The Birth of the World as We Know It: Or Teiresias

In this meditative little novel, Steinbach (Zara; Here Lies the Water) inhabits the figure of Teiresias, the Theban seer, and delivers a metaphysical tour de force remarkable for the light touch it sustains despite its wealth of allusions to Greek mythology. Told from various points of view, the liquid story flows within an elastic time frame, lightly decorating the old myths as comments on life today. Steinbach's Teiresias enjoys a god's-eye view of things, but he's far from omnipotent: he merely experiences everything, having, through visions and the hocus-pocus of Zeus and his Olympian cohorts, experienced life through all the ages and, perhaps more importantly, as both man and woman. Here, he begins as a shade in the underworld, where he meets Odysseus, a tiresome bully who only wants to ""get home."" The narrative shimmies through Teiresias's life: a visit to the Delphic oracle; the fall of Thebes; experiences with chilly Narcissus; and the seer's hilarious mediation between Hera and Zeus, the fallible rulers of Olympus. In Steinbach's comic portrait, Zeus, the Father of the Universe, is a philandering clod who can't face Hera's authority without worrying about his own inadequacy. She, in turn, derisively calls him ""Mr. Thunder."" In the end, Teiresias is released from the underworld back into life--present-day life, which he has ""seen"" before and not understood. This is all about our repetitions and confusions--historical, sexual and psychological. Sentence by sentence, Steinbach's writing is as elegant as a neoclassical column. Such grounded prose is a good foil for an unwieldy tale that happily hurls itself at eternity. (Nov.)