Fry’s knowledge of the world – ancient and modern – bursts through at the seams; footnotes of varying relevance abound. His telling of the story itself, though, is pretty straight. Fry’s only inventions are attempts to smooth the impossible chronology of the story of Troy to focus on the drama. His project from the outset has been to make Greek myth less impenetrable, which he does admirably. But given the misogyny and racism that abounds in these stories, is there an appetite for a retelling which does so little to make the unsavoury more palatable?
