The Colonial Hotel

FICTION At the intersection of love, longing, and war Jonathan Bennett. The Colonial Hotel. Ontario: ECW Press, 2014. 227 pp. n.p. ISBN 978-1-77041-178-4I'm probably not alone in feeling a little apprehensive when a contemporary writer repurposes a character or story from classic mythology. It's a dangerous prospect, this borrowing and repurposing. The author must not only contend with all the usual tasks of writing a solid piece of fiction, but he or she must also fully assimilate the borrowed elements into that vivid, continuous dream of the work. Those elements of myth must feel both novel, contributing something new to the myth's connotations, and relevant, in that the myth must serve the purpose of elucidating aspects of our own modern world. Done cavalierly, borrowing can imbue a piece of fiction with an air of elitism and contrivance, overshadowing whatever charm the work might have held on its own.These concerns came to my mind in the first few pages of Jonathan Bennett's third novel, The Colonial Hotel, a modern retelling of Homer's The Iliad set in an unnamed, modern country in the grip of war. The novel opens at the titular Colonial Hotel, where Paris, a doctor working to bring medical care to war-torn countries, dines with Helen, a nurse with an unrelenting dedication to her work. Helen has just revealed to Paris that she's pregnant with his child when militants from the North invade the city, and the two lovers become embroiled in a bloody clash. Neither character has much stake in the war, and much of the novel finds them trying to make sense of the devastation they witness.Readers will be happy to find, in these first few chapters, enough variation on the story of the Trojan War to give The Colonial Hotel some heft of its own. The character names may be familiar, but there's little else here that hearkens to The Iliad. Bennett has gone through great pains to imbue these old characters and their love affair with new complexity. Paris admits to feeling disillusioned with his work and doting on Helen for her seeming passion for saving lives, yet Helen, for all her passion, harbors a desire to leave Paris and the war zone behind and start a new life with her unborn daughter. Bennett's decision to The Colonial Hotel as epistolary puts these interesting characters front and center, granting the reader access to their complex fears, desires, and regrets.The epistolary style of The Colonial Hotel is not without its detriments, however. Readers may find that the characters often fail to resist the desire to tell all, especially when early propositional phrases-such as Paris's As part of a team of freelance physicians . and As medical personnel .''-read as overly explicative just for the sake of setting the stage. Helen's entries, likewise, may feel at times a bit too confessional, as when she explains, I make too many agreements. …

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