The Songs of the Kings

A brilliant retelling of an ancient myth, The Songs of the Kings offers up a different narrative of the Trojan War, one devoid of honor, wherein the mission to rescue Helen is a pretext for plundering Troy of its treasures. As the ships of the Greek fleet find themselves stalled in the straits at Aulis, waiting vainly for the gods to deliver more favorable winds, Odysseus cynically advances a call for the sacrifice of Agamemnon’s daughter, Calchas the diviner interprets events for the reader, and a Homer-like figure called the Singer is persuaded to proclaim a tale of a just war to hide the corrupt motivations of those in power. But couched within the Singer’s spin is a message at once timely and timeless: “There is always another story. But it is the stories told by the strong, the songs of kings, that are believed in the end.”

ldquo;Intricate and gorgeous. . . . Impossible to read without feeling an immediacy both unbearable and profound.” —*The New York Times Book Review

“Beautiful storytelling. . . .[A] focused combination of epic drama and smart political satire.” —**San Francisco Chronicle

“[Has] an immensely sophisticated grasp of politics, economics and psychology, of how the world works.” —**Los Angeles Times
 

• “Breathtaking. . . . Rich and vivid.” —*The New York Times

“A bold, modern tale with cynical riffs on the themes of duty and power, truth and fiction.” —*The New Yorker

“Masterful. . . . Timeless. . . . Funny and sad, poignant and frightening.” —The Seattle Times

“Fascinating. . . . A song in its own right.” —The Boston Globe

“Remarkable. . . . Unsworth brilliantly conveys the dark feel of Calchas’ spiritual gift as well as the very earth well of vain, thuggish soldiers stuck in camp. . . . A sense of doom fills this novel.” —The Dallas Morning News

“Intellectually agile, thrillingly stylish. . . . The Songs of the Kings effortlessly proves that modern life is the stuff of ancient myth.” —The Guardian

“A rich novel, sharply plotted and layered with subtle nuances. . . . A beautifully measured entertainment given gravity by how accurately it reflects the present political zeal to control the media. . . . Teas[es] out the politics and intrigue that govern a thousand restless soldiers.” —The Independent (London)

“Wonder-provoking. . . . Unsworth's writing is unrivaled. . . . His novels are close to perfect in an imperfect literary world.” —Ruth Rendell, author of End in Tears

“Pure gold. . . . One of the best books by this most versatile of writers.” —Penelope Lively, author of The Photograph

“Gorgeously detailed, astute. . . . The word of Homeric epic and Euripidean tragedy is brought sharply to life.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred)

“Beautifully descriptive. . . . Provocative and subversive. . . . An audacious blending of myth with sharp contemporary resonance. . . . Unsworth’s narrative method is as daring as his message.” —*Publishers Weekly

Auteur

Barry Unsworth was born in 1930 and grew up in a mining town in northeast England. Descended from a long line of coal miners, he was the first Unsworth to escape the mines. He attended Manchester University and published his first novel, The Partnership, in 1966. He is the author of seventeen books, including The Ruby in Her Navel, longlisted for the Booker Prize; Pascali’s Island and Morality Play, both shortlisted for the Booker; and Sacred Hunger, co-winner of the Booker Prize. He died in 2012 at the age of eighty-one.

Résumé
A brilliant retelling of an ancient myth, The Songs of the Kings offers up a different narrative of the Trojan War, one devoid of honor, wherein the mission to rescue Helen is a pretext for plundering Troy of its treasures. As the ships of the Greek fleet find themselves stalled in the straits at Aulis, waiting vainly for the gods to deliver more favorable winds, Odysseus cynically advances a call for the sacrifice of Agamemnon’s daughter, Calchas the diviner interprets events for the reader, and a Homer-like figure called the Singer is persuaded to proclaim a tale of a just war to hide the corrupt motivations of those in power. But couched within the Singer’s spin is a message at once timely and timeless: “There is always another story. But it is the stories told by the strong, the songs of kings, that are believed in the end.”

Échantillon de lecture

1. This was the sixth night. He had lain awake through most of it, listening to the wind, the body of the sleeping boy beside him, beset by fear at still not knowing the sender, fear of other failures that might follow from this. The strands of the wind he knew by this time; tensed in concentration, he imagined he could hold them apart, the shrilling high up among the bare rocks, the softer combing in the shrub lower down, the ripple of loose canvas from the tents. Even the very smallest sounds he strained to hear, random sobs and whispers, stirring of grasses, the faint scrape of displaced pebbles along the shore. A wind from the northeast, unheard of at this season, keeping the fleet trapped in these straits at Aulis, and the army with it, waking the men every morning to the unhappy knowledge of some god's displeasure. It came from the direction of Troy, where lay their dreams of conquest. Six days and six nights with no sign of relenting, though the voices varied. The wind itself seemed to suffer in all its moods, even in its rages pleading to be quieted, to be soothed.

   Then, early in the morning of the seventh day, came the summons from Agamemnon. He noted the time just as in those days of his power he noted all such things. Just before sunrise, the wind still there but quieter now, as if for the while exhausted after its riots in the dark. A time disputed between Hecate and Helius, when the world is between states. He was between states himself, as he also noted: neither inside the tent nor out of it, but cross-legged on a cushion at the threshold, watching his acolyte Poimenos, who was still half asleep, fumbling together a fire for the infusion of mint and honey he had been schooled to prepare. And he was neither clothed nor naked, being dressed only in a loincloth, with a piece of cotton over his shoulder as a shawl. These were things important to remember and interpret; not mortals but gods chose the times.

   It was the chief scribe Chasimenos that brought the message, approaching from the rear, appearing suddenly, flanked by soldiers from the King's Guard. At midday, after the fight, Agamemnon would require the presence in his tent of Kalunas, I beg your pardon, Calchas, priest of Apollo.

   He smiled saying this, glancing away with eyes so pale as to seem almost colorless in the narrow, bearded face. Calchas read the usual veiled contempt in voice and smile, the elaborate politeness, the stress upon the name, not his own, bestowed on him by the Greeks. Contempt too for his shaven face, his plaited hair, the smudges of kohl that would be still on his eyelids, the amulets worn as a bracelet, contrary to Greek custom. Asian priest of an Asian god without even a cult center yet established here.

   All this was in the looks and the words--Calchas was practiced in reading such marks. But there was also the fact that this upstart diviner had been granted a shelter of canvas when most of the army spent the nights in the open, finding what cover they could; that he had a boy to share his tent and see to his needs; that he slept on a woolen mat, thickly woven; that he need not reply promptly to a messenger, even one of high r…