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spryngMy pivot to reading more physical books has already had a success: I finished reading Circe (the Madeline Miller one) in less than three weeks.
My read time average for books in the last year has been closer to three months.
This was a book I put on hold at the library because I'd been itching to write a retelling of my own for years, to dip my toes into the ancient Roman and Greek world like I've been threatening to do since I graduated with a Classics degree. I'd put off reading it because, well, there's a certain amount of hype a book can get before that hype turns me off entirely. And knowing what I know now about the publishing industry and the sheer mercurial nature of what gets hyped and what doesn't didn't help.
But, it'd been talked lovingly about by good, dear friends and it is The Classic Myth Retelling right now and...
It's a good book. The author clearly knows her stuff, the language is just flavored enough with typical Homeric turns of phrase without being overburdened, and she wove in enough other myths to both be plausible without going overboard. But also, that's just how myths and stories worked back then (and now) - if there was a connection to be made, there was a bard to exploit it.
It was touted as a feminist retelling and it was that, yes, but thankfully it was so much more. The book started and struggled for me because it beat the drum on and on about how sons were allowed and cherished while daughters were cast aside and forgotten. Yes, but it's 2023 and I've read this story 100 times already.
But then Circe had Telegonus and the book became something else entirely. The struggle and strength of motherhood. Holding up the sky just to see another day. Walking the bottom of the ocean to confront a power older than your immortal father and protect your child.
Oof, yes. Give me more of this.
Then the way Miller tackled the problem of gods, reflected divinity back on itself, the way they take and break mortals. The moments that Circe treasured in a way no god could, that led to her inevitable end and beginning, only to walk the world addressing the small hurts. That there is grandeur in the mundane, in not becoming larger than life. In just, living.
That wasn't the story I expected going in, but it was the story I wanted. And I'm grateful for it.
My read time average for books in the last year has been closer to three months.
This was a book I put on hold at the library because I'd been itching to write a retelling of my own for years, to dip my toes into the ancient Roman and Greek world like I've been threatening to do since I graduated with a Classics degree. I'd put off reading it because, well, there's a certain amount of hype a book can get before that hype turns me off entirely. And knowing what I know now about the publishing industry and the sheer mercurial nature of what gets hyped and what doesn't didn't help.
But, it'd been talked lovingly about by good, dear friends and it is The Classic Myth Retelling right now and...
It's a good book. The author clearly knows her stuff, the language is just flavored enough with typical Homeric turns of phrase without being overburdened, and she wove in enough other myths to both be plausible without going overboard. But also, that's just how myths and stories worked back then (and now) - if there was a connection to be made, there was a bard to exploit it.
It was touted as a feminist retelling and it was that, yes, but thankfully it was so much more. The book started and struggled for me because it beat the drum on and on about how sons were allowed and cherished while daughters were cast aside and forgotten. Yes, but it's 2023 and I've read this story 100 times already.
But then Circe had Telegonus and the book became something else entirely. The struggle and strength of motherhood. Holding up the sky just to see another day. Walking the bottom of the ocean to confront a power older than your immortal father and protect your child.
Oof, yes. Give me more of this.
Then the way Miller tackled the problem of gods, reflected divinity back on itself, the way they take and break mortals. The moments that Circe treasured in a way no god could, that led to her inevitable end and beginning, only to walk the world addressing the small hurts. That there is grandeur in the mundane, in not becoming larger than life. In just, living.
That wasn't the story I expected going in, but it was the story I wanted. And I'm grateful for it.
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Date: 2023-01-04 05:53 pm (UTC)