A pleasant enough read. Set on Ithaca during Odysseus's absence, and centred on Klymene, handmaid to Penelope. The framing of the story is a little odd, taking a human angle on the mythological story but retaining the active involvement of the gods (though only Klymene can see them). The tensions between characters such as wistful Klymene, grumpy Telemachus, disengaged and besotted Ikarios, and beautiful treacherous Melantho, are neatly if not deeply worked out, with a nod to the more animal instincts of the suitors. I do think the development of the plot and characters seems to take place over too short a timescale (or fails to develop sufficiently) given the many years assumed in the Odyssey. The tentative affair between Penelope and Leodes is a nice answer to the questions of whether the suitors were really all uniformly repellent, and whether Penelope could or would have hung out for Odysseus so long without giving in to temptation. (Those offended by the divergence from the narrative of the Odyssey would do well to remember that Homer is not writing history, but giving shape to a long folk tradition, and that the adaptation or subversion of myths was common in later Greek literature.)

MB 7-i-2017 ( )

In Ithaka the story of what is happening on Ithaca during Odysseus' ten year journey home is told from the perspective of Klymene, a servant that grows up with her twin brother Ikarios and Telemachus, the son of Odysseus and Penelope. There are lots of neat historical details, the readers gets to see the Gods interference, and there is action, adventure and romance. Glad I finally got to it. ( )

In Ithaka the story of what is happening on Ithaca during Odysseus' ten year journey home is told from the perspective of Klymene, a servant that grows up with her twin brother Ikarios and Telemachus, the son of Odysseus and Penelope. There are lots of neat historical details, the readers gets to see the Gods interference, and there is action, adventure and romance. Glad I finally got to it. ( )

In Ithaka the story of what is happening on Ithaca during Odysseus' ten year journey home is told from the perspective of Klymene, a servant that grows up with her twin brother Ikarios and Telemachus, the son of Odysseus and Penelope. There are lots of neat historical details, the readers gets to see the Gods interference, and there is action, adventure and romance. Glad I finally got to it. ( )

In Ithaka the story of what is happening on Ithaca during Odysseus' ten year journey home is told from the perspective of Klymene, a servant that grows up with her twin brother Ikarios and Telemachus, the son of Odysseus and Penelope. There are lots of neat historical details, the readers gets to see the Gods interference, and there is action, adventure and romance. Glad I finally got to it. ( )