Elpénor

by Jean Giraudoux

"C'est alors que mourut le matelot Elpenor. Seule occasion que j'aurai de prononcer son nom, car il ne se distingua jamais, ni par sa valeur, ni par sa prudence.""Homere, "Odysee," Chant X

Paperback

First published January 1, 1919

About the author

Greek mythology or Biblical stories base dramas, such as Electra (1937), of French writer Hippolyte Jean Giraudoux, who also wrote several novels. He fathered Jean-Pierre Giraudoux.

People consider this French novelist, essayist, diplomat. and playwright among the most important French dramatists of the period between World War I and World War II. They note his work for its stylistic elegance and poetic fantasy. The relationship between man and woman or some unattainable ideal in some cases dominates themes of Giraudoux .

Léger Giraudoux, father of Jean Giraudoux, worked for the ministry of transport. Giraudoux studied at the Lycée Lakanal in Sceaux and upon graduation traveled extensively in Europe. After his return to France in 1910, he accepted a position with the ministry of foreign affairs.
With the outbreak of World War I, he served with distinction and in 1915 became the first writer ever to be awarded the wartime Legion of Honour.

He married in 1918 and in the subsequent inter-war period produced the majority of his writing. He first achieved literary success through his novels, notably Siegfried et le Limousin (1922) and Eglantine (1927). An ongoing collaboration with actor and theater director Louis Jouvet, beginning in 1928 with Jouvet's radical streamlining of Siegfried for the stage, stimulated his writing. But it is through his plays that gained him international renown. He became well known in the English-speaking world largely because of the award-winning adaptations of his plays by Christopher Fry (The Trojan War Will Not Take Place) and Maurice Valency (The Madwoman of Chaillot, Ondine, The Enchanted, The Apollo of Bellac).

Giraudoux served as a juror with Florence Meyer Blumenthal in awarding the Prix Blumenthal, a grant given between 1919 and 1954 to painters, sculptors, decorators, engravers, writers, and musicians.

He is buried in the Cimetière de Passy in Paris.

His son, Jean-Pierre Giraudoux, was also a writer.

Reviews

[Stuart · Rating 5 out of 5]

Smart, unsettling, and hilarious, this lesser work by the French playwright is a fast and delightful read, filled with quickly sketched but thoroughly realized characters, tiny human tragedies and divinely epic absurdities. Though at first it seems that Giraudoux is using the conceit of telling the Odyssey from the perspective of a secondary character, he ultimately does so much more with his hapless hero, subtlety weaving him in as the protagonist while also using the text to explore the venerable Odysseus himself along with the price of fame, the power of narratives bigger than the individual, and a man's place in his own legacy. Woven throughout are those glimmers of other lives and their private pleasures and tortures, whether one is a fisherman or a princess, that make Giraudoux's work so poignant and timeless.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book in translation (by Richard Howard and Renaud Bruce, Noonday Press, New York, 1958). It’s a clever re-telling of the adventures of Odysseus from the perspective of his lowly crewman Elpenor. Many of the stories take different directions, but still show great familiarity with the original story. G. often takes pains to explain or rationalize strange inconsistencies from the original. But the most exciting parts occur when the modern re-telling takes on a more philosophical perspective. The cyclops-story with which he begins is perhaps the most interesting, although the other stories all have merit. In the cave of Cyclops, Polyphemus prays to Posiedon and actually regains his sight, but then Odysseus re-blinds him not by repeating his act of physical violence, but by using philosophy to fool the Cyclops into considering the hero and his sailors as figments of his own imagination. It’s a really interesting new take on this story! As the story progresses, Elpenor emerges as the anti-hero, first getting addicted to the lotus drug, then spoiling Ulysses’ attempts to hear the sirens and his trip to the underworld, and finally jeopardizing his return home on Phaeacia. I wont spoil the ending though! If you are familiar with the adventures of Odysseus and want a fun, humorous re-imagining of it, this book will definitely satisfy!

[amnepsiac · Rating 2 out of 5]

Полуфилологическая, полусамосмейная душнота с интеллектуальными очочками на носу. Умудряется быть достаточно интригующей в первой трети, но к финалу переходит в полную импотентную фазу.

[Roman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Читал в неизданном переводе Бенедикта Лившица, вышло в «Иностранной литературе». Великолепно.

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not a bad book to read while on Palouki Beach, Amaliada, Greece.