It feels like we'll never see each other again

Now every debt is paid, every sin erased and I can begin anew, I who was once Odysseus and now am no one. [p. 145]

The conceit of this novel, or collection of short stories, is that the Oxyrhynchus Papyri contain 'forty-four concise variations on Odysseus’s story that omit stock epic formulae in favour of honing a single trope or image down to an extreme of clarity'. These are those variations, some more credible than others, which are effectively Odyssey AU^*. 

Sometimes I seem to recognise things, as if I’d dreamed it all already. Like ... this road through the orchards. The apple trees. Meeting you like I just did. The way the sun makes patterns on the gravel.I keep having the feeling that it isn’t new. People say autumn is melancholy, but I find it’s the spring that feels so old. [p. 153]

Hy Brasil is a group of volcanic islands in the mid-Atlantic: a former British colony, a former NATO base, a former pirate kingdom. It's hard to find due to magnetic and meteorological anomalies, and for centuries its actual position was a matter of debate.( Read more... )