War music Book

I put these Logue Homers on my 'epics' shelf which is *not for modern works* -- to express my sense they are the genuine article. Achilles in his science-fiction armour creates for us the experience Homer's audience might have had. What I adore about Logue's Homer is his inventive fidelity to Homer's artistic techniques. Not that I know Greek (I tried once. I got through the grammar) -- neither did Christopher Logue. I'm a fan of Pope's Iliad and Chapman's, which I haven't finished although I agree it's unbeaten in English. I found these Logues in George Steiner's great collection of translations, renditions and riffs, Homer in English. George Steiner, whom I rather worship, says, "Christopher Logue's fragments out of the Iliad are an act of genius," and describes them as "Logue's transmutations of the Iliad into 'now'..."

Still, years later I dock a star. For the first installment, War Music in the '88 Faber of 84 pages that only has 'Patrocleia/GBH/Pax': death of Patroclus and afterwards.

It is the most tremendous combat description. Fans of combat writing ought to try this, whether or not they think they like poetry.

It has the punchy shortness of modernity:

"Run to the Fleet. Give Wondersulk our news.
His love is dead. His armour gone.
Prince Hector has the corpse.
And as an afterthought, that we are lost."

It has (best! best! to me now) a faith in the ancient art and is unafraid to follow Homer. Not only in the epic similes but the epic second person. I don't know enough about epic second person: I just googled it and found this on a blog:

"The narrative shift from third-person omniscient to the second-person address to Patroclus is inherent in the original Greek text. You see these inexplicable shifts all the time in Homer; some translators just gloss over them and smooth the narrative into a single point of view, but so doing causes the text to lose some of its power: how effective is it, after all, that the poet directly addresses Patroclus as the warrior faces his death? The pathos is pumping at that moment, and I think we have that narrative shift to thank."


To which I say, amen. Logue is not a glosser-over, on the grounds that such things are strange in English. If I tell you once, in the heat of the moment, the poet calls Patroclus 'darling', that, out of context, might sound strange. But it's Homer, and gives a vitality, a sense of being present. Need the poet hide his involvement in his story? his suspense at the plot and his emotions?

But that brings me to my but. Does it have a heart? In spite of this tender habit of talking to Achilles and to Hector, neither of them - in this first installment - was likeable, and I like to like my Achilles and my Hector. Nobody in the poem seems to like each other, either, and I'm afraid I didn't feel Achilles' grief. It's easy to despise Ajax, but isn't he celebrated in Homer, even if he is 'as thick as the wall'? I am kept at a distance, and that has not been my experience of Homer. Of course, this may be a Logue experience instead - he has every right to part ways with Homer where he lists. Let's see in the next sections, which I never read.