Një udhëtim i jashtëzakonshëm në mitin grek. Zëri i fuqishëm i Christa Wolf, na rrëfen në këtë libër të bukur jetën e princeshës fatthënëse, e bija e Priamit dhe Hekubës, para dhe pas rënies dramatike të qytetit të saj, Trojës, duke na sjellë Kasandrën, këtë personazh të jashtëzakonshëm, kompleks e që në penën e saj tingëllon aq modern.

"Wann Krieg beginnt, das kann man wissen, aber wann beginnt der Vorkrieg. Falls es da Regeln gäbe, müßte man sie weitersagen. In Ton, in Stein eingraben, überliefern. Was stünde da?
Da stünde, unter andern Sätzen: Laßt euch nicht von den Eignen täuschen."

This is one of Wolf's most famous works - it takes the form of a first-person monologue set within the foreground timeframe of Cassandra's appearance in Aeschylus's Agamemnon. Expanding (a good deal) on her speeches in the play, Cassandra looks back on her life in Troy, the war and fall of the city, and the circumstances that have led to her impending murder by Clytemnestra. Although there's no formal metrical structure, and the narrative is basically a stream-of-consciousness mixing memories of different time-periods quite arbitrarily, Wolf does use a declamatory style that is at least "rhetorically aware" - it echoes the feel of the play, and this is a book you certainly have to imagine being read aloud.

For a feminist writer, the character of Cassandra is just a gift that keeps on giving. She's known above all as a woman doomed not to be listened to, and - as we know from Aeschylus - that was a punishment for saying "no" to sex with Apollo. And there are other traditions that she was a rape-victim and was forced into a political marriage by her father. But she's possibly also the first woman in literature who is there because of the work she does and not because of who her father or her husband is. And for Wolf, she's above all a representative of the transition from the matriarchal societies of the Minoan tradition to the hard new patriarchal culture of the Achaeans.

Cassandra's Troy, in Wolf's account, is being turned into a militaristic police-state by a Himmler-like figure called Eumelos who is fond of the "those who are not with us are against us" version of binary logic; those who still seek to follow the old ways and respect the mother-goddess are being forced underground.

Wolf is such a capable writer that none of this sounds like strident cliché when we meet it on the printed page, and Cassandra is a much more complex character than we might expect. She has a complex relationship with Aeneas, for instance, which seems to be there not for any obvious political reason but simply because Wolf found him an interesting character and wanted to work out for herself what he might be doing in the story. Definitely worth the effort. ( )

This is one of the best books I've ever read. The language is overwhelming, the story brings new aspects at every page to the old story of the Trojan war and the end, though it is clear from the beginning, is so sad that you feel like like a stain on your heart. Wolf's book is not feminist, it is the story of a person that gets rid of all illusions and learns to look at reality in a candid and honest way. ( )

I love mythology, but this is such a boring read... It took me forever to get past the first 20 pages and I gave up after 40 which barely ever happens. ( )