I never got around to reading Helen of Troy by Margaret George, when it was released a couple of years ago. So when I found a paperback copy in a used bookstore a few weeks ago, I took it along on a long plane trip.Except for having to haul it around (650+ pages), it was perfect airplane reading. George retells the story of the Trojan War, in epic soap opera form. In George's story, Helen is not abducted by Paris, Prince of Troy. She willingly runs off with him because she is stuck in a loveless marriage with the cold Menelaus, and she and the younger, hotter Paris have an irresistible attraction to each other. The Greeks come after her not so much because Menelaus wants her back, but because his brother Agamemnon has been anxious to wage war. George supplies the emotions and motivations that make the "facts" and characters of the story make sense to a modern reader.
George also deftly handles the issues of gods interacting with humans. Helen learns that she is rumored to be the daughter of Zeus, who raped her mother while in the guise of a swan. Seeing that her mother keeps a swan feather as a memento, and having encountered an aggressive swan, Helen believes the story, until she discovers a very human man who had visited her mother while her father was away, and who also keeps a swan feather. Gods interacting with humans? Perhaps, perhaps not.
Helen of Troy is good escapist reading, well told. I found it to be a real page-turner, particularly when the Trojan Horse finally showed up. The fact that you know the outcome doesn't spoil the journey. Recommended.
