Saturday, June 09, 2018

Circe - Madeline Miller

Well this one was a bit of a whirlwind to read, and it did take me a whole week to devour it, but I found it so intense that I could only read a couple of chapters each night.  Circe is the daughter of Heios the sun God , and she dwells in his halls taunting nymphs and causing trouble.  When she becomes jealous of a nymph who has set her eyes on her boyfriend she casts a spell and incurs the wrath of her father and other Gods.  Banished to a remote rocky island she is forced to survive by herself and it is here that she truly comes into herself.

This is the story of Gods and mortals from Classical Greek tales and I was surprised by how they all linked together, and were related and linked in ways I had not understood before.  It seemed a good book for these times, a strong woman who stood up to the men in her life who tried to keep her down, and was able to thrive without having to rely on anybody else, even when everyone threatened her.  5/5

1 comment:

John Bellen said...

From what I recall of Greek mythology, Circe wasn't too clearly defined as a person, so an author could do what she likes with the character. I don't really care for novels that use modern sensibilities to interpret the past, but that mainly applies to historical novels, not those from legends.