Faith and folly

The Songs OF The Kings by Barry Unsworth(Hamish Hamilton, (pounds) 16.99)

REIMAGINING the myths of Ancient Greece presents problems for the modern author, even one as garlanded as Booker Prize winner Barry Unsworth. As far as story, plotting and hair-raising drama go there are plenty of footprints to show the way - the trouble is they were all left by giants.

In the case of Unsworth's take on the sorry tale of Agamemnon, that means placing his size nines alongside the imprints left by Sophocles, Homer and - in a more recent age - Jean-Paul Sartre.

Unsworth's novel rewinds the action to the eve of the Trojan war. The Greek host is assembled under Agamemnon, the fleet is ready, there is a spurious casus belli - Helen's "liberation" by Paris from her boorish husband Menelaus - and one major problem: the wind is blowing in the wrong direction.

But while Sartre found in the ancient myths a story capable of philosophical reinterpretation, Unsworth mines it for its ability to speak to current world events.

As we stand on the eve of war with Iraq, Unsworth's scathing portrayal of the rowing Greeks starts to look worryingly of the moment. Rival soothsayers Calchas and Croton fall in and out of favour with the weak Agamemnon; the nobles praise the king while plotting against him; and the court official Chasimenos becomes a willing pawn in the game. Then there's the Singer, a propaganda tool for whoever pays the going rate but who retains enough of a maverick streak to occasionally bite the hand that feeds him which keeps the going rate rising nicely.

Transpose it to today and you have the US president, the generals, the career politicians and the media. It's neat, it's prescient, it's blackly comic - especially in its portrayal of how the Ajaxes launch the first Olympiad to occupy the restless army.

Games aside, argument within Agamemnon's camp rages over the reasons for the wind. The Gods are obviously displeased, but which Gods and why? Calchas bows to Apollo, Croton to Zeus and they both contest possession of Artemis. An eagle is seen feasting on a hare; a good omen. But the hare was pregnant. An ominous portent? And anyway, can we believe the soldiers who claim to have seen this? Why is one murdered after appearing to stray from the official version? The balance of power is handed from person to person as the backstage machinations bear fruit or die. The only thing everyone can agree on is that Troy is ripe with booty. For most that means treasure; for Ajax the Lesser it has another meaning. He is, we are told, "a noted rapist".

In order to stop the wind, Agamemnon is persuaded to sacrifice his elder daughter, Iphigeneia, bringing her to where the army is camped under the pretence that she is to marry Achilles. Nobody in authority really believes this will stop the wind but the grumbling soldiers need to believe something will and this is as good as anything.

Dialogue is snappy and modern and peppered with expletives. The army grunts refer to each other as "motherf***er" and Odysseus and Chasimenos operate as a sinister Jim Hacker/Sir Humphrey double act. You half expect Rowan Atkinson to pop up with a shortsword and a laurel wreath; as it is, Ajax the Larger acts out the Brian Blessed role.

If there's a problem it's in making the reader accept the belief system within which Calchas and Croton wield power has no sway over the cynical noblemen; Calchas's vision of the Greek army swept away on a sea of bronze comes to pass - the Trojan war lasts 10 years and costs countless lives - and yet Chasimenos and Odysseus remain virulently secular in their beliefs. How so?

Still, a myth wouldn't be a myth without a few question marks and this is no exception: a funny, if slight, essay on the nature of power and the hypocrites who wield it.

Copyright 2002
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