“They were human beings”: Giller-nominated author Colin McAdam says we can learn a lot from ancient Greeks

Colin McAdam, author of Daphnis and Chloe, a contemporary reimagining of the ancient Greek romance that was longlisted for the Giller. Lisa Myers

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It’s a magical tale rooted 2000 years in the past, a Greek pastoral romance about two young lovers who survive all manner of fearful ordeals to reach true fulfilment.

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Daphnis and Chloe has endured through the centuries, hailed by some academics as the first true example of the novel form. But what on earth does it to have to do with a contemporary world of biker gangs and human trafficking?

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It’s a question that veteran Canadian novelist Colin McAdam is prepared to deal with. After all his new book, also titled Daphnis and Chloe, is an audacious retelling of a classic literary work, at times awash in sex and violence yet fuelled by the original’s message that young love can prevail.

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McAdam’s publishers have cited his version as a blending of Harlequin fiction with the blood-soaked Quentin Tarantino-scripted film, True Romance. So does this shortchange it as no more than a work of slick exploitation? Not according to the Giller people who longlisted Daphnis and Chloe for Canada’s most prestigious literary award.

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Daphnis and Chloe, by Colin McAdam. Biblioasis

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Daphnis And Chloe

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Colin McAdam

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Biblioasis

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McAdam, a classic Greek scholar, wanted to deliver a fun read with this book, but it’s anchored to his belief that the ancient world still has much to teach present-day society. He cites the huge success of Christopher Nolan’s film, The Odyssey.

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“They were human beings — like us,” he says from his home in West Quebec. “I think we are in a moment where there is such rapid change that people just want to say — let’s slow down and consider things more deeply, the things that we really do care about. During revolutionary times people look toward ancient wisdom, whatever it may be. They look at what worked and what didn’t in the past, and why. They look at the stories that sort of got us to where we are.”

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There are no goatherds or shepherdesses, no rustic adversaries or rampaging pirates in McAdam’s update of Longus’s ancient story. Instead there is an auto repair shop in the Pacific Northwest, its owners two Greek immigrants, Frank and Charlie. Frank brings home an abandoned baby, and he and his wife name him Daphnis. Chloe is the child Charlie and his wife adopt after she is discovered in an abandoned van. The children grow up together and fall in love only to have their lives endangered by predatory forces who plunge these youngsters into a dark world of illegal drugs and sex slavery.

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McAdam notes that the original suggests a yearning for the past and that Longus himself did not live in the pastoral world of his story.

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“He was writing at the peak of the Roman empire. Roads were everywhere, bureaucracy was everywhere, there were issues of class, people were more literate and technology was changing the world. This has obvious parallels with various times in human history, and certainly with now. Back then it was shepherdesses and goatherds. So why not now focus on the internal combustion engine, and why not set it in a garage and make this a sort of working-class love story?”