Thanks to all the Cannonball Read folks who raved about Madeline Miller this year. Because of the accolades, I read The Song of Achilles back in May and Circe in November and both were books that engaged and transported me. Thanks to my procrastinating ways, I decided to review both books together and because they’ve been reviewed by a lot of folks already, I thought I’d talk more about my experience reading them and spare you the plot summary. I read Song of Achilles on my […]
“Humbling women seems to me a chief pastime of poets. As if there can be no story unless we crawl and weep.”
The daughter of Helios, the god of the sun, a mighty Titan, Circe is a lesser god, or nymph. She does not hold the power of her parents and is often scorned for her odd voice and behaviour in the halls of the gods where she lives. Falling for a mortal, she discovers her own power lies in witchcraft, turning rivals into monsters. For this – and feeling threatened by her power – she is exiled to an island by Zeus. It is there that […]
All this, and Helen ends up back with her husband anyway
I should have read The Iliad in college. It was assigned for a first year seminar for which I did less than half the reading. I’ve long been embarrassed by this fact, yet not at all motivated to make up the deficit. When I came to Song of Achilles, I had no idea who the narrator was, or his relationship to Achilles. I wonder if that’s a not insignificant portion of how beautiful I found this book, that I came to it unspoiled. Just as […]
The Ballad of the Reluctant Hero
I have always loved ancient myths, I read every book of myths from every single part of the world I could get my hands on as a kid. Being that I grew up in the Western World this mostly meant Greek Myths. While I could find a couple Chinese, and Korean, and Indian myth books in my local libraries, and there were several on Norse and Celtic mythology as well, all of these were far outnumbered by the books of Greek and Roman myths and […]
Myth lost in the novelization
I appear to be in the minority who was not blown away by this book, but y’know, the world takes all types. It’s not that I didn’t like the book, it’s just that I somehow found it a little bit forgettable. I’ve got a soft spot for ancient mythology and the way that somehow nothing and everything makes sense, and by filling in the holes it lost some of the magic. Which is hilarious, in a book about a witch (or goddess of magic, however […]
So good I ignored everyone and everything until I’d finished
Unlike the rest of the world (or so it occasionally seems), I haven’t read The Song of Achilles, mostly due to my being possession of a fiery hatred of Achilles that tends to ruin anything he happens to be mentioned in. However, I did note all of the squealing going on around it and so, when people started talking about Circe, promptly splurged on it. I was not disappointed. Taking another figure from the myths – one mostly known for turning Odysseus’ men into pigs […]
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