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refuses to be pinned down. In another he reveals Hazlitt’s obsession with plasticity. Elsewhere Seamus Heaney is shown to be a poet of absences and uncertainties. Even in Milton himself – that most marmoreal of poets – Paulin identifies dynamic processes, especially in the texture of the verse, which undermine its own pretensions to monumentality. Paulin is a good if eccentric guide to literary foibles, and these are persuasive examples. As such, they might provide the basis for a general theory though they hardly constitute one in themselves. As a card-carrying dissenter himself, Paulin might assert that the provisional nature of his remarks is precisely their value, and I would be inclined to agree with him, though I wish he couched them in less challenging terms. As befits a poet, his prose frequently moves by suggestive swoops, spirals, sideways steps, associations, non sequiturs, elisions and prolations rather than in the

predictable forward march of a tedious Whig or Tory critic. These movements can be illuminating: they can also be baffling. There are sections of this book which strike me as ridiculous: Paulin’s take on ‘Tintern Abbey’, for example, as a commentary on French party politics. Others I simply cannot understand. But perhaps this is what you would expect from an obtuse Anglo-Saxon. That said, while Crusoe’s Secret is obviously addressed to leftish intellectuals, it might be hard for conservatives to resist the old-fashioned charm of the author’s assumption that most dissent comes from the Left, that it is always a Good Thing, and that every Irishman should be allowed to have things both ways. If our cousins across the water have solved the problem of how to remain rebellious while becoming part of a comfortable majority, who can blame them? To order this book at £16, see order form on page 78

A C G RAYLINGWELCOMES A

NEWSERIES ON M YTHS

Telemachus after Odysseus’s return, because they had slept with the ravening suitors who

T HIS AUTUMN , WITH much fanfare, a consortium of thirty-four publishers around the world has launched a series of short books each retelling a myth. The opening salvo, published by Canongate, consists of Margaret Atwood recounting Penelope’s story as she awaits the homecoming of Odysseus, Jeanette Winterson telling of Atlas, Hercules, and the Apples of the Hesperides, and Karen Armstrong providing a general introduction to the series. The next two volumes in the series, not yet published, show that the retellings will stray beyond Greek mythology; one of them centres on Samson, and the publicity blurb for the series says that its participating authors have been invited to choose any myth they like. Given that the authors include Natsuo Kirina, Su Tong and Chinua Achebe, diversity must follow. If the level of brilliance displayed by Margaret Atwood and Jeanette Winterson sets the bar for their fellow authors in the series, these latter are going to have to jump high indeed. For all their differences of style and approach, Atwood and Winterson have produced individually outstanding tours de force, surely among the best things they have written. Margaret Atwood tells her story from the point of view of a posthumous Penelope wandering in Hades’ asphodel meadows. The Penelopiad (199pp £12) is told in the first person, with an intermitted commentary in verse and drama by a chorus of Penelope’s women servants. These, the twelve loveliest and youngest of her maids, were hanged by her son

J NANE T AMSNA L ITERARY S ALON in Marrakech

Four days and three nights of stimulation in a sumptuous Moroccan guesthouse. Join us in welcoming Barbara Trapido (Frankie & Stankie, The Travelling Hornplayer, Juggling...) from the 19 th to the 22 nd of January, 2006. For further information: http://www.jnanetamsna.com/jtlitsal.htm or contact Eleanor O’Keeffe at eleanor@jnanetamsna.com or +33 6 88 68 68 98

made Penelope’s life a nightmare during the ten years that Odysseus struggled to return home, baulked by the curse of Hera, queen of the gods. As befits the bride of the cunningly clever Odysseus, Penelope is very smart, and her observations and insights are richly penetrating. She recognises Odysseus’s barrel chest and short legs when he at last arrives home, disguised as a beggar, but even then keeps her counsel so as not to betray him. Although she loves Odysseus she is not fooled by him, and Atwood cleverly gives both Penelope and the chorus a chuckle-inducing line in scepticism about Odysseus’s adventures: was Circe a sorceress, or a brothel-keeper? After all, as Penelope wryly observes, it was easy enough to turn Odysseus’s men into pigs. The person Penelope likes least is her cousin Helen, whose fatal self-satisfaction and inability to stop flirting sent so many men to their deaths, and kept Odysseus away from home so long. Even in Hades Helen is still at it, followed by admiring throngs of ghosts eager to see her bathe nude – and this, as Penelope tries unavailingly to point out, despite her no longer having a body. Jeanette Winterson’s Weight (151pp £12), an account of how Hercules took the cosmos from Atlas’s shoulders so that the latter could fetch the Golden Apples of the Hesperides for him, is a remarkable document. Hercules is a football hooligan writ large, a priapic, restless and incontinent

The Jnane Tamsna Literary Salon is designed to celebrate the achievements of recognised authors while promoting literacy and education in Morocco and beyond.

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LITERARY REVIEW Dec 2005 / Jan 2006