When Cities Sink Howling in Ruin
In 1191 BCE, 18-year-old Iakos, a Danaan Greek, sets sail with his dour Uncle Aithon to learn the sea and, he hopes, warfare, as his dream is to become a soldier. His uncle’s trading becomes entwined with the raids and wars that have erupted throughout the Mediterranean.
Partridge’s novel is a tour of the battlegrounds of the Late Bronze Age collapse in which he cleverly mixes myths, Homer, and scholarship. There are intricate explanations of how the ships work, of armor and tactics, and of the political and economic realities of the time.
The book often feels more like a dramatic re-enactment historical documentary rather than a story, in part because of the travelogue feel of the voyage. The characters are, for the most part, rather shallow and easy to confuse. Often a character surfaces just long enough to be killed, but not enough for us to care whether the character dies. Even the main characters, Iakos and Aithon, seem to have little depth to them, just the desire to see warfare or to make a profit respectively.
The characters include representatives from many of the significant civilizations of the time: an Egyptian, a Hittite, a Canaanite, a pair of Israelites, Dorian Greeks, Mycenaeans, Punt (a slave, Eurybates, who is often referred to as “the black man” when others are listed by name), and Trojans, to name a few. Each has an opportunity to tell a little about their homeland.
Partridge has clearly done a great deal of research, and readers who enjoy an intellectual tale will appreciate this fictional attempt to explain this historically significant, but little-known period.
