The Voyage Dwelling by Pat Barker
Ritsa was as soon as a free girl of Troy. Now she’s the private enslaved particular person for Cassandra, the daughter of Priam, who’s herself enslaved as a concubine to King Agamemnon. Cassandra and Ritsa are placed on Agamemnon’s ship again to Mycenae, the place his spouse Clytemnestra waits to kill him. Earlier than Agamemnon left for the battle of Troy, he sacrificed his daughter to earn the favor of the gods to achieve an excellent wind to sail to Troy. Clytemnestra has been ready for revenge ever since.
Cassandra as soon as refused to sleep with the god Apollo, who then cursed her with the power to precisely foretell the longer term, though nobody would imagine her. Cassandra predicts Agamemnon’s dying to whoever will hear, solely to have her warnings ignored. It seems like each Agamemnon’s spouse and his concubine have the identical targets. However Barker chooses to inform this story of Agamemnon’s downfall from the attitude of Ritsa. Ritsa brings a down-to-earth perspective on the machinations of royalty. Whether or not she works for Cassandra or another person, she’s nonetheless enslaved.
The palace at Mycenae is haunted, the sounds of youngsters murdered inside its partitions echoing all through the drafty room. Handprints of the youngsters seem on the wall, and Cassandra can’t appear to cowl them up quick sufficient. Agamemnon’s household is at all times haunted by the violence they’ve enacted on one another.
With so many transferring elements, The Voyage Dwelling isn’t as centered or centered because the earlier two entries into the sequence—The Silence of the Women and The Ladies of Troy—nevertheless it nonetheless possesses the emotional depth and intimacy of the earlier two novels. Ritsa provides readers perception into the lifetime of a “common” middle-aged girl of Troy whose life is destroyed by the warfare. Her story is all of the extra charming as her braveness and resilience shine by way of on each web page.