Product Description

Customer Reviews (17)

Fighting words
I have looked for a dramatic adaptation of the Iliad for years.This is Logue, not Homer.But we don't really have Homer unless we speak, and think, Ancient Greek.So the book is excellent in so far as Logue is excellent and he is.Time and time again. Now, if a soldier were to write it we would have perfection.

A vibrant dream
Nothing is easy.Nothing is free.Pain is the price of gain.You know the story -

Logue breathes startling and vivid life into this translation. Yes, translation.
Interesting to me (my experience) is how the presentation slipped poetically, logically from the ancient to a more sudden and visceral chronicle of events; something happening perhaps now in the Middle East or about to happen - his version seamlessly tapping into the heated river of the Iliad and then extending the argument vibrantly to the present.

The Trojan War Updated.
Christopher Logue's reinterpretation of Homer's Iliad is not only a masterful historic achievment; it is fine poetry in its own right. Not so much a translation as a re-imagining, War Music and its add-ons (All Day Permanent Red and Cold Calls) bring the great classic to life in a way his stuffier predecessors never managed. Sometimes tragic and sometimes comic, always vivid and never academic, these books are a must for lovers of ancient history, fine writing or just a terrific adventure story. Highly reccommended. Mungo MacCallum, Ocean Shores, Australia.

Best Iliad since Homer
In creating his own account of Homer's Iliad, Logue has in fact succeeded in creating very much his own poem. His War Music moves at a swift pace, at times enhanced by film script language, at times by witty similes to modern day phenomena, and always with a great sense of humour that leaves the gods and goddesses unrevered, while leaving the bitter earnest of war and all it entails intact. Superb effort, I sincerely hope the poet will manage to complete the series.

Best poetry.
This is just about the best, most beautiful, most powerful poetry I've ever read. I'd also suggest this book for reading and discussion groups, as it has so much to talk about in it, while being a pretty quick read. I've been told more than once that it is very difficult for non-native English speakers, however. ... Read more

Product Description
The scene is set for Cold Calls, the fifth and penultimate instalment of Logue's Homer, an ongoing project - a piece of performance-art for the page rather than the stage - which has taken several decades to unfold, and has been described as, 'Less a translation than an adaptation. Less an adaptation in fact, than an original poem of considerable power.' (Derek Mahon) ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Cold Calls: The "Penultimate Chapter" of Logue's Homer
I needn't have worried.British poet Christopher Logue has been working on his "account" of Homer's Iliad since the early 1960s, and I've long feared he might not live to complete it, especially when you consider how long it takes him to write."War Music," published in 1962, was the first piece he released, covering Book 16 of the Iliad.Over forty years later, and he's only covered Books 1-6 and 17-19.But now we have Cold Calls, which covers Books 7-8, and is apparently the penultimate chapter.According to his publisher, Logue is even now working on the final (!) volume of War Music.

Logue's installments have been released years (even decades) apart from one another, but the day will come when they are placed together, in order, in one volume, and they will provide a seamless read.Logue has lost none of his masterful touch.If anything, he's improved with age; there should be no fears that the decades separating each chapter of this work might spoil its impact.In fact,Cold Calls contains some of the best lines Logue's written.Here's one such example, as Zeus speaks to Aphrodite, Hera, and Athena:

"Darlings," He said,
"You know that being a god means being blamed.
Do this - no good.Do that - the same.The answer is:
Avoid humanity.
Remember - I am God.
I see the bigger picture."

Like the earlier "All Day Permanent Red," Cold Calls is filled with harrowing combat scenes, but also contains a healthy amount of squabbling amongst the gods, including a hilarious song Hera and Athena sing about Aphrodite that's too vulgar to recount.Only here, in Logue's fabulous Iliad, will you find Aphrodite calling Hera a "blubber-bummed wife" with "gobstopper nipples," and Athena an "undercurved preceptatrix."Only here will you find this same goddess appearing in "grey silk lounge pyjamas piped with gold" and "snakeskin flip-flops," and referred to as "Our Lady of the Thong."Only here will you find Athena screaming for the blood of Troy from a decapitated Greek head.

Special mention must be made of the sequence in which Aphrodite, injured by the Athena-empowered Diomedes, goes to the river-god Scamander for aid.Homer hinted at the erotic overtones here, but Logue highlights them, with an over-eager Scamander screaming in lust for Aphrodite's "bum" as she steps into him.It's not only a comical sequence, but also one of the best written in Logue's Iliad.But then, as expected, Cold Calls is filled with Logue's excellent writing.Here's another of my favorite sections, and another example of how Logue's "account" of the Iliad excels over your standard, dry translations:

Around the tower 1000 Greeks, 1000 Ilians; amid their
swirl,
His green hair dressed in braids, each braid
Tipped with a little silver bell, note
Nyro of Simi - the handsomest of all the Greeks, save A.
The trouble was, he had no fight.He dashed from fight to
fight,
Struck a quick blow, then dashed straight out again.
Save that this time he caught,
As Prince Aeneas caught his breath,
That Prince's eye; who blocked his dash,
And as lord Panda waved and walked away,
Took his head off his spine with a backhand slice -
Beautiful stuff...straight from the blade...
Still, as it was a special head,
Mowgag, Aeneas' minder -
Bright as a box of rocks, but musical -
Spiked it, then hoisted it, and twizzling the pole
Beneath the blue, the miles of empty air,
Marched to the chingaling of its tinklers,
A majorette, towards the Greeks, the tower.

Yet more proof that a nonstandard approach to this ancient poem can produce fantastic results.I hope Logue finishes his decades-long work, and one day we have the complete War Music in one volume.
... Read more

Product Description
The first clash of the armies in Logue’s “Heroic . . . brilliant” version of Homer’s Iliad (The New York Times Book Review)


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 Review of Books). Here in All Day Permanent Red is doomed Hector, the lion, “slam-scattering the herd” at the height of his powers. Here is the Greek army rising with a sound like a “sky-wide Venetian blind.” Here is an arrow’s tunnel, “the width of a lipstick,” through a neck. Like Homer himself, Logue is quick to mix the ancient and the new, because his Troy exists outside time, and no translator has a more Homeric interest in the truth of battle, or in the absurdity and sublimity of war.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

A whiff of War
Though I admire the author's courage and vision to write this, in general it was too fragmented for me to enjoy. It reminded me of the lost tablets of Gilgamesh, the story seeming to skip around nonsensically at times. The narrative had Alzheimers and had trouble staying focused. The extended metaphors were silly and insular to the writer. The ending was anti-climatic and tried too hard to be revelatory. However, there are a few brilliant lines and images, but they are fleeting. I hated his interpretation of Diomedes, who I loved in E. V. Rieu's translation of Homer. The whole "Child" reference was off key here. I am a huge fan of the Iliad, but this book was very eccentric and seemed to unravel during the second half.

Stunning and Eye-Opening
I don't typically enjoy poetry.Maybe I'm too simple, but I usually need at least a modicum of a storyline and decent characterization in my literature.And most poetry I remember from school didn't have those aspects.Sure, lots of imagery and allusion, but not much on the storytelling.

That said, I was absolutely blown away by Logue's version of the Iliad.As another reviewer suggested, reimagining great works has a dubious past, but Logue is such a tremendous stylist his interpretation succeeds on every level.He maintains the emotion and power of the original, and he maintains plotline that has enthralled for thousands of years.But at the same time his English brings Homer directly to contemporary readers.For such a slim volume, it generated a lot of enjoyment.

My biggest disappointment is that so many of Logue's chapters of the Iliad are out-of-paint.

The Logue Iliad continues
British poet Christopher Logue continues his decades-long rewriting of Homer's tale of war with this slim volume, which comprises books five and six of the Iliad.Since these books feature the first battles in the Iliad, this book is action-packed from first page to last.An online reviewer compared this book to the first twenty minutes of "Saving Private Ryan," and that's a very apt comparison.Like those twenty minutes of film, the fifty pages that make up All Day Permanent Red are a hectic, heart-pounding melee of bloodshed.

More importantly, this book marks the first appearance in action of my favorite character in the Iliad, Diomedes.Though here he is called Diomed, or the Child, as Logue occasionally refers to him.Diomedes is like a replacement Achilles; while that famous hero sulks in his ship, Diomedes takes up the mantle of "wartime hero" and destroys every Trojan in his path.Logue's handling of the character is excellent, especially in the way he is introduced.As Odysseus witnesses his Achaean fellows being slaughtered on the battlefield, he prays to the god Athena for help.What follows is the best line in the book:

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?

As you can see from this quote, Logue's is not a standard translation of the Iliad.As any reader of his earlier collection "War Music" knows, Logue re-writes and changes the Iliad to suit his tastes.In fact, the man can't even read Greek.But his version of the book is adored by Homer-ophiles.If you asked me, I'd rather read Logue's cinematic bursts of action-packed, freestyle verse over any of the more noted, straight-up translators, such as Fagles, Lattimore, and Fitzgerald.

This book is highly recommended to anyone who's read the Iliad, and wants to see a master writer at work.The only problem is that it's so short, and I fear that Logue won't be able to finish the whole of the Iliad itself.We can only hope.

Brilliant!
I've always been wary of people "reimaging" -- to use Hollywood's latest buzzword -- the classics but it's next to impossible to condemn Christopher Logue's work in reinterpreting Homer's Illiad. In All Day Permanent Red, Logue rewrites the first battles in the Illiad and the result is a fantastic updating of books 5 and 6. Mixing ancient and modern metaphors in his poetry, Logue brings home the juxtaposition in war both as horror and joy. I'm a traditionalist, I don't much care for people messing about with the books I love, but I have nothing but applause for Logue. ... Read more

Product Description
Christopher Logue escaped the drabness of post-war England for the freedoms and excitements of bohemian Paris, where he began to write poetry as a member of the expatriate community. This collection reflects his lyrical gifts, his outspokenness and his sense of artistic adventure. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Logue's Selected Poems:Contains Exclusive Installment of War Music
This book, published in 1996, features a selection of Christopher Logue's poetry spanning from his early work in the 1950s up to the 1990s.It includes such legendary poems as his "I Shall Vote Labour" as well as the "poem poster" material he fashioned.But what's most important is that this book culminates in an exclusive installment of Logue's decades-in-the-making War Music.

I've read countless books and Logue's War Music is my favorite of them all.An "account" of Homer's Iliad, it's basically a rewriting of the epic in contemporary poetry, and to tell the truth I prefer it to the original (though admittedly I can't read Attic Greek).Currently War Music lives in 3 volumes: the self-titled release, All Day Permanent Red, and Cold Calls.I've read that Logue is now working on the final installment; he's been working on it since Cold Calls was published in 2005.But sadly none of the above books includes the War Music installment featured here in Selected Poems; to read it, you'll need to buy this book.

An eight-page rewrite of Iliad Book 21, this is an epic in miniature, with Achilles battling the river-god Scamander.First off we see that this installment takes place later chronologically than anything in War Music Logue has yet published; the self-titled volume was heretofore the latest in the Iliad sequence, and it ended with Achilles taking up his divine armor, preparing to slaughter the Trojans.Here we meet him after he's well into a murderous frenzy; he's killed so many that Scamander complains of the corpses mucking up his waters.

All as in Homer, but Logue rewrites as he sees fit.Indeed, he relates most of the story with a prefacing "Prelude," then moves straight into Achilles boasting over his many dead.But this is a quick-moving tale, with Scamander nearly drowning Achilles, Athena and Poseidon offering the Greek moral support, and Hera sending her son Hephaestus to burn Scamander until he relents.And it's a tale filled with those Logue touches which make War Music such a marvel: Achilles graphically denigrating the recently-killed Asteropeus's inception, Hera lovingly calling Hephaestus "Little Cripple" as she instructs him to burn Scamander until she says to stop, the surrendering Scamander screaming of the Trojans "Let `em burn."

One happy day the final installment of War Music will be published, and on an even happier day the entire completed epic will be collected into one volume.When that day comes I hope Logue's publishers remember to include this forgotten installment. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Good book
i enjoyed this immensely. it was an engaging narrative of the 3rd and 4th books. ... Read more

Product Description
This is the story of Christopher Logue, poet and literary maverick, who counted Ken Russell, Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe among his friends. It tells of his Southern England childhood, his stint in the army, the years in Paris, offending T.S. Eliot and everything else, all in his own words. ... Read more

Product Description
"All Day Permanent Red" is the fourth installment of Christopher Logue's account of the "Iliad", the first three of which were collected in "Homer: War Music" (2001). In this new episode, Logue focuses upon the various battle scenes of the classic text, further testifying to the standing of these translations as a modern landmark in their own right. ... Read more

Product Description
On their way to the Great Annual Show, the performers in the Magic Circus have some perilous adventurous after they meet a disgruntled conjuror in the forest. ... Read more