Mason’s newly published version of the Odyssey takes a post-modernist approach–casual, playful, earthy, and even scatological. At one point in Mason’s version of The Lost Books of the Odyssey, Odysseus muses about the fact that “I was ideally suited to be a bard, a profession fit only for villeins, wandering masterless men who live at the pleasure of their landed betters, as my father reminded me when I broached the idea. He and his men would say things like, ‘We are here to live the stories, not compose them!’” And then Odysseus imagines himself as bard, intoning “Sing, Muses, of the wrath of god-like shit-for-brains, hereditary lord of the mighty Coprophagoi [excrement eaters], who skewered a number of other men with his pig-sticker and valued himself highly for so doing,” an obvious, raw satire on the earlier, more poetic translations. Using the traditional story of the Odyssey as his starting point, Mason gives his own take on various episodes from that epic, jumping around in time and place, changing major aspects of the story, adding new episodes, and providing unique points of view.
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In this brutally satiric little novella, the “downstairs” servants of the aristocratic Klopstocks, living in Switzerland, have their lives all planned out for the immediate future. They will not be spending another day with the Klopstocks—at least not a day in which the Klopstocks are alive, and they are breathless with anticipation. Lister, who manages the household, knows that both the Baron and the Baroness will be meeting in the library that evening with Victor Passerat, “Mister Fairlocks,” someone with whom the Baroness is passionately in love but who is himself passionately in love with the Baron. Posting a “Not to Disturb” sign on the door, the triangle of lovers meets, determined to settle their issues, but these can be settled only one way—with gunshots. “The eternal triangle has come full circle,” one servant observes.
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Set in the 1940s and published in 1945, Cairo Modern is, by turns, ironic, satirical, farcical, and, ultimately, cynical, as the author creates a morality tale which takes place in a country in which life’s most basic guiding principles are still undetermined. World War II has kept the British in Egypt as a foreign power, a weak Egyptian monarchy is under siege by reformers, and the army is growing. The plight of the poor is an urgent national problem. Among the four Cairo University students who open the novel, Mahgub Abd al-Da’im is the poorest, living on a pittance, which is all his father and mother can provide him. After graduation, however, a “friend” comes up with an unusual way for him to get a good job with the government.
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Esteemed novelist Jane Gardam follows up on the success of Old Filth, her highly successful 2005 novel about the life of Sir Edward Feathers, with the companion story of Sir Edward’s wife, Betty. Each novel benefits from the other, and together they are a stunning study of a marriage–not ideal, but “workable.” Beginning with Old Filth allows the reader to set the story and see the marriage from the point of view of Sir Edward. That novel is sophisticated and subtle, much like Sir Edward himself, with a sly sense of humor which allows the reader to feel part of the scene. Betty, someone we really see for the first time in this novel, is also a product of the same time, place, and class. The sophisticated style of Old Filth, appropriate for a novel about Edward, yields in this novel to a more down-to-earth and overtly romantic style, more typical of Elisabeth, with coincidence and romantic intervention playing a part. The often hilarious (and ironic) dialogue combines with a wry satiric sense to produce a conclusion which is everything that such a novel deserves.
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A plaintive cry from an unnamed speaker, “age eleven years and two months,” reflects the angst of a child whose whole life has turned inside out through decisions he has made himself, decisions that seemed ideal when he made them but which, as is typical of childhood decisions, have brought consequences he never expected. Israeli author Amos Oz’s novella about childhood in 1947 Israel bursts the bounds of its setting and achieves universality through the wonderfully observed character of the child, his self-created predicaments, and his intelligent commentary about life and change. The feelings of the speaker toward adult authority, especially his father, will resonate with readers. This appears to be an experiment with the child’s point of view which Oz develops more fully in his other novel of childhood, A Panther in the Basement.
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