Rate this book

Memorial: An Excavation Of The Iliad (2011)

by Alice Oswald(Favorite Author)

4.04 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

0571274161 (ISBN13: 9780571274161)

languge

English

genre

Fantasy

publisher

Faber & Faber

review 1: Having just enjoyed reading Madeline Miller's "The Song of Achilles", this felt like a good time to read Alice Oswald's "Memorial". Its succession of laments for the warriors of both sides who died at Troy produced a cumulative sense of regret at this loss of human life. Each death acknowledged an individual life wasted. At first I found the repetition of the simile verses irritating - a good way to pad out what is a slim volume, but why should I be made to read again a verse I had just read? But at the end, when the true horror of this holocaust of murders is summarised in a series of unrepeated similes, each on its own page, the effect was intensely moving. A beautiful poetic reworking of the Iliad which I know I shall read again and again.
review 2: Tho... moreugh not flawless, this is a powerful and worthwhile poem, a reimagining of The Iliad as elegy and simile only. For me Oswald's insistence on repeating almost all of the heroic similes is a mistake, though it emphasizes the musicality/oral nature of her treatment. As a whole, the work becomes a kind of large implied metaphor as the recountings of the heroes' deaths reflects against the similes. Oswald's hand with the "long poem"is impressive. less

Download links for: Memorial: An Excavation of the Iliad

Advertising