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Since the time of Troy the Mediterranean Basin, which Mathias Énard simply calls Zone, has been being torn apart and racked with wars and atrocious historical cataclysms. And his novel, heavy with the references and allusions to The Iliad, is a history of violence in the area told in the single, excruciatingly dark sentence.

…I had forgotten that I was a pawn like any other in the quarrels of Zeus, Hera, Apollo and Pallas Athena, a pawn used for carrying out an aim as obscure as the clouds amassed over inaccessible Olympus, that’s one way to console yourself, I could also say OK I was fooled deceived manipulated used, nothing else�

The protagonist, who secretly identifies himself with Achilles, is a petty spy, a soldier in the army of shadows, a Trojan Horse rider going from Milan to Rome in the train, recollecting his life, contemplating brutality of mankind and trying to flee from his murky past.

…ogres want everything, take everything, eat everything, power, money, weapons, and females, in that order, and these stories of monsters reminded me of my own ogres, Serbian, Croatian, who could unleash all their rage and quench all their thirst for mythic humanity, violence and desire, these stories were the delights of the man in the street, the children, the meek, happy to see the powerful get humiliated in turn in front of someone more powerful, lose their honor their wives as the poor had lost their houses their children or their legs in a bombardment, which after all seemed less serious than dishonor and humiliation, the defeat of the powerful is tremendous, beautiful and loud, a hero always makes noise when he collapses, a hundred kilos of muscle strike the ground in one huge dull thud, the public is on its feet to see Hector tied to the chariot, see his head wobble and his blood spurt, the ogre conquered by an even bigger ogre�

When masters fall out, their men get the clout� When titans collide, that is mice that get crushed� And devastation is irreversible.

…nothing returns from what has been destroyed, nothing is reborn, neither dead men, nor burned libraries, nor submerged lighthouses, nor extinct species, despite the museums commemorations statues books speeches good will, of things that have gone only a vague memory remains�

We sleep calmly seeing sweet dreams but somewhere it’s war: the innocents are dying, happiness is annihilated, homes lie in ruins� There is always war somewhere near�