num_pages: 282
description: In the tradition of Zachary Masons bestselling first novel The Lost Books of the Odyssey  where he recast episodes from Homers masterpiece  Metamorphica now reimagines Ovids epic poem of endless transformation Metamorphoses. Just as the Roman poet reinvigorated the Greek Classical legends 700 years after Homer so Mason now gives us a radical and exciting renovation of those myths 2000 years after Ovid.It retells the great stories of Narcissus Orpheus Persephone Icarus Midas Medea and Actaeon and strings them together like the stars in constellations  with even Ovid himself entering the narrative. Its as though the ancient mythologies had been rewritten by Borges or Calvino  or artificial intelligence  and brought glimmering back into our world. Metamorphica re-engages with the elemental power of the ancient shape-changing gods by keeping their essences while rewriting their stories. It is this extraordinary narrative approach that is so thrilling; we watch as the author extracts more and more out of the original legend  adding infinite perspectives to narratives we thought we knew. Mason understands that the great myths are parables  always in flux always relevant  always throwing shards of light from the morning of the world.
language: English
title: Metamorphica
publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux