Oedipus On the Road

United States, Arcade Publishing, 1997. 1997. Hardcover. 8vo hardcover 240pp. very good+ / very good+ d/w. Okay, you know the drill: In Sophocles's Oedipus the King, Oedipus unwittingly kills his father, marries his mother, then stabs his eyes out years later when the truth of his actions is revealed. Years later, the blind and beggared king washes up on the outskirts of Athens, where Sophocles resumes the tale in Oedipus at Colonus. But what happened in between? Although the early Greeks never satisfactorily answered that question, Belgian writer Henry Bauchau does in his daring novel Oedipus on the Road. In Bauchau's version, Oedipus's life on the road teaches him a new humility and appreciation for the kindness of strangers. Through the love of his daughter, Antigone, and the people he meets along the road, he learns to forgive himself. By turning his back on the power he once had as king of Thebes and instead embracing the compassion he learns along his journey, Oedipus becomes noble indeed.nnOedipus on the Road is a wise and ambitious novel--not surprising, considering its author is an 84-year-old psychoanalyst. Bauchau brings many years of experience to this story of disgrace and redemption, making this latest installment in the Oedipus legend both relevant to modern times and universal to all times and places--just as his predecessor, Sophocles, did more than 2,000 years ago.nnReviewnWell knock my eyes out. Here's a novel that skillfully reworks the Greek myth of Oedipus, taking an obscure part of the tale - the hero's wandering as a blind, homeless beggar after his downfall from kingship - and giving it a new significance. Through characters and events belonging ostensibly to ancient Greece, "Oedipus on the Road" touches on up-to-date themes like multiculturalism, feminism, and psychotherapy. It is a memorable book: ambitious, highly original, often moving, and sometimes willfully irksome . . . . The story satisfies one by its daring, confident use of myth and its vision of healing. -- New York Times Book Review, Sept. 21, 1997nnWell, knock my eyes out. Here's a novel that skillfully reworks the Greek myth of Oedipus, taking an obscure part of the tale ... and giving it new significance. Through characters and events belonging ostensibly to ancient Greece, Oedipus on the Road touches on up-to-date themes like multiculturalism, feminism and psychotherapy. It is a memorable book: ambitious, highly original, often moving, sometimes willfully irksome. -- The New York Times Book Review, David Sacks .