The War at Troy

This book is in "as new" condition. No wear to covers, no markings inner pages. Spine intact, no creases. "Vigorous new life is breathed into the myth's of Homer's Iliad in Lindsay Clarke's new dramatic retelling of the wars fought for the Bronze Age City of Troy. Paris and Helen, Agamemnon and Clytaemnestra, Achilles, Odysseus and Hector are skilfully rejuvenated in this startlingly contemporary drama of the passions. "The people who lived in those days were closer to gods than we are, and great deeds and marvels were commoner then, which is why the stories we have from them are nobler and richer than our own. So that those stories should not pass from the earth, I have decided to set down everything I know of the stories of the war at Troy – of the way it began, of the way it was fought, and of the way in which it was ended." With these words, Phemius the bard of Ithaca and friend to Odysseus, opens Lindsay Clarke's compelling new retelling of the myths and legends that grew up around the war that was fought for the Bronze Age city of Troy and have magnetized the imagination of the world ever since. Here are the tales of two powerful generations of men and women, living out their destinies in the timeless zone where myth and history intersect and where the conflicts of the human heart are mirrored by quarrels among immortal gods. Peleus and Thetis, Paris and Helen, Agamemnon and Clytaemnestra, Achilles, Odysseus and Hector – all are given vigorous new life in a version of their stories which remains faithful to the mythic form in which they first appeared yet engages the reader in a startlingly contemporary drama of the passions. THE WAR AT TROY speaks to a world still racked by violent conflict in ways which address important aspects of our own experience while at the same time providing imaginative access to the rich store of mythology which is our heritage from the ancient world." Good Reads "Lindsay Clarke is a British novelist. He was educated at Heath Grammar School in Halifax and at King's College Cambridge. He worked in education for many years, in Africa, America and the UK, before becoming a full-time writer. He currently lives in Somerset with his wife, Phoebe Clare, who is a ceramic artist. Clarke lectures in creative writing at Cardiff University, and teaches writing workshops in London and Bath. Four radio plays were broadcast by BBC Radio 4, and a number of his articles and reviews have been published in 'Resurgence' and 'The London Magazine.' Lindsay has one daughter from his first marriage.

His novel The Chymical Wedding, partly inspired by the life of Mary Anne Atwood, won the Whitbread Prize in 1989. Clarke's most recent novel is THE WATER THEATRE (published in September 2010 by Alma Booka), of which a review by Antonia Senior in THE TIMES of 28 August said "There is nothing small about this book. It is huge in scope, in energy, in heart...It is difficult to remember a recent book that is at once so beautiful and yet so thought provoking." Good reads