Ransom: A Novel

Ransom: A Novel

by David Malouf
Pantheon, 240 pp., $24

Like the Beatles' impact on rock & roll, the themes and tropes of Homer's The Iliad stretch so widely and ubiquitously through the world of literature they are often imperceptible. One can trace the very idea of literature back to the Greek epic poet. As homage, or perhaps as a literary high-five to Homer, Australian writer David Malouf reimagines in Ransom the final few books of The Iliad.

Both authors' stories go something like this: As revenge for the death of his soulmate, Achilles kills Hector and keeps the body, causing Priam, the king of the Trojans, to ransom his dead son by throwing himself at Achilles' feet. And while Brad Pitt's Troy turned The Iliad into a story of rippling abs and action, Ransom transforms the classic to end all classics into a character study.

Malouf delves into the personalities behind The Iliad's closing action, often with great rewards for the reader. Ransom makes clear just how revolutionary Priam's actions were for the culture of the time. Other passages read like a dissertation written in the style of Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead but without the humor. If R&G was built on Hamlet's deleted scenes, then Ransom is akin to the director's cut of The Iliad – albeit with a new director. The trek from Troy to Achilles' tent takes Homer 150 lines and Malouf 50 pages. Much of that time Malouf spends in the head of Priam as he comes to the realization that he has led a charmed and largely symbolic life devoid of the little things that his traveling companion holds dear (a companion who doesn't exist in the original). Where The Iliad tells of an emotional Priam denouncing his other sons as disgraces, Ransom depicts a scene not unlike an episode of Dr. Phil: a bit of repression and some tough love. Malouf also struggles with the task of updating the language while retaining a modicum of the original's poetry. The result is sometimes smooth but more often overwrought.

Malouf rightly suspected the last two books of The Iliad are some of the best fodder for literary expansion. For such a short novel, Ransom is packed with ideas and thoughtful touches, but, frustratingly, they end up amounting to much less than the effect of the original's final pages.