A Sea of Sorrow: A Novel of Odysseus
Libbie Hawker & Amalia Carosella & Scott Oden & Vicky Alvear Shecter & Russell Whitfield & Introduction: Gary Corby
Introduction
Gary Corby — Author, The Athenian Mystery Series
Welcome to the world of Odysseus, the tale of the wily King of Ithaca, who took ten years to return home after the Fall of Troy. That was a long time for such a short journey, but he had a few adventures on the way.
Retelling the great stories of the classical world is a long and glorious tradition. It’s exactly what the writers of ancient times used to do.
This meant that ancient audiences always knew how a story was going to end. But they didn’t care. It wasn’t the destination that they cared about. It was the journey. Which is probably how Homer felt about his original tale. The whole point of The Odyssey isn’t whether or not Odysseus gets home. It’s about what happens to him on the way.
Perspective is everything. An astonishing number of the ancient plays — the plays that created our modern theater — are all about the Trojan War and what happened after. How they kept the subject fresh and alive year after year was interesting. Sometimes they did it by telling the same tale from a different point of view. The Trojan War from Cassandra’s viewpoint is way different to how Achilles felt about it. Sometimes an author would keep things fresh by taking just one event and looking at it in detail; or by the author putting his own complexion on a well-known event.
I want to talk about Euripides. Euripides was the sort of writer who, if he were alive today, would be shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize every year, and then come second every time. He was incredibly original. Maybe a bit too original for the judges.
Euripides wrote the world’s first anti-war story. It was called Trojan Women, in which Euripides suggested that war and conflict might be less than glorious if you happen to be the victim. That was a very novel approach in its day, that day being 415 BCE. Yet it was the same fundamental story that Homer had told, just from a different perspective.
David Blixt, Amalia Carosella, Libbie Hawker, Scott Oden, Vicky Alvear Shecter and Russell Whitfield have played this game. They have told the story of Odysseus, the same Odysseus of whom Homer sings, but from a different perspective, six of them in fact, and with a different complexion. Their Odysseus is a man who, “Islanders whisper about amongst themselves, hoping he never lands on their shores.” Because when a man like Odysseus passes by, there’s going to be a certain amount of destruction.
Homer would not have written this Odysseus. Every author is an author for their time. But I’m sure he would recognize the man in these pages.
What has struck me the most (if I might move from the sublime Homer to the ridiculous Corby) is the way that A Sea Of Sorrow retains Odysseus in his ancient context, and then follows him from a modern realist point of view. There’s no myth or magic in this world.
But if Odysseus is not told as a myth, then what is it with all the fantastic elements? Who was this Circe? What were the Sirens? Then I read the answer in Amalia’s tale. Okay, so that’s how they explained the Siren incident. Now how are they going to talk their way around the next one?
In this book you’ll encounter a Penelope who is not so much a wifely weaver as a stateswoman with an interesting problem to solve in political economy; a kyklops who is not particularly monstrous, since he’s at once both a man and a public relations exercise; an Odysseus who is a tough, functioning leader, but who suffers from something that looks rather similar to PTSD.
Here then is a new take on an old warrior and his ancient world.
Character List
Ae?tes, half-brother to Circe
Aeolus, king of Aeolia
Aglaope, a Siren
Amphinomus, suitor to Penelope
Anthousa, kitchen maid, handmaiden to Circe, lover of Chrysomallo Antinous, overly muscled, obnoxious suitor to Penelope Calypso, priestess queen of the isle of Ogygia Chrysomallo, handmaiden to Circe, lover of Anthousa Circe, exiled daughter of a king, herb woman
Danae, favorite handmaiden to Penelope
Eirene, grandaughter of Glaukos, who tells Polymephus’s story Elpenor, one of Odysseus’s sailors, who fell and broke his neck Eumaeus, Odysseus’s favorite pig herder
Eurycleia, oldest servant in Penelope’s house; nursed Odysseus and Telemachus Eurylochus, Odysseus’s captain
Eurymachus, handsome suitor to Penelope
Galatea, Egyptian priestess-friend of Polyphemus Glaukos, narrator of Polyphemus’s story
Helen, queen of Sparta, Menelaus’s wife
Heliodoros, Circe’s father, chief of Colchis
Icarius, father of Penelope, of royal blood in Sparta Kyklops, Egyptian herder, attacked by Odysseus Ligeia, mother of Aglaope, daughter of Thelxiope Lycus, Circe’s husband, exiled prince
Melantho, maidservant in Odysseus’s palace, Eurymachus’s lover Menelaus, king of Sparta, husband to Helen of Sparta Mentes, old warrior in Ithaca, mentor to Telemachus Mentor, old guard left by Odysseus in Ithaca
Nausithous, son of Calypso
Nestor, king of Pylos, fought in Troy, old friend of Odysseus Outis, “NoOne,” one of Odysseus’s beggar identities Pasiph?e, Circe’s half-sister
Peisistratus, sixth son of king Nestor
Phemius, bard in Penelope’s hall
Polycaste, daughter of King Nestor, sister of Peisistratus Penelope, wife of Odysseus, queen of Ithaca
Polyphemus, given name of Kyklops, Egyptian herder, victim of Odysseus Telemachus, son of Odysseus
Thelxiope, grandmother of Aglaope, Siren
Song of Survival
Vicky Alvear Shecter
My Ithaca. My Penelope. Are you still waiting for me? You must, because I feel you calling to me…calling me home. Calling me to you.
— Odysseus
PENELOPE
The day they tried to burn Odysseus’s palace down, the queen of Ithaca was at her loom. So lost was she in the counts and the colors and the threads and the rhythm, she almost missed the entire event.
But the shouts and scuffles grew louder and more insistent, forcing her to pull herself out from her work like a pearl diver emerging from the bottom of the sea.
“My queen!” a sweating guard called and she turned, blinking.
It was one of her father-in-law’s men, a wizened warrior with white-streaked hair and scowl lines scored deeply into his weathered forehead. He held two squirming, cursing boys by the neck, presenting them to her like chickens ready for the block. One furious boy kicked at her loom but the guard pulled him back before he connected.
“Good thing you missed,” Penelope said mildly. “It would have hurt you a great deal more than it would’ve hurt my loom.” She knocked on the upright beam. “There’s a core of metal underneath that.”