The Wanderings of Odysseus

by Rosemary Sutcliff

First published 1995

Amazon

4.0(2)

After Troy falls, Odysseus sails for Ithaca but repeatedly encounters forces that delay or destroy his company. The Cyclops, Circe, the Sirens, the dead, Scylla and Charybdis turn the voyage into a ten-year struggle against monsters, hostile gods and the hero’s own curiosity and pride.

At home, Penelope and Telemachus resist the suitors consuming the household and assuming that its king is dead. Odysseus’s eventual return requires disguise, recognition and violent restoration of order. Sutcliff reshapes Homer’s Odyssey into a direct traveller’s tale while preserving its tension between wonder and loss: every marvellous escape brings the wanderer home alone.