Troy

I don’t generally listen to audiobooks when I’m outdoors but this book was an exception, I listened to this while I was traveling in an auto, a flight, while walking, driving, and while doing household chores. I’m going to repeat the same sentiment from the past two books I’ve read in this series, Mythos and Heroes, that Stephen Fry’s retelling is a pure joy to listen to. Not just his performance of his work, but the actual retelling is just so much more accessible that at no point you feel lost, at least broadly speaking.

This book is based on Homer’s Iliad but covers much more than simply the Trojan War, it goes into character development for a few, provides important backstory that are critical to understanding the provenance of the infamous war. I wouldn’t go into the actual story for that would be pointless, I would like to mention Fry’s commentary on the history-vs-fiction argument that has surrounded this legendary piece by Homer. How he (or they as claimed by some) was able to piece together this beautiful story based entirely on oral retelling of the story of the Trojan War. The fact that the story remained an oral tradition due to a lack of writing is simply incomprehensible.

An extremely enjoyable and thoroughly interesting listen!