BOOK REVIEW: Daughters Of Sparta, The Penelopiad, Circe
Feminist retellings of Greek mythology are the new black!
Why are they called the Trojan War and the Trojan Horse? The Greeks brought the war to Troy. The horse was theirs and filled with them. Why was even Helen called ‘of Troy’ when she was born Greek, in Sparta and returned there after just a decade in war-stricken Troy? Because winners write history. Wars don’t happen by invitation but by force. People who carry violence to another place create the war. The stories present the winners as heroes overpowering all else. This includes the areas and the trophies. And in ancient Greece, women were no more than objects. It’s ripe for feminist thought.
Mythology has always been an interesting way to think about human identity, interpersonal conflicts and politics. I believe that stories begin as a way for us to learn about ourselves, to teach it to future generations and for all of us to collectively think about what it means to be human.
Yet, religion has weaponised stories in my part of the world. So it doesn’t feel safe for me to explore such fundamental questions of my own identity with the tools of my own culture’s mythos. Greek mythology provides ample fodder, given that it’s available in languages I know. There’s an interesting upsurge in current literature, perhaps in keeping with late 2010s wokeness – the rise of popular feminist retellings of Greek mythology. If you’re new to the worlds of Zeus, Heracles & Icarus, this would be a great time to jump in. Between pages, we are in the age of fierce queens, resilient daughters, unapologetic lovers and astute leaders – all women in ancient Grecian garb.
If like me, you’ve found joy even in the male-dominated stories of Greek mythos, this will come as a real delight to you. Even if you think you know the stories already, read on because you may never quite have thought about them from these points of view. Feminist perspective quite changes the story or at least what we think of as the point of the story.
I’ve spent the last six months enjoying several different authors’ tellings of the most famous Greek war epic. Stories heralded not by Achilles, Odysseus, Menelaus or Paris but by Circe, Klytemnestra, Helen, Media, Ariadne, Cassandra, Penelope and Elektra. They’re not archetypes but real, feeling, thinking women. It’s exhilarating to experience their stories as if they were people, rather than trophies. Reading these has led me to so much insight. Women and how we think about each other. Our big feelings. Our big selves.
Here are some of the best of the books I’ve read:
Daughters of Sparta by Claire Heywood
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is my third book on women living through the Greece-Troy war. It was better than Elektra but not as good as Circe. The writing was modern, which was jarring during the dialogues. I wasn’t imagining women in Grecian gowns asking ‘Do you mind watching the child? I have some business to attend to.’ It was also a modern perspective on a historical story. It was hard to imagine women bred in such deep patriarchy forming such contemporary expectations. But context informs politics.
I enjoyed a closer look into Helen’s story from her perspective. So much is made of the famed beauty that launched 10,000 ships. But we never hear from the woman in whose name an epic war was fought. It was a saddening view of course. The objectification begins when Helen is but a child. Assaulted as a child by a visiting prince, caged as a delicate virginity-holder by her family, traded as a power token to male monarchy, stolen as a prize, and fought over as a spoil of war. Helen has no time to realise her identity before another man hijacks it.
Even her sister Klytemnestra gets a little more room to explore her own identity, albeit driven by purposes set by men. She’s slated to be the heir and bred to care for her kingdom, family included. A predator throws the family in peril. They marry Klytemnestra off to a stranger and she never sees her family or kingdom again. She tries to establish her role in her new home but thwarted by her power-hungry husband.
After he goes off to cause a decade-long war, she weathers profound grief, loss, rage, and fear. She makes hard decisions about life, ruling and death – picking up the tatters of the world left behind by the men and holding it together into a coherent life.
Because the previous two books I read examined other women like Penelope and Kassandra, it was easier to take a more feminist view of the story of the war. Between these three, I was able to see how the women endured lives they had so little control over, the actions they took with the measly exposure they had and their epic loves, hatreds and feelings despite their lives limited by the cruel men around them.
The current trend of feminist retellings of Greek myths is entertaining as hell. But it’s also a pretty great way to rethink history (mythology) through the completely unseen lens of those who lost – the women, every time. And the fact that their version of the stories was no less heroic or magnificent.
The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Feminist retellings of Greek mythology are all the rage. And the women of the Sparta-Troy war provide ample fodder. Helen is the biggest star, of course, but Klytemnestra has been having a resurgence of popularity with her reinvention as a militant, unapologetic warrior rather than an unfaithful schemer. Penelope features in the backdrop of all these narratives by other writers as a kind of third archetype of womanhood – Helen the glamourpuss, Clytemnestra the jealous schemer and Penelope the devoted wife.
The previous such books I’ve read had tones ranging from wrathful to passionate. But Margaret Atwood brings a dry wit to her imagining of Penelope. The novel narrates like a play but not quite tragic enough to be Greek. We meet Penelope in the afterlife and she is matter-of-fact and brisk about her living self. She intersperses memories with funny private observations about now-dead characters who feature in the myths we know so well – Helen, the Suitors.
There are also frequent interjections in song by the slaves, not only as witnesses to the saga but also curiously obsequious. All the while, Penelope tells us about the independent humour that she has nurtured in these slaves. One feels like one is in on a joke about the foibles of the men, the Suitors, Telemachus and Odysseus.
This tongue-in-cheek humour sets Atwood’s work very much ahead of the current fashion (even if it is decades older). Fun read, and that’s not a descriptor one easily applies to Greek mythology or for that matter Penelope herself.
Circe by Madeline Miller
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Everything I’ve read about Greek mythology was written by men and it shows when I read Circe by Madeline Miller. Terms like ‘enchantress’, ‘sorceress’ and even ‘nymph’ and ‘siren’ have been contextualised as bad female characters. I now know that the word witch merely described a woman skilled in healing herbs and potions.
The associations of witchcraft with evil came with Christianity and its single male foci of power. Womanhood itself came under fire for existing as an independent aspect of humanity. Notice how the activities traditionally associated with women like cooking, gardening, foraging, weaving and stitching started to be seen as suspicious. Thus kitchen activities suddenly became evil potion brewing, and loomwork became spellwork. All forms of mindful regard and peaceful coexistence with nature shaped a threat to the patriarchal system of control of people’s minds and bodies. And with that began the distinctions between women and men. This excused and even lauded men while blaming women for the same actions.
I wasn’t as familiar with the story of Circe but I remember references to her in the tales of Jason & the Golden Fleece. Other characters who appear as background in the stories of great Greek heroes like Medea, Ariadne and Penelope (interestingly all women) feature in this book. Except this book turns the gender tables. Men who’ve carried the glory of Greek mythology like Helios, Apollo, Hermes, Achilles, Jason, Zeus and Odysseus appear but as disruptions and goalposts in this story. And there are several other ways in which women tell stories differently from men.
All the Greek myths I’ve heard feature a single shining ideal with everyone else a mere satellite around him (because it’s always a man). Jason & the golden fleece. The wings of Daedalus & Icarus. Agamemnon & Hector. The Odessey described one man’s captainship. The Trojan Horse episode with men covering each other in guts & glory in the name of a woman.
The story weaves around the lives of several women with Circe at its centre. The book traces the entire journey of Circe from her birth to the end of her existence as she has known it. Along the way, it also lets us explore the backstory of Scylla the sea monster. We get a peek into the hard, cynical beauty of Pasiphae who mated with a bull and birthed the Minotaur. We’re given pause to respect the weaponisation of patience by Penelope. And we are charmed by the guileless love of young girls like Ariadne, Medea and even Circe herself. Men writing about men are rarely this generous about multiple characters.
At the same time, the story also nourishes our understanding of Helios, Odysseus, Daedalus, Hermes and others from an alternate point of view – the way their heroics and theatrics appear to the women whose lives they barter and toy with. There is contempt laced with affection, such as one might have for those who are our captors as well as our wards.
Not to say that the book is devoid of the gore of the most popular Greek myths. Except these are battles fought within the self, of jealousy, suspicion, fear, rage and more. Circe is best known for turning men into pigs. But in this telling, we see the reasons a woman would take such an action. Remember too, that her story is set in a world of brutal violence that is celebrated as long as it’s a man drawing a sword.
Madeline Miller’s previous book The Song of Achilles is an account of the Trojan War and contains gruesome descriptions of murder plots and brutal rapes. Circe doesn’t revel in the brutality of eviscerating those who have harmed her. She turns them into tame domestic creatures that live in her island haven.
There are two major conflict situations described in the book, where Circe faces down different beings with much more power than herself. The first is inspired by deep love and it moves her opponent too. The second is driven by a fundamental compassion which shows in every minute that she fights a monster of her own making. Where do we find lessons of love, healing and humanity in stories of glory and valour? Only when they’re driven by a woman.
Stories of Greek mythology often seem to revel in debauchery and sex as conquests of women (Hades’ abduction of Persephone, Paris & Helen, Zeus’s many conquests). In Circe, sex happens in every version from rape to lovemaking to power plays to casual pleasures.
We are given to consider how women feel about sex – not just what they are having (and what is forced upon them) but also how they feel about other people’s sex, sometimes with their lovers or with their children. We explore the gamut of sexual jealousy and rivalry, flirtation and wooing, trauma and revenge through the lens of sex. And it never gets either graphic or sleazy. How about that for what we thought was an ultra-modern feminist take?
The one new thing for me about this book was how it caused me to think differently about motherhood. This is a primal, ancient world where loyalties are shaky, lives themselves are precarious and power is constantly shifting. Parents seem to have little to no attachment to their offspring since they may be of different species and always, could be their downfall (starting right from Zeus and Kronos). Fathers treat their offspring as resources and pawns to further their personal power and glory. Daughters to be bartered out for wealth, sons to be shaped into personal armies. We see men only being absent fathers.
But we see a lot of different kinds of mothers. Cruel mothers indifferent to their plain-faced daughters. Substitute mothers hoping to curry favour with the powers that be, as a source of misplaced affection. Ambitious mothers birthing offspring like weapons of mass destruction. Pragmatic mothers ally with their sons to manage empires. Desperate mothers cling to their children as their sole reason for existence. Pregnancy brings up physiological changes that drive motherhood’s obsessions and loyalties. And when the world is such a hostile, dangerous place, it is interesting to see how different women employ the lot they’ve been given.
All in all, this may be the best book I’ve read in years.