"While Malouf can write brilliantly in the "low" register of a Somax or describe nature with a Wordsworthian attentiveness, he is equally convincing in suggesting the grave diction of epic, as when Priam reflects on what the immortal gods can never experience -- the sweetness inherent in our transient human lives, but also the sorrow..."

That this tender novel lingers so long and hauntingly in the mind is a testament both to Malouf’s poetry and to his reverence for the endless power of myth.

"As it is, Ransom falls between the two stools: neither true enough to Homer, nor sufficiently untrue to him either."