Paradise Lost: The Novel by Joseph Lanzara

This was a recent addition to my collection of different editions and versions of John Milton's Paradise Lost. I discovered it after finding the author's website which is a useful read in itself and also a decent introduction to the poem and John Milton:

https://www.paradiselost.org/

The book is precisely what the title states - a novelisation of the original poem. It's not a line-for-line transliteration so not quite as useful as a direct introduction to the poem. However, for those interested in the story and not in the original then this is a decent alternative.

Even though it loses the original's structure the novel's style does retain a flamboyant and archaic style that does carry the tale well. I'll confess that it took a chapter for me to break through the feeling of reading a historical novel, but once in the flow it worked just fine. Unfortunately, it highlights an issue with modern languages for this type of tale in that it contains concepts that shouldn't be familiar or even exist for the characters in the story (except maybe God I guess). 

In truth, this is caused by how Milton creates backstories for the divine characters - especially the fallen angels and the personalities before becoming the Fallen. This naturally leads on to how any of it could have happened in the first place but that's a bit beyond outlining the merits and issues of this book.

I found two issues in particular problematic. The first was that the narrative flow of the story is rearranged into chronological order (sort of, although technically it's probably an order of causation as time didn't exist for the first part of the story). I understand why the author made the change, but for me, it felt unnecessary as it's far from convoluted in the original and in doing so loses some of the drama and immediacy of the poem.

This version loses a lot of the metaphors and references that Milton was so fond of. Now, this does simplify the text and so easier to comprehend but also loses some of the richness and mystery. There's an odd paradox here that while Milton wrote this Christian origins tale to promote that particular theology those historical connections grounded it more solidly within the wider world's history.

That all being said the novel does represent the plot and characters of the story well. The pacing is good and if you just want to experience the story or want a gentle introduction to the poem then this is well worth a look.

Discover Paradise Lost: The Novel by Joseph Lanzara on Goodreads:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22168372-paradise-lost