Homer's Odyssey
Simon Armitage Faber & Faber, 144pp, £14.99
ISBN 0571229352
In the second book of Simon Armitage's dramatisation of Homer, Odysseus asks Eurybates how he feels about exploring the sorceress Circe's island. Eurybates replies: "Terrified. Shit-scared, OK? Satisfied?" And with good reason for, as he points out, "Every time we go up country we come face to face with some bunch of crazies trying to cut us to shreds, or some one-eyed retard, or some other nightmare."
Eurybates's portrayal of the Cicones and Cyclops may be unfamiliar to readers used to more genteel adaptations of Homer's legend. Armitage's aim is to wrestle the world's most famous piece of literature back from the dusty shelves of academia and into the public domain. This dramatisation is a pleasure to read aloud, its pages fizzing with the earthy vernacular of Odysseus, his fellow seamen, monstrous adversaries and even the gods themselves. Armitage conjures a cast of well-rounded characters who articulate their nobility, vulgarity, cowardice and strength in their own words.
Umberto Eco once wrote that "translation is the art of failure". Traditionalists may despair at the liberties Armitage has taken, but his efforts have produced what is - in Eco's terms at least - an extremely accomplished failure.
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