The Voyage Home

A Novel

De: Pat Barker

Narrado por: Kristin Atherton

One of the Amazon Editors' 10 Best Books of December • One of Kirkus Reviews' Best Fiction Books of the Year • One of the Financial Times' Best Fiction Books of the Year • One of The Times' Best Novels of the Year

AN INSTANT UK BESTSELLER

“Barker’s vision of a world shaped by violence, a key theme in all her fiction, is equal to the tragic grandeur of ancient myth....More brilliant work from one of world literature’s greatest writers.” —Kirkus Reviews *starred review*

From the Booker Prize-winning author of The Regeneration Trilogy comes the powerful third installment to the Women of Troy series. In The Voyage Home, Pat Barker skillfully reimagines Greek mythology, chronicling a perilous journey undertaken by the enslaved healer Ritsa and her cruel mistress Cassandra.

I never saw Cassandra as a victim. I saw a woman as focused on a single aim as any raptor stooping to its prey; but then, I had more opportunities to observe her ruthlessness than most. I was in her power, you see. I was her slave.

Pat Barker has crafted the latest in a brilliant reimagining of Greek mythology, and The Voyage Home is the work of a writer at the height of her powers. In this third outing, she follows the young Ritsa and the unpredictable Cassandra on their perilous return journey to Mycenae. Cassandra has acquired the powers of prophecy from the kiss of Apollo, but the very same god has taken away the people’s belief in her abilities. Though she warns of the carnage that awaits the Greek warrior king Agamemnon—who numbs himself with alcohol on the storm-plagued trip home—her shipmates disregard her.

While Cassandra’s prophecies fall on deaf ears, Ritsa instead remains focused on surviving once they make land. When a mysterious young girl begins to shadow them, and Agamemnon’s cruelty takes a new turn, Ritsa must find a safe place for Cassandra, whose mood alternates between cruelty and frenzy. But it’s the ongoing ire between Queen Clytemnestra and Agamemnon that could prove fatal for everyone.

In The Voyage Home, Barker elevates myth and legend and asks us to examine the stories we hold dear through a feminist lens, and in doing so she has crafted a tale that upholds her legacy as one of our finest contemporary novelists.

Reseñas de la Crítica

AN INSTANT UK BESTSELLER

One of the Amazon Editors' 10 Best Books of December • One of Kirkus Reviews' Best Fiction Books of the Year • One of the Financial Times' Best Fiction Books of the Year • One of The Times' Best Novels of the Year

“Barker’s vision of a world shaped by violence, a key theme in all her fiction, is equal to the tragic grandeur of ancient myth, and her insistence that ordinary people’s sufferings be given equal weight with the woes of the mighty gives it a contemporary edge. More brilliant work from one of world literature’s greatest writers.” —Kirkus Reviews *starred review*

“Barker suffuses [her] wrenching narrative with the women’s simmering contempt for the men who rule their world. Readers will relish this fierce feminist retelling.” —Publishers Weekly

Cassandra X 3

This isn’t a story about Cassandra (or only about her) the curse set upon her by Apollo runs through it and even into today. I can’t express adequately how profoundly this affected me. The narrator was amazing (except for a couple of very minor hiccups). I had to portion out my listening because it was so richly written and read.

Story of an unfair life

This story is such a great continuation of someone else’s story. I love how it’s read, but I love how it sheds light to the unfairness and complications of life in ancient times.

The harsh realities of war

This is incredibly well written and insightful while being hard to get through the honesty of brutality that it portrays. I didn’t much like the constant creepy voices of feral children - some was fine but it got to be too much. It is a tragedy, however reimagined.

A retelling that stays too close Aesychlus

A retelling of a myth is an opportunity to change the story. The story told here is the action of the first play in the Agamemon trilogy by Aeschylus. I hope that Pat Barker plans to write a sequel to complete the story. However, there was a prequel, known to the Greeks, which she has left out, In the prequel, Agamemnon murders Clytemnesta's first husband as well as the child of that marriage. In Aesychus' trilogy, modern audiences note that he sets about describing how to suppress, silence or pacify female rage, and how to reconcile the close kinship of the household with responsibilities to the larger community or city-state. This is a community like the historical Athens in which he lived, a democracy in name only, in which only a small percentage of the city's inhabitants had any political rights. Female Athenian citizens and slave were excluded.

The way this bears on this retelling is that the author, whom I usually view as a feminist, has not really made her female characters as sympathetic as I wish she had. The story is told through the eyes of a female slave of Casandra as well as from Clytemnesta herself. Although it is well written and engaging, it is a bit raw. However, anyone who loves the classics and modern retellings will find the book worthwhile since it provides much room for thought about the state of our own western democracies.