An Iliad by Alessandro Baricco

Few books published this century will have less purpose than Baricco's An Iliad. An English translation of an Italian translation of the Greek epic poem, it reinterprets the original military drama through subjective narrators and excises any mention of the ancient gods. In doing so, it looses both the clinical realism and discursive fantasy that has made Homer popular for the past three thousand years. The laconic prose barely competes with children's versions of the Iliad: short sentences, flourishes of simile excavated from the Greek and italicised interpolations from later authors ensure an uneven flow. Removing the gods does not undermine the plot - Homer ascribes both human and divine intentions to events - but it limits the drama almost exclusively to the battlefield, marginalising Homer's inclusiveness. Baricco's discovery that Homer included anti-war voices in his celebration of war is unsurprising to anyone familiar with the text: that he should then exclude Homer's anti-war scenes on Olympus is absurd. But the deepest flaw is having each episode retold by a different character. An author with sensitivity could make this a moving conceit, using different voices to weave a tapestry of perceptions. Not Baricco - every character shares his mundane manner, and observes events that would be outside their range: slaves witness high level discussions, foot-soldiers relate the dreams of their commanders and both sides recount verbatim the dialogue of their enemy. The only worth in this book is from Homer's original: the only excuse is that much has been lost in translation from the Italian. That, however, is not enough to make this readable. [Gareth Vile].