I usually try to read the texts my kids are studying at school, so that I can engage them in long and immersive discussions about books. As you can imagine, they loathe my interference input. Most often, the books are ones I’ve read but this year, something new to me – Ransom by David Malouf.

In summary, it’s a reimagination of the ancient story of Achilles’s slaughter and desecration of Hector, and Hector’s father, Priam’s attempt to pay a ransom for his son’s body.

If it sounds familiar it’s because The Iliad is the extended-play version. If you’re also thinking this isn’t my usual genre, you’re absolutely right. And because of that, I’ll refer you to Lisa’s thorough and glowing review for the important detail.

What I enjoyed about this story was the depiction of the universal experience of grief, which Malouf highlights by assigning King Priam a ‘common man’ – a carter named Somax – to escort him on his journey to confront Achilles. Like Priam, Somax knows the pain of losing a son.

It leaves a gap you can’t ignore. It’s there. Always.

Initially, Priam struggles to align his and Somax’s experiences –

Whether what he felt…was in any way comparable to what this man had felt for a boy who was, after all, neither a prince nor a warrior, just a villager like so many more.

But as their journey progresses, Priam learns more about Somax, particularly the close relationship Somax had with his own son. Priam realises that he did not know Hector (and his other sons) as intimately as he might have –

Did he regret these human occasions, and the memory of them that might have twined his sons more deeply into his affections and made his relationship with them more warm and particular? Perhaps. But hadn’t he been saved something as well?

And this straddling of the loss he has experienced as a father, and the public role he must maintain as king leads to the other element of the book that I enjoyed – how Malouf plays with liminal space – between the regal and the common; between the living and the world of the gods; between beauty and pain. Nothing demonstrates this more perfectly than the ‘character’ of Beauty, Somax’s mule. She is described as a ‘plain charmer’ and,

‘…a little black thing, strong in the withers but also dainty, her winning nature has much to do with her intelligence, which is there for all to see, and with the fact that she notices people and responds in such a lively way to their interest.’

Those who love Greek mythology will be appalled to know that Beauty was my favourite bit of this book, but there you go!

3.5/5

The matter of the little cakes, for instance… It never occurred to him that the food that came to his table so promptly, and in such abundance, might have ingredients. That a griddlecake or pikelet might have some previous form as batter. That batter might consist of good buckwheat flour and buttermilk, and that what you experienced as goodness might depend on the thickness of the batter or the lightness of the wrist.

As part of the 20 Books of Summer reading challenge, I’m comparing the Belfast summer and Melburnian winter. The results for the day I finished this book (July 3): Belfast 10°-18° and Melbourne 7°-14°. And, as it happened, I was in Fiji when I read this book and the weather that day was 22°-27°.