Ransom

by David Malouf

The sea has many voices. The voice this man is listening for is the voice of his mother. He lifts his head, turns his face to the chill air that moves in across the gulf, and tastes its sharp salt on his lip.

lip.

Just cracking the e-spine on David Malouf's Ransom.

the daunted look that had captured his soul before he even knew that he had one

He was waiting for the rage to fill him that would be equal at last to the outrage he was committing. That would assuage his grief, and be so convincing to the witnesses of this barbaric spectacle that he too might believe there was a living man at the centre of it, and that man himself.

himself.

Finished Malouf's Ransom. Wonderful stuff. Achilles while dragging Hector's body:

‘It seems to me,’ he says, almost dreamily, ‘that there might be another way of naming what we call fortune and attribute to the will, or the whim, of the gods. Which offers a kind of opening. The opportunity to act for ourselves. To try something that might force events into a different course.’

The opportunity to act for ourselves. To try something that might force events into a different course.’

cou...

Priam's a rock star.

‘Call on me, Priam,’ he says lightly,