Zachary Mason’s The Lost Books of the Odyssey

This is an aside titled 'Zachary Mason’s The Lost Books of the Odyssey' dated 2/11/10

Ryan Chapman’s on Zachary Mason’s The Lost Books of the Odyssey: “I remember Sam Tenenhaus saying Roberto Bolaño’s 2666 was great because it captured our fragmented, internet-addled expression of reality. I would say Zachary Mason’s The Lost Books of the Odyssey does the same. This slim work doesn’t need images, or hyperlinks, or video animations to make it ‘better,’ it’s already at the peak of its art as a novel. It can be tersely described as a Borgesian fan fiction approach to Homer. (This plays well on Twitter.) But I would also argue its episodic structure, sidelong approach to canonical myths – an iterative text built upon the urtext – and its conception by a computer scientist make Zachary Mason’s novel a consummate evocation of the novel in 2010. It contains the modern world, though slyly, furtively.” Wow. More about Mason in the New York Times today.

Posted by Joanne on Feb. 11, 2010

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