Oedipus on the Road

Unlike other famous modern retellings of this great story (e.g., those by Cocteau and Freud), this novel is not, in any obvious or aggressive way, a reinterpretation. Bauchau, a Belgian poet and psychoanalyst, tells of Oedipus' harrowing final journey from Thebes to his redemption at Colonus. In doing so, he admirably recreates the social milieu of the period, and his vivid scenes recounting Oedipus' encounters with shepherds, hunters and bandits along the way make the novel feel at once modern and convincingly ancient. His Oedipus is not only a heroic figure struggling with his fate, but also a beggar, sculptor, singer, arbitrator and doctor. On his road to Colonus, he is accompanied by Clius, a notorious bandit who's moved by the old king to become his protector, and by his daughter and sister, Antigone, the most complex and interesting character in the novel. Antigone's coming-of-age makes her a kind of female Telemachus, a child who struggles between her own ambition and her loyalty and love for her infamous father. During their travels, Oedipus begins to understand the ordinary and personal nature of tragedy. In the end, one feels that Oedipus' tale has been subtly modernized, in the sense that characters are given--and permitted to be aware of--their great and intricate psychological identities in the face of unyielding fate.(Aug.)