The book by Zachary Mason will make for an engaging summer read.
The 44 stories that make up Zachary Mason's The Lost Books of the Odyssey are presented as apocryphal fragments of narrative discarded by Homer as he was piecing together his epic poems The Iliad and The Odyssey. Rarely more than a few pages long, each one is like a burning match head, alive long enough to illuminate its place within the grander Odyssey narrative before finally flickering out. As such, Mason's book is nothing like a retelling of the original poems. Rather, each story is made to stand on its own, with some events, such as Odysseus' climactic return to Ithaca, occurring over and over again in a different way each time.
Themes, likewise, are repeated, such as Odysseus' struggle with free will over determinism. In "One Kindness," the book's ninth story, Homer's hero washes ashore on a mysterious island only to discover three women in a cave heatedly discussing what should be the fate of an unnamed voyager desperate to return to his distant home. And in "Fugitive," the following story, Odysseus is taken prisoner aboard a ship, where he finds and reads a finished copy of the The Iliad. The suggestion that Odysseus is merely a character fated to suffer and perhaps die at the whims of a distant storyteller, despite his willful attempts to find Ithaca, is the book's most common theme, highlighting that age-old battle between human freedom and cruel fate.
This is even the case with "Blindness," one of the best stories in the collection. Here, the adventures of Odysseus and his crew are recast as stories that Polyphemous, the cyclops blinded by Odysseus, tells his sheep and those villagers willing to approach him. With each tale, he invents yet another obstacle that will keep Odyssesus from ever reaching the shores of Ithaca. Abandoned by the gods and the only woman who ever loved him, it's the only source of revenge available to Polyphemus and he takes full enjoyment in it, choosing to keep Odysseus alive and wandering rather than killing him once and for all.
Both "Blindness" and "Fugitive" seem to suggest Odysseus is powerless to change anything in his life, while "One Kindness" hints that his future hasn't been completely decided. When the three women in the cave decide to send their unnamed wanderer to "the witch Calypso," an argument begins over whether or not to "make her a horror." Odysseus, hiding outside the cave, responds, "No, let her be beautiful and as kind as summer." Odysseus' prayer from the darkness is heard and his request granted, and for one moment, the tired and lonely hero is assured that not everything is decided—sometimes humans still have a say.
Purists may feel that the book strays too far from the original source material, drifting into territory more appropriate for The Twilight Zone or Jorge Luis Borges, but this is part of what makes Mason's collection so much fun. Forsaking what's familiar about Homer's old poems, he's able to reawaken the mystery and magic of myth while exploring pertinent philosophical questions. Additionally, adults or high schoolers who had difficulty understanding the poems, or were easily bored by them, will have no trouble understanding and engaging with the stories Mason lays out. His writing style is simple yet authoritative and confident, and readers looking for an escape this summer won't be disappointed.
Andrew Welch lives in Roanoke, TX, and is a member of the National Book Critics Circle.
