Circe by Madeline Miller
394 pages
Published 2018
Read from September 21 to September 23
Rating: 4 out of 5
Women, throughout the history of the written word, have been relegated to roles as helpmeets, trophies, obstacles, cheerleaders, and convenient plot devices. The few famous literary characters who were women tended to appear as chapters in the narratives of men. The mythological figure of Circe exists almost entirely as an appendage to Odysseus: initially a powerful and dangerous foil for him to overcome, subsequently conquered by his supreme manhood and serving a domestic role for him and his crew. In texts where her existence doesn't revolve around Odysseus, Circe is depicted (more or less literally) as a maneater, a manifestation of female libido and power who transforms her male "victims" into swine.
It's satisfying to read a modern novel based on Circe's legends that, for a good chunk of its length, refuses to center Odysseus as the upright pillar of her story. Miller's treatment explores age-old topics like godhood and mortality and the capricious cruelty of the divine, centering Circe herself as a belittled outcast in a divine household where nymphs are treated merely as bargaining chips and as playthings. She is the focus of her own story—an obvious choice rendered significant by the overwhelming numbers of male storytellers (and readers) who would be baffled by it to this day.
I grew up with the safely sanitized versions of the classical Mediterranean myths we all absorbed. Odysseus was my favorite as a child. A hero who used his brains far more than his brawn sailed directly into my nerdy, shrimpy little heart. I put myself in his sandals when I read a bowdlerized and abridged version of The Odyssey, right up until the end, when I also identified with Telemachus and viewed Odysseus as the esteemable and good father figure I lacked. The chapters in Miller's novel when Odysseus arrives on Aiaia, the romance he shares with the wary and cynical witch Circe has become, felt nice, cozy, fulfilling. All of which made Miller's subsequent deconstruction of that little domestic interlude all the more powerful and eye-opening.
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