This is part of my continuing report on my Retellings Reading Challenge (Summer, 2022)
Readers like me are exploring a whole new world of retellings these days—the world of myth. The trend may have started with the middle-grade half-blood hero Percy Jackson, but the myth retelling genre grew up fast when Madeline Miller’s Song of Achilles and Pat Barker’s The Silence of the Girls hit the bestseller lists.
Why are myth retellings so appealing?
–Myth retellings feel fresh, partly because the stories aren’t as familiar to most of us.
–The interplay between the immortals and humans satisfies our appetite for the magical.
–In the ancient source material, a lot of it fragments of sagas, plays, or poems, many of the characters are presented in a superficial way. There’s lots of room for an author to round out their personalities and imagine their motives and backs-stories.
My winter-spring challenge featured three books that starred four women central to classical Greek myths and legends. Here they are—the enchanting, the lovelorn, the trapped, the questing—all of them striving to be the heroes of their own lives:
Circe (Madeline Miller) This was my second reading–enough said!
Ariadne (Jennifer Saint) Ariadne was Circe’s niece, and the whole family might be one of the most disfunctional of all time. The story’s easy to follow in the audio version, BTW.
The Daughters of Sparta (Claire Haywood) Were Klytemnesta (the famous murderess) and Helen (whose beauty launched the Trojan War) historical figures? Or merely the main characters in fantasy stories? This story chooses to ground them firmly in reality.
I will recommend this book, with a caution. I believe the author was intent on removing all hints of divine intervention from the story, and substituting (and sometimes inventing) completely human motivations, actions, and reactions. But to me their religious belief system was as much part of the sisters’ nature as their craving for affection; their feelings towards spouses, lovers, children, and clan; their need for self-realization and/or revenge.
Did you notice that all three covers are black/orange?
Terra cotta pots and bowls decorated with detailed black figures were popular in ancient Greece. Archaeologists have managed to preserve a lot of black-figure pottery. This piece shows women weaving at a standing loom.
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