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Sweet reads Unsworth

In this month's Writers Read feature, Caitlin Sweet, the author of
A Telling of Stars reads Barry Unsworth's The Song of the Kings, a darkly humoured account of the Greek army before the Battle of Troy.

“The beer that launched a thousand beers!” blares a billboard advertisement in Toronto. Tennis players injure their Achilles tendons, doom-predictors are labelled "Cassandras" and most people know what the Trojan Horse was. Nearly three millennia after Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides wrote about their exploits, the heroes of the Trojan War continue to live on in popular culture. The tale of the battle for Troy is enjoying a particularly high profile this summer, thanks to director Wolfgang Peterson’s movie featuring the beefed-up Brad Pitt. But what happened to the Greek army before it launched its thousand ships is a story unto itself—one that Barry Unsworth recounts with equal parts dark humour and delicate lyricism in The Songs of the Kings (newly released in trade paper by Norton).

The conflict-ridden factions that make up the Greek army are stuck at Aulis, in eastern Greece. The wind is against them, and has been for weeks. They are certain they are being punished by a god or goddess; the army’s commander, King Agamemnon of Mycenae, demands to know which one, and why. Auguries are cast, dreams analyzed, and bribes offered, and the priests of Zeus come up with a (spurious) explanation: Zeus, bringer of winds, has been offended by Agamemnon’s 14-year-old daughter Iphigenia, who is a priestess of Artemis. This girl honours the goddess as an equal of Zeus—an offense the “father god” will not forgive unless Iphigenia is sacrificed to him. Only then will Zeus halt the wind and permit the Greek fleet to set sail for Troy. Agamemnon is horrified by this command, but his advisers and priests soon persuade him that he must summon his daughter and do Zeus’ bidding.

Iphigenia receives her father’s delegation in the palace at Mycenae. She is told that the hero Achilles wishes to marry her immediately, before the army departs. Thrilled by the prospect, she and her faithful serving girl set out for Aulis, where the army waits, its partisan squabbles temporarily suspended. As soon as her boat enters the strait, the wind dies. A few of Agamemnon’s men urge him to spare her; most insist that Iphigenia’s sacrifice is the only way the quarrelsome Greeks will continue to be united. The anguished Agamemnon makes his choice, and the stage is set for a final series of reversals and surprises.

While the “facts” of a story are often forgotten or unwittingly distorted over time, others are deliberately changed—and this is what Unsworth has done. Thoroughly familiar with his source material, he shifts a motivation here, a divine command there, just as the Singer of the Greek camp does, when he wishes to highlight or even create a moral. A dizzily postmodern stroke—altering a story to create a story about altering stories—but it works. Whether or not readers are aware of the modifications Unsworth has made to the original tale of Iphigenia, his novel will unsettle and absorb. The movers-and-shakers in the Greek army are cruel, stupid, opportunistic, sycophantic men who yearn for war and will twist any truth to achieve this end. The Singer, who claims that songs are beyond humankind’s control, nonetheless incorporates propaganda into his verses, for reward. Old gods and goddesses are losing their power, old myths being invoked and manipulated to aid in the creation of future ones. These themes are both timeless and timely, and never feel belaboured.

So, is The Songs of the Kings just an empty intellectual exercise? A postmodern political satire whose historical setting is simply gratuitous? No, for Unsworth evokes his period with compelling subtlety and grace. Humour, too: the dialogue among the stranded Greeks is occasionally laugh-out-loud funny (though readers who agree with author Jean Plaidy that “dialogue must sound natural to the characters and period” will no doubt be alarmed by the anachronism-ridden speech in this book—including references to “CVs” and “bolshies,” and statements like “Strike while the bronze is hot,” and “Mycenae wasn’t built in a day”). This novel is convincing historical fiction and biting political satire; it is hilarious, poignant, and sobering. “All things in moderation," an inscription at Delphi advises, and The Songs of the Kings obeys.

For a reading group guide to The Songs of the Kings, click here.
 

Caitlin Sweet's first novel, A Telling of Stars was published to great acclaim in January 2003. The Quill & Quire called it "an impressive debut," and The Edmonton Journal wrote, “It’s a strong first novel that should have readers waiting for Sweet’s next.” Fortunately, her fans won't have to wait too much longer—the prequel, currently titled The Silences of Home, is scheduled for release in March 2005.