty-four retellings of passages from Homer's Odyssey, Zachary Mason's book is a fictional apocrypha: a radical and thrilling renovation of Classical legend. He uses Homer's linear narrative and explodes it: presenting fragments of alternative and contradictory re-takes and out-takes of the same familiar stories - the Trojan Horse, the Cyclops, Circe, the Sirens - breaking them up and putting them together into new shapes. Turned inside-out, these stories become glosses, mirrors and mazes that explore and examine Odysseus's journey: allowing us to see it afresh, in all its ambition, sadness and futility. Reminiscent of Borges or the Calvino of Invisible Cities, The Lost Books of the Odyssey is elegant, allusive, provocative and utterly fascinating - and seems destined to become a modern classic.
Read Less
Add this copy of The Lost Books of the Odyssey: a Novel to cart. $0.99, good condition, Sold by BookHolders rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Gambrills, MD, UNITED STATES, published 2010 by Farrar Straus Giroux.
Add this copy of The Lost Books of the Odyssey: a Novel to cart. $0.99, very good condition, Sold by More Than Words rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Waltham, MA, UNITED STATES, published 2010 by Farrar Straus Giroux.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Very Good. . All orders guaranteed and ship within 24 hours. Your purchase supports More Than Words, a nonprofi t job training program for youth, empowering youth to take charge of their lives by taking charge of a business.
Add this copy of The Lost Books of the Odyssey: a Novel to cart. $0.99, good condition, Sold by More Than Words rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Waltham, MA, UNITED STATES, published 2010 by Farrar Straus Giroux.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Good. Former Library book. All orders guaranteed and ship within 24 hours. Your purchase supports More Than Words, a nonprofit job training program for youth, empowering youth to take charge of their lives by taking charge of a business.
Add this copy of The Lost Books of the Odyssey: a Novel to cart. $0.99, good condition, Sold by ZBK Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Woodland Park, NJ, UNITED STATES, published 2010 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Used book in good and clean conditions. Pages and cover are intact. Limited notes marks and highlighting may be present. May show signs of normal shelf wear and bends on edges. Item may be missing CDs or access codes. May include library marks. Fast Shipping.
Add this copy of The Lost Books of the Odyssey: a Novel to cart. $1.39, good condition, Sold by Orion Tech rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Arlington, TX, UNITED STATES, published 2010 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Add this copy of The Lost Books of the Odyssey to cart. $2.00, good condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Atlanta rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Brownstown, MI, UNITED STATES, published 2011 by Picador USA.
Add this copy of The Lost Books of the Odyssey to cart. $2.00, good condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Reno rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Reno, NV, UNITED STATES, published 2011 by Picador USA.
Add this copy of The Lost Books of the Odyssey: a Novel to cart. $2.00, good condition, Sold by Goodwill rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Brooklyn Park, MN, UNITED STATES, published 2011 by Picador USA.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Good. There is handwriting and/or underlining and or highlighting in the book Corners are bent. Stains on outside cover/inside the book. Cover/Case has some rubbing and edgewear. Access codes, CD's, slipcovers and other accessories may not be included.
Add this copy of The Lost Books of the Odyssey to cart. $2.00, good condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Baltimore rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Halethorpe, MD, UNITED STATES, published 2011 by Picador USA.
Add this copy of The Lost Books of the Odyssey to cart. $2.98, very good condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Atlanta rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Brownstown, MI, UNITED STATES, published 2010 by Farrar Straus Giroux.
A strikingly written opening leads to multiple doors of post-modern plot contradictions--much backing and filling.
A work of vivid metaphors, fabled constructions and cynical deconstructions, all at the service of exposing how easily memory and personal accounts give way to hoodwinking, self-deception, misinterpretation and finally, nihilism.