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207th out of 258 books
—
94 voters
All Day Permanent Red: The First Battle Scenes of Homer's Iliad Rewritten
Setting down her topaz saucer heaped with nectarine jelly,
Emptying her blood-red mouth—set in her ice-white face—
Teenaged Athena jumped up and shrieked:
“Kill! Kill for me!
Better to die than live without killing!”
Who says prayer does no good?
Christopher Logue’s work in progress, his Iliad, has been called “the best translation of Homer since Pope’s” (The New York Revi...more
Emptying her blood-red mouth—set in her ice-white face—
Teenaged Athena jumped up and shrieked:
“Kill! Kill for me!
Better to die than live without killing!”
Who says prayer does no good?
Christopher Logue’s work in progress, his Iliad, has been called “the best translation of Homer since Pope’s” (The New York Revi...more
Paperback, 64 pages
Published
June 23rd 2004
by Farrar, Straus and Giroux
(first published 2003)
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Update--December 12, 2011--
I have just learned that Christopher Logue died on December 2, 2011, at his home in London. I will miss his voice...
***
Fifty-one pages! Fifty-one pages of pure cinematic poetic perfection!
Okay, here's my challenge--
I have just learned that Christopher Logue died on December 2, 2011, at his home in London. I will miss his voice...
***
Fifty-one pages! Fifty-one pages of pure cinematic poetic perfection!
Okay, here's my challenge--
Take Homer's Books 4 and 5 of The Iliad, boil the plot down to the simple essence of Man's humanity as well as brutality to his fellow Man, add a dose of Honor and Integrity, and then throw in the gods and goddesses who want to be mortal, but can't be (and i...more
I first discovered Christopher Logue in the late 1980s with one of his titles in an ambitious series to render The Iliad into modernist verse. Back then, as a self-confessed traditionalist I was skeptical but two pages into War Music I was a blathering convert. Logues's genius is synthesizing the action to it's most basic and there is no better artist at conveying the brutality and even more the mood of the Trojan War. With simple sentences Logue captures a page, captures a reader and frog-march...more
Poetic bricolage brimming with energy. With cinematic jump cuts and scene notes, Logue reimagines the first battle of the Iliad, renaming familiar characters and gleefully mixing imagery that's historically accurate and wildly anachronistic (arrows carve tunnels through people's necks the width of a lipstick, Idomeneo would 'sign a five-war-contract on the nod'). As I read I felt dust gritting under my palms and blood in my mouth. An experience as startling as a flick in the eye.Christopher Logu...more
This fifty page poem is pure brilliance. Logue mixes the original images with modern language and brings the war to vivid life in such a way that you can hear the marching of feet and the twanging of "Oriental bow[s:]." Here is a sample:
The armies hum
As power-station outflow cables do.
The Trojan's edge.
The light goes upright through the sky.
Downslope,
Child Diomed to those who follow him:
"Still."
"Still."
Read this after "The Iliad" and be struck anew with the beauty language can make of vi...more
The armies hum
As power-station outflow cables do.
The Trojan's edge.
The light goes upright through the sky.
Downslope,
Child Diomed to those who follow him:
"Still."
"Still."
Read this after "The Iliad" and be struck anew with the beauty language can make of vi...more
Mad Max meets the Classics. There's a lot to like about a modern retelling of the Iliad that has Greeks with "Rommel" tans (War Music), and gods, such as Athena ("Holy Girl") sitting down to eat her nectarine jelly. Actually, this is the second time I've read this (I got it when it first came out). I had seen on Goodreads so many high ratings regarding Logue's effort, that I thought I'd give this installment another try. This installment is only 50 pages long (with lots of white space), most of...more
5 likes · like · see review
More of Homer's Iliad translated by Christopher Logue. Enjoyed War Music more, but only because I like those scenes more. (Logue is translating the whole Iliad, but in chunks and publishing them piece by piece. I think three large chunks are currently published; I have read this one and War Music).
Recommended by Nomi, I checked this out of the library and loved it. I need to honestly read The Iliad and The Odyssey this summer. i feel shamed by you Classics and Archaeology friends in my life. I love myths and I love epic poetry. This kickstarts my interest again!
Christopher Logue evidently died in December of 2011; perhaps there is more of this work yet to be published. I would be happy to see more, but would be happier to see it, and his already published Iliad work, in an extensively annotated form, binding it back to the existing texts, translations, and other Logue sources.
The work is remarkable as it stands, but it can hardly be argued that it stands entirely alone. I believe annotation would honor and envalue both Logue’s appropriation and his or...more
Vivid, immediate and thrilling. Probably not a good choice for someone who has not recently read the Iliad.
One of my most favourite books.
Deeply beautiful.
At less than 40 pages, this is so short that you could miss it. Still it has moments, and is insane - but in that nice way.
Although this book is about "The First Battle Scenes...", I would still recommend starting with "War Music". It is a bit heftier, and allows for more time to adapt to Logue's manner of telling the story. Also, "War Music" was written first.
The chronology of publication is:
War Music
All Day Permanent Red
Cold Calls
Although this book is about "The First Battle Scenes...", I would still recommend starting with "War Music". It is a bit heftier, and allows for more time to adapt to Logue's manner of telling the story. Also, "War Music" was written first.
The chronology of publication is:
War Music
All Day Permanent Red
Cold Calls
A beautiful mix of the old and anachronistic. Similes are handled very well.
Christopher Logue may have single handedly saved the ancient classic The Iliad for the next few generations.
Very clever and enjoyable - and short - poetic reworkings of key scenes from The Iliad. All Day Permanent Red conveys the first battle scenes. If you enjoy this, check out Logue's "War Music".
To think I had to spend so many years at school and university having to struggle through the original in classical Greek!
again, best metaphors I've ever read. The one of the rise of the Greeks as a opening venetian blind is so brilliant I have to reread it every month or so.
The Iliad re-imagined as a photo shoot for Vogue by Helmut Newton... and i mean this in the best possible way.
Best title for a poetry book. Ever. (My first painting will be "The Accuser" comes in second.)
"Blurred bronze. Blood? Blood like a car-wash: / 'But it keeps the dust down.'"
I wish these were all rolled up into one volume...excellent stuff
Retelling of a portion of Iliad.
See War Music
May 18, 2013
Brendan
marked it as to-read
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Christopher Logue, CBE (born 23 November 1926 in Portsmouth, Hampshire) was an English poet associated with the British Poetry Revival. He also wrote for the theatre and cinema as well as acting in a number of films. His two screenplays are Savage Messiah and The End of Arthur's Marriage. He was also a long-term contributor to Private Eye magazine, as well as writing for the Merlin literary journa...more
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Dec 12, 2011 04:25pm
Apr 24, 2013 05:10pm