Ransom by David Malouf

This book had couple of strikes against it before I even read it. First of all, it’s a work of fiction closely based on another work of fiction—always an iffy move, in my opinion. Second of all, the work of fiction it’s based on is Homer’s Illiad, a story that should be exciting but then spends fifty pages describing a shield. When I ran across the book at the local public library, however, I saw that not only was it pretty short, but it also had a mysterious, shadowy picture of a donkey on the front. So I decided it was worth a shot.

To recap the episode from the Illiad: the Greeks have been laying siege to Troy for the past nine years without making a whole lot of progress. Achilles, the greatest of the Greek warriors, has been refusing to fight because Agamemnon (commander of the Greek forces) has insulted him. Things are looking bad for the Greeks without Achilles, so one day, Patroclus (closest friend of Achilles) wears Achilles’ armor into battle in hopes of striking fear in the Trojans. Patroclus is killed, Achilles is devastated and goes on a murderous rampage, ultimately killing Hector, a Trojan prince and their greatest warrior. Not satisfied with merely killing him, Achilles spends the next eleven days tying up Hector’s dead body behind his chariot and dragging it around just outside the walls of Troy, much to the dismay of the Trojans. Priam, the king of Troy, personally approaches Achilles with a large amount of treasure in exchange for the body of his son. Achilles is touched and gives the old man the body of his son.

Malouf’s novel begins its narrative around the time of Patroclus’s death, and ends after Hector’s body has been returned to Troy.

I like the strong sense of the physical in this book. It makes sense thematically, with Achilles’ shocking daily abuse of the dead body of Hector serving as the inciting incident, and that physicality comes into play in each of the book’s five sections. The middle section, possibly my favorite, depicts the journey of King Priam, accompanied in buddy-comedy fashion by a simple mule cart driver, from the palace of Troy to the camp of Achilles. Along the way, the two men discuss the deaths of their respective children, cool their feet in a stream after a long day’s ride, and share a stack of pancakes together.

It’s the pancakes, and the mule cart driver’s lengthy discourse on how to cook them, that prompt a realization in Priam—“that the food that came to his table so promptly, and in such abundance, might have ingredients. That a griddlecake or pikelet might have some previous form as batter. That batter might consist of good buckwheat flour and buttermilk, and that what you experienced as goodness might depend on the thickness of the batter or the lightness of the wrist. Or that ingenious arrangements might need to be made before a thing as simple as a pikelet could make its entry into the world. Or that one of the activities a man might give his attention to, and puzzle his wits over, was the managing of these arrangements, the putting together, in an experimental way, of this or that bit of an already existing world to make something new” (Malouf 128).

On the flip side of these mundane physical pleasures are the reminders throughout the book of the violent deaths that await both Priam and Achilles. We are shown the death of Priam in a flash-forward—a messy, awkward killing at the hands of Achilles’ son. As he watches the body of Hector being prepared for its return to Troy, Achilles himself reflects that these preparations will soon be performed on his own dead body. In spite of its fixation on impending death, though, this is not a mopy, angsty book. It moves quickly, and Malouf’s economical writing style is impressive. The book is only 200 pages long, with large print and small pages, but it uses the space to create vivid scenes and engaging characters. It’s an ideal summer read—a book that’s hard to put down, but will stick with you once you’ve finished.