Ransom
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Edition: 1st ed., 1st pr.,
Condition remarks:
Book: Very good
Jacket: Very good
Pages: Yellowed
What happens when two men — sworn enemies, broken by grief — choose to meet not as warriors but as fathers and sons? Ransom by David Malouf reimagines one of Western literature's most electrifying episodes: the moment in Homer's Iliad when the aged Trojan king Priam crosses enemy lines to beg the Greek warrior Achilles for the body of his slain son, Hector. Set against the smouldering ruins of a decade-long war, the novel strips away the armour of myth to reveal the raw, trembling humanity beneath — two men undone by loss, reaching across hatred for something that resembles grace. Malouf, one of Australia's most celebrated prose stylists, transforms this ancient encounter into a meditation on mortality, mercy, and the stories we tell to make sense of our lives. His language is spare yet luminous, each sentence carrying the weight of centuries while remaining achingly immediate. Ransom argues that true power lies not in dominance but in vulnerability — and that the most radical act a man can perform is to lay down his pride and simply ask. A novel of devastating restraint and profound moral beauty, it leaves the reader to wonder: what would you surrender for the chance to reclaim what you love?
Author: David Malouf
Format: Hardback
Published: 2009, Knopf
Genre: Fiction
Edition: 1st ed., 1st pr.,
Condition remarks:
Book: Very good
Jacket: Very good
Pages: Yellowed
What happens when two men — sworn enemies, broken by grief — choose to meet not as warriors but as fathers and sons? Ransom by David Malouf reimagines one of Western literature's most electrifying episodes: the moment in Homer's Iliad when the aged Trojan king Priam crosses enemy lines to beg the Greek warrior Achilles for the body of his slain son, Hector. Set against the smouldering ruins of a decade-long war, the novel strips away the armour of myth to reveal the raw, trembling humanity beneath — two men undone by loss, reaching across hatred for something that resembles grace. Malouf, one of Australia's most celebrated prose stylists, transforms this ancient encounter into a meditation on mortality, mercy, and the stories we tell to make sense of our lives. His language is spare yet luminous, each sentence carrying the weight of centuries while remaining achingly immediate. Ransom argues that true power lies not in dominance but in vulnerability — and that the most radical act a man can perform is to lay down his pride and simply ask. A novel of devastating restraint and profound moral beauty, it leaves the reader to wonder: what would you surrender for the chance to reclaim what you love?