Whom the Gods Would Destroy

Synopsis

From the book jacket: Thirty-two hundred years ago, the people of a shining civilization apparently set out to prove the truth of the saying that whom the Gods would destroy, they first make mad The civilization was the long-forgotten one that is now called Mycenaean. The madness that destroyed it was the Trojan War. Richard Powell has gone back to this fabled period to write a big and colorful and lovingly-researched novel of its people and events. His central character is Helios, a kitchen boy in the palace at Troy, who may or may not be a bastard son of Priam, the High King. The story begins two years before the Trojan War, when Helios is eight, and carries him through boyhood and adolescence until he reaches manhood on the terrible night when Troy falls. His search for an identity, for knowledge, and for friendship and love, weaves in and out of the great events sung by the Homeric bards, giving a new perspective and depth to them. One of the author's aims in writing this book was to introduce modern readers to the golden people of the Iliad and Odyssey and Aeneid. Nearly all of them are here--Achilles and Odysseus, Agamemnon and Menelaus, Hector, Paris, Helen, Great Ajax and Little Ajax, Cassandra, Aeneas--and they are depicted from a fresh viewpoint. Is Achilles, for example, simply the overpowering hero of legend, or is he a more complicated person touched with manic-depressive insanity? Does the saying "Wise as Nestor" properly describe that ruler, or did the Homeric bards mean to show him as a talkative and comic fool? Is Agamemnon a great and tragic king, or one of history's worst blunderers? What motivated Helen of Troy and accounted for her strange power over men? The answers to these and other questions are part of the rich fabric of the story. As recently as a few decades ago a book such as this could not have been written, because there were huge gaps in our knowledge of Mycenaean civilization. For example, no one even knew whether or not the people of Mycenaean times had a system of writing. In the past twenty-five years, however, a mass of information has come to light, and Powell has studied it thoroughly. As part of his research he visited every major museum in the Aegean area, and went to all the digs-Troy, Mycenae, Pylos, Tiryns, Knossos-where Schliemann and Dorpfeld and Sir Arthur Evans and Blegen and other great archeologists uncovered the secrets of the past.

Copyright:

1970

Book Details

Book Quality:

Excellent

Book Size:

379 Pages

Publisher:

N/A

Date of Addition:

01/31/08

Copyrighted By:

Richard Powell

Adult content:

No

Language:

English

Has Image Descriptions:

No

Categories:

History, Military, Literature and Fiction

Submitted By:

Garyp

Proofread By:

BookMouse

Usage Restrictions:

This is a copyrighted book.