Accounting for Christopher Logue's THE ILIAD

Several years ago I discovered Christopher Logue's  War Music: An Account of Books 1-4 and 16-19 of Homer's Iliad . Very quickly, I went on to find  All Day Permanent Red: An Account of the First Battle Scenes of Homer's Iliad . Slate's article had the tag line correct: "Is Christopher Logue a Genius or a Madman?" I've been opting on the genius side for a while.

The subtitle to the books says "account," which is about as apt as I think Logue can describe his project. This is not a translation of The Iliad. I wouldn't even call it an imitation in the way Robert Lowell's Imitations  are. It's looser and more organic. Logue is not, I don't think, very concerned about being faithful to the words of Homer. Rather, he's more interested in being faithful to the spirit of Homer. In modern TV/cinema parlance Logue's version of The Iliad is a re-imagining on the scale of Battlestar Galactica. The essence is there. Many of the same characters are there. The same general plot is there. But it is borderline unrecognizable.

Now, The Iliad (as I know it translated by Robert Fitzgerald or Richard Lattimore or Alexander Pope, etc.) is not comparable to the 1970s Battlestar Galactica--for The Iliad holds up--but Logue's "accounts" are as good as the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica series. Genius, I tell you.

Also, check out Logue's interview with The Paris Review .