0731NOTOdysseus

0731NOTOdysseus_Mason

HBLL catalog reviews
Homer Od. 11.593-600

Zachary Mason, The Lost Books of the Odyssey, a novel (New York: Farrar, Stauss, and Giroux, 2010).

A series of fractured-fairytale-like retellings of the Odysseus myth begins when the hero arrives at Ithaca only to discover that Penelope has remarried, indeed she deliberately hitched herself to an imposter who beat Odysseus to the punch!

Book cover for "The Lost Books of the Odyssey" by Zachary Mason, featuring an archer and a New York Times review.

The School Library Journal review (2010): "The opening chapter ... begins with Odysseus, having spent several years after his battles in the Trojan War struggling to find his way home, finally getting to the shoreline of his island kingdom of Ithaca. Instead of finding his wife patiently waiting for his return, he discovers that Penelope has married a fat old man she knew to be impersonating Odysseus. The author follows this humorous twist with a series of Calvino-esque, interlocking short stories and vignettes-some shorter than a page-that sculpt and explode Homer's original."

OGCMA slides are designed by Roger T. Macfarlane for use in Classical Civilization 241 courses at Brigham Young University.
The present resource contains information assembled for The Oxford Guide to Classical Mythology in the Arts, 1300 - 1990's, edited by J. Davidson Reid (Oxford 1994), and it is used with express permission from Oxford University press.
Address concerns or inquiries to macfarlane@byu.edu.