In Odour Issues, Richard Craven proves himself not merely a parodist of classical texts but a mythmaker for the absurdities of modern existence. Here, the grand architecture of Homer’s The Odyssey is dismantled, brick by brick, only to be rebuilt as a grotesque funhouse reflection of contemporary life—a world where ambition leads not to glory but to bureaucratic purgatories, spa whirlpools, and the front end of a pantomime horse in the Startling Farter.
From the first few pages, dissolute aristocrat Lord Snatch takes center stage as a figure of both pitiable humanity and biting satire. If Odysseus was a paragon of cunning and resilience, then Snatch is his mirror image—flawed, fumbling, and haplessly caught in the swirling eddies of his drug addiction. Whether battling the seductive Sirens of Pex ‘n’ Quads or facing the corporate juggernaut of provincial merchant bank Handjob Luncheon plc, Snatch is less a hero than an etiolated loser, buffeted by forces he understands only too well but can never control.
What sets Odour Issues apart, however, is not its protagonist but the richly rendered world through which he stumbles. Craven’s Bristol, once again, becomes more than a setting—it is a character in its own right, twisting and shifting with a life of its own. The city’s decay mirrors the absurd trials faced by Lord Snatch, a labyrinth of collapsing spa facilities, oppressive boardrooms, and dystopian technological oracles. This version of Bristol, grotesque yet strangely familiar, serves as a vivid backdrop to Craven’s satire, a reflection of society’s fractured values and existential malaise.
Craven’s supporting cast—grotesques in the best sense of the word—offer a gallery of exaggerated absurdities. From the barge-dwelling sirens to the thugs of the Unauthorised Enema Squad, from Edwardian do-gooder Minerva Ledwitch to depressive provincial merchant banker Sir Hearty Lunchron to sacerdotal chess gimp Ianeass to the treacherous suitors gangbanging Lady Kelly Snatch, these characters are less individuals than archetypes, their ludicrous flaws amplifying the satire at the novel’s core.
Yet, for all its grotesque humor, Odour Issues also possesses a curious gravity. The absurdity of Lord Snatch’s trials, while often hilarious, carries an undercurrent of tragedy, a reminder of the universal futility in our quests for meaning, progress, and redemption. Craven’s prose—baroque, playful, and unrelenting—ensures that each page is both a challenge and a delight. The novel demands a reader who is willing to laugh at the ridiculousness of life even as they are confronted with its darker truths.
In Odour Issues, Craven has given us not merely a parody of Homer’s epic but a commentary on the human condition in all its absurdity. It is a book that defies easy classification—part satire, part tragedy, part literary experiment—and yet it succeeds brilliantly as all three. For those willing to plunge into its depths, this latest volume of the Bristolian Chronicles offers a journey as chaotic, darkly humorous, and strangely profound as the world it portrays.