I absolutely loved The Song of Achilles. It was incredibly moving and I was surprised how much it changed my view of a hero I basically considered a tool bag (Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida and Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Firebrand may have helped shape that interpretations). I think at least part of the power was because I didn’t not expect to be so moved by a character that often could easily be reduced to warrior with a huge ego. Circe, on the other hand, was a […]
This book only gets better the more I think about it.
This was so good, it made me cry. I’m still crying right now as I type this! Bawling like a little baby. And not because I’m sad! Just because it was perfect and I have all these feelings and they are leaking out of me without my permission. (Okay, some of those feelings are sadness.) I need to buy this book, and I need to buy it in hardcover (the endpapers are so pretty, and the deckled edges make me happy), and I need to […]
A Woman Finding Her True Power and Worth
Madeline Miller has such a knack for taking characters and legends that we may already know some about, but then delving much deeper into them, allowing us to see a whole other side to the story and person within. There is a particular beauty here in what she does to the story of Circe, giving a minor passing character from a well-known story of another, and giving her the spotlight to show us there is so much more to her story than that of a […]
An Epic About Resistance
Circe is a fascinating and creative imagining of the life of Circe, a character mentioned in The Odyssey as one of Odysseus’ lovers on his travels from the Trojan War back home. In The Odyssey, Circe is a witch who turns Odysseus’ men into pigs but is then herself bested and tamed by Odysseus (with help from Hermes). In Circe, when Circe hears how the bards sing of her, she thinks, Humbling women seems to me a chief pastime of poets. As if there can […]