Ithaca
Updating the second oldest extant work of Western literature, Homer’s Odyssey, seems a daunting task, but the author entertainingly succeeds. The novel focuses on Odysseus’s 16-year- old son. Telemachus is initially portrayed as weak and victimized, as his father, whom he has never seen, has been gone for 16 years to the Trojan War, and never returned. He cannot protect his beautiful mother, Penelope, from the unwelcome and vulgar tenant “suitors” who are trying to marry the former Ithaca island chief’s ostensibly widowed wife. Though untrained in fighting, Telemachus is intelligent with a gift of talking the rage out of potential aggressors. He decides to journey on a quest to find his father after all this time.
In the town of Pylos, Telemachus teams up with Polycaste, the young daughter of the local chief, and the two travel to Sparta to meet with its legendary leader, Menelaus, and the famous Helen of Troy. Menelaus, his father’s friend, firmly believes Odysseus is still alive. Polycaste has a positive impact on the young son, even teaching him the rudiments of handling a sword. The book then shifts to what really happened to his father. Eventually, Telemachus and Odysseus meet in the hut of a friendly swineherd back in Ithaca and, together, conceive a way to right 16 years of wrongs.
There are a few minor issues. A map would have been helpful, and one doesn’t “fire” an arrow; but the short novel is delightfully illuminating and satisfying. The author takes some liberties with Homer’s chronology of events, but the characters come alive in every aspect. Like the original, it is an emotional rollercoaster, appealing to both men and women. The climax is absolutely riveting and riotously dramatic with an even more unexpected finale.
