Bright Air Black: A Novel

Vann's beautiful and intense language creates a formal distance that successfully carries the reader into a realm of myth while the story itself portrays its very human characters with a demystifying precision. This is a bloody, unflinching account of Medea's story, extreme because she is, and because her circumstances are--a brilliant, elementally fierce woman born into a world that can only see her as a subordinate, when it sees her at all. She embodies a furious compulsion to assert what's denied her. Why should the seemingly arbitrary rules of mortal deification bend to avoid her? Vann's Medea is relatable, almost feels like a modern character but without a hint of anachronism--modern because we can believe we understand her. The world she lives in is a meticulously rendered antiquity that lives and breathes and creaks like the galleys in which much of the action takes place. A great book, wondrous and frightening.

This book was absolutely riveting - I couldn't put it down. Reading the classic tale of Medea as she flees from her father after having committed an atrocious act told from her perspective was incredible. Every chapter is a moving, living, breathing painting. The author's word choices and characterizations are so vivid you can taste them. Some of the chapters made me nauseous. Some chapters brought tears to my eyes. I can't remember the last time I was so moved by a story I already knew. I cannot recommend this book more highly. It's truly a wonderful read.

As a classics student and enthusiast, I absolutely loved this book. The prose is intentionally alienating- it reads like the thoughts of a foreigner thinking in English. Medea is wonderfully depicted. I read this book over the course of two days, which is unusual for me, but this one is a serious page turner.

worst book I've read for years. doesn't even deserve one star.

4.5 stars“One of the men comes to the stern near Medea to fish in last light. A rough net weighted with stones…. He… flings the net overboard, beautiful pattern in flight, a practiced throw, the stones swirling out a perfect circle just as they hit the water… The surface becomes silver, opaque, molten, as if the sea could be reforged every day, great ingot of tin melted down each night, this fisherman casting his net to capture impurities”Bright Air Black is the fifth novel by American author, David Vann, and is a retelling of the story of Medea. Vann begins his story with Medea, Jason and the Argonauts fleeing Colchis on the Argo, Golden Fleece in their possession, her father Aeetes in pursuit, Medea throwing pieces of her murdered brother Aspyrtus overboard to delay her father’s progress.Their flight from Colchis to Iolcus, taking the daring step of sailing at night, is fraught with danger, both from Aeetes and the elements: “Fear living in close. In the hull and mast that might break, in the rudders, in the air that somewhere holds land, but mostly in the water. Rock and every creature unknown. No limit to the size of what can grow below. All animals on land known but always something new coming from the depths”The sailors are wary of Medea, priestess of Hekate, rightly so, but her power over them holds no sway once they reach Iolcus and meet Pelias, the king Jason intends to usurp. Her grandfather may be Helios the sun, but Vann presents the infamous Medea, magical and monstrous, as a wholly human woman, if a determined, intelligent, tenacious and vengeful one.Vann’s descriptive prose, as always, is stunning: “The sail no inanimate thing. Terrible in high wind, rigid and merciless and powerful beyond imagining, a thing of fear and will. But even now, in lighter winds, filled with desire, a restlessness, capable even of regret and sorrow, falling along an edge, hunching down, refilling but not entirely, some cost to the past. Only with no air, when it hangs fully slack, does it seem like linen. At all other times, this is impossible to believe”, and his personal experience with sailing is apparent on every page.Vann’s evocative title comes from Euripides’s Medea; the beautiful cover shows the type of ship that Argo would have been; his interpretation of this legend from over three thousand years ago is powerful, enthralling and atmospheric.

In addition to its engaging and artistic style, this book is also a most enjoyable read.Brings you the antiquity to life. Will remember this while sailing next time in Greece.Looking forward to reading some more of David Vann's adaptations.SM Veres

The first half was an evocative imagining of Medea's journey from Colchis with Jason. I was disappointed with the later part which focused on an unlikely kidnapping of Orestes.

Enigmatically poetic yet grittily direct. Speaking from ancient ages of power and blood struggles to a modern world ,just as brutal.

Quite hard work due to the stule