Why this book: Recommended by Susan Chamberlain with whom I was hiking on the All American Leadership Expedition with NOLS.  Susan mentioned this book when I shared with her that I’d recently read The Iliad.

Summary in 3 sentences:  This novel is built around the scene in The Iliad in which King Priam of Troy sneaks into the camp of the Greeks (Achaeans) to ransom his son Hector’s body.  The book gives the reader a brief look at the events in The Iliad that led to Ransom‘s main story –  Hector’s death at the hands of Achilles, the mourning in the chambers of King Priam and his wife/Hector’s mother Hecuba, and Priam’s unlikely decision to visit the camp of the Achaeans to ransom his son’s body. It concludes with Malouf’s interpretation of the famous scene in which Priam begs Achilles to return Hector’s body to be buried with all appropriate honor and religious ritual, and then he and Achilles share their mutual grief at the loss of those closest to them in that war.

My Impressions:  This is a short book, more a novella than a novel, and it is powerful and beautifully written. Malouf is also a poet and that is evident in his writing.

The book begins with Patroclus’ decision to stand in for Achilles in battle with the Trojans and his death in battle at the hands of Hector, the leader and hero of the Trojans.   Then Achilles is distraught at the death of his closest friend Patroclus.  His grief turns to remorse and guilt for letting Patroclus stand in for him, and then rage and fury as he seeks and gets revenge, challenging and defeating Hector in battle, then desecrating his body by dragging his corpse around the walls of Troy – an outrage even by the standards of that time. These events are outlined in The Iliad, and set the stage for the rest of this story that Malouf so skillfully imagines and shares..

He takes us inside the court of King Priam of Troy and we are with Priam as he shares his grief with Hecuba, his wife and the mother of Hector.  We meet a Priam’s other sons – brothers and half brothers to Hector, the princes of Troy, who are in a sense anti-heroes to Hector’s heroism.   They are the “perfumed princes” of Priam’s court – not fighting themselves as Hector did.  We also meet Paris – one of Hector’s brothers, a warrior himself, but very flawed, his own self-indulgence a primary cause of the war itself.  We are reminded of the decadence of the court in Versailles in France – dandies, and self-indulgent royalty with little concern for anything other than their own pleasure, comfort, and power.   Hector was the shining star of Priam’s sons and of course they all resented him for it.

Priam is consumed with guilt for all that he did not do as a father to Hector, and feels that he can redeem himself to his hero son by retrieving his body from Achilles and giving him a proper burial, thus freeing his spirit to join his ancestors in the underworld world.

Hecuba and his sons seek to dissuade Priam from his crazy idea – the King of Troy going into the camp of the Achaeans to meet and bargain with Hector’s killer – a man they observed as a maniac, dragging Hector’s body round and round the walls of Troy.   But Priam is adamant.

Priam departs the walls of Troy disguised as a beggar with a cart full of ransom hidden under a blanket, and makes the trip to the camp of the Achaeans.  An interesting part of the story is Priam’s relationship with his cart driver -a poor commoner at the opposite end of the social hierarchy from Priam.  Priam is quietly impressed with this man’s simple courage and dignity, as the two travel together and quietly try to converse. They have their own “adventures” during this trip away from Troy, in which the King is dependent for his own survival on the practical skills of his cart driver.

Through luck they reach and enter the camp of the Achaeans, and we see camp and the world of Achilles through Priam’s eyes.  At this point in the war, the Trojans have the upper hand, but Priam senses that the Trojan cause is doomed.

Eventually we get to the powerful and emotional meeting between Priam and Achilles described in conclusion to The Iliad.  In Ransom, Malouf gives this scene greater depth and a richer context.

In this short book Malouf retells one of the great stories from one of the great books of the Western Canon. He breathes life into these mythological characters and we can identify with their grief and distress.  He beautifully touches many topics – grief at the loss of a close friend or of a son, a father’s guilt, family tensions in how to move forward, uncontrolled rage leading to poor and irrevocable decisions, the gulf between the elites and commoners, shared grief between enemies, and the the absurdity of war, .