Iliad for People in a Hurry

The year is 1945 and Greece is still under the reign of German forces. There, in a small village, a young teacher arrives for whom our narrator immediately develops a crush. When British bombers launch an attack¹ on the German base located in the village, the students, among which are our boy narrator and his friend Dimitra, are led to seek refuge in a cave by their new teacher, Miss Marina. With having nothing to do in the darkness of the cave, Miss Marina begins to retell the story of The Iliad by Homer as an escape from the air raids.

1.       We were sitting in the classroom when the first bomb fell, making the windows rattle... The first victim was a donkey laden with wood. Her big belly had been split in two, and she lay there kicking all four legs in the air as she slowly died. The planes were not German. They were British. The next bomb hit the school’s primitive outside toilet, sending turds flying all around us along with dead mice and rats.

Achaeans (Greeks) and Trojans had been fighting for nearly ten years and yet the Trojan wall couldn't be pervaded by the opponent nor could the siege broken by Trojans. The worthiness of war—which was started when Helen, wife of Menelaus, King of Sparta, left with Paris, the son of King Priam of Troy—was waning among the Achaeans but they were under the oath to fight for Helen and Menelaus and had the inviolable need to keep up their war pride. As the story progresses, the foremost Achaean fighter Achilles withdraws from the war and recluses after obdurate Agamemnon, the commander of the Achaeans and brother of Menelaus, takes away his mistress when Agamemnon's desire for a woman is thwarted by the power of Apollo. Soon the two armies face each other, only to come at a conclusion that Paris and Menelaus must fight each other and one of them being dead will thus settle the war. Meanwhile, Helen is anxious that any outcome would be her loss. But Paris flees the duel and shortly the truce is broken and war is flared again. More lives are lost before Ajax from Achaeans and Hector from Trojans combat in a duel which is however unable to bring any culmination. Achaean warriors and leaders sense the absence of Achilles, with Trojans proving heavy on them with growing threat to their ships, but aren't able to appease him.

The Siege of Troy has freshly brought back the vigor, expanse and influence of The Iliad. Reading between the lines, we are able to connect the contexts of two wars: Trojan and Second World War, and are disgusted by the killings and atrocities while friendship, love and other soft and strong emotions still resonate with us. Just as children's emotions are shaped by the plots of the Iliad, they harbor doubtful view of the German soldiers, unable to hate or love them amid their close presence and death of kinships to their name. Reflection prevalent in the story is that war is always surrounded by questions that humans have always found unanswered or answers that are unjustifiable: "Is the need to love greater than the need to hate?"  "Who can distinguish one sorrow from another? Who can distinguish tears from tears?"

In the following days, like in a tug-of-war, the whip hand shifts between the two forces, when even a small hint of retreat from one side or a word of courage or a sense of a good omen made one force overpower the other. The Trojan commander Hector, despite taking several blows² himself, rages havoc against the assailants and push them close to the camps intending to burn their ships, and the news forces Achilles to allow deploying his forces, the Myrmidons, under the command of his dearest friend Patroclus to exhort the men for counterattack. Before long, Patroclus meets his misfortune and this eventually brings out Achilles to the battlefield having lost his beloved companion and filled with rage. Achilles taking lives of the Trojan warriors and those close to Hector are among the brutal scenes of the novel, and we cannot avoid being horrified when fight turns to a slaughter³, and this finally puts the two foremost warriors, Hector and Achilles, face to face to fight for their honor! Meanwhile, an attack by Greek resistance fighters, claims life of a higher ranking German officer and this leads to a tragic outcome in the village which matches the execution of the innocents in Trojan War and simple lives taken in revenge, and our 15-year-old narrator narrowly escapes his death. But, is he able to save all those whom he loves? The two parallel stories justify and complement each other as we reach to the end.

2.       Hector was at the forefront, and was the first to hurl his spear at Ajax, the son of Telamon. It caught the center of the shield and Ajax took a step back, but he was still capable of picking up a huge rock and throwing it at Hector with all his might. The boulder struck Hector on the neck, and he spun around a couple of times before falling to the ground. He dropped his spear, and his heavy armor prevented him from moving. Several Achaeans rushed forward to finish him off with their spears, but they failed. Hector was immediately surrounded by the foremost Trojan warriors; they protected him with their shields and stood firm until they managed to convey him to his chariot, drawn by his swift horses.

3.       Achilles flailed wildly around him. Dryops was stabbed in the neck and fell at his feet like an empty sack. Achilles left him there and went for Demuchus, pinning him down with his spear before finishing him off with his sword. He dragged the two unfortunate brothers, Laogonus and Dardanus, from their chariot and slew them. The next man, Tros, dropped to his knees in front of Achilles and begged for mercy, but not a trace was left in Achilles’s heart. Tros clasped his legs and pleaded with him, weeping, but Achilles drove his sword into the other man’s liver. Black blood spurted out, along with his life. He killed Mulius by thrusting his spear into one ear and out through the other. He struck Echlecus over the head with his sword so that the blood gushed out, then he chopped off Deucalion’s head. Rhigmus died when the spear pierced his stomach, and his charioteer when it penetrated his back as he tried to flee.

Miss Marina voices the author to tell the war epic in such simplicity and in a fashion of a folktale that anyone who hasn't had the courage to face poetry or chance to read the Iliad would easily understand the intensity of the clash, its evolution and formation, and largely the human side of it with little space for divine intervention unlike depicted in Homeric Iliad. The episodic composition of the telling gives us time to reflect as well as builds up the anticipation among the readers as is among the students in the story. The novel, filled with blood, sweat and tears, has juxtaposed not only the two wars, but has also pictured brutal faces of war untouched by historical or mythological consciousness proving human failure to keep up the truth higher than their pride and provide the psychological depth of the warriors, friends, mothers and lovers, all pointing to the fact that: "War is a source of tears, and that there can be no victors."

Author: Theodor Kallifatides

Translator: Marlaine Delargy

Publisher: Other Press

Page Count: 208pp

Price: $14.99

Author Photo Credit: https://like.fi/kirjailijat/theodor-kallifatides/

Review Copy Courtesy: Other Press