A masterful continuation of the journey of Odysseus after he returned
home from his odyssey.
Here is a brilliant recounting of the life of Odysseus after his safe
return to the island of Ithaca, his wife Penelope, and his son
Telemachus. Countless readers have thrilled to the adventures of
Odysseus in The Iliad and The Odyssey, but what further adventures
awaited him after his ten years of war and ten years of wandering?
Narrated by Telemachus to the bard Phemios, On Wine-Dark Seas speaks
of the human drama of a man gone twenty years from home and family, a
man who saw Troy on the night of its destruction, a man who lives the
special quest which is his destiny. In probing the inner journeys of a
son and father separated twenty years who must come to terms with each
other and their ruthless slaughter of the suitors of Penelope, it
reveals the doubts and joys of Odysseus, Penelope, and Telemachus.
As Telemachus tells Phemios: "My father will be known to the future not
as the man he was, but as the man of whom you sing. Often at Troy he
called himself 'the father of Telemachus, ' so I too have a part to
speak in his story. Wealthy men can pay some poets to chant a story
first this way, then another. I cannot offer you wealth to hear me, but
only the truth I know."
The novel is a masterful recreating of the ancient mind, the landscape
of Greece steeped in mythos and the gods, and the human dramas of
characters made famous for all time by The Iliad and The Odyssey.
