Book Review - Madeline Miller's Circe
Circe by Madeline Miller
Published by: Little, Brown and Company
Publication Date: April 10th, 2018
Format: Hardcover, 393 Pages
Rating: ★★
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Circe's family is divine. Her one companion is her brother, Aeëtes, who is also shunned by their mother. But soon Circe is alone, Aeëtes sent far away, just like all her other siblings. In despair she falls for a mortal, Glaucos. Knowing that she can never have a life with a mortal she begs her grandmother to transform her love into a god. Her grandmother can not help. So Circe uses a secret her brother Aeëtes found and transforms her love using pharmaka. He is welcomed into the family with open arms but he is married off to Scylla, not Circe. Circe once again uses pharmaka and transforms Scylla into a monster. Her own father, Helios, doesn't believe that Circe is that powerful. But Aeëtes does. He tells their father that he and his sister are pharmakis. Witches. Due to willingly searching out pharmaka, which are magical herbs that grow from blood spilled when the Titans and Olympians battled, Circe is exiled to the island of Aiaia. There she hones her craft and luxuriates in the freedom of exile. No longer alone among her family but alone with herself. Though Hermes brings her distressing news, Scylla is the terror of the seas. When the opportunity arises to leave her island she tries to stop Scylla but just sees the horror she has wrought. More horror awaits her as she acts as midwife to her sister who births the Minotaur. Returning to Aiaia she is lonelier than ever, though family occasionally pass through. Always with demands. But at least they don't pose the danger of man. The captain of a lost ship rapes her. She starts taking the precaution of turning all sailors into pigs. But Odysseus is different. He's smart and witty and a born storyteller. When he finally departs she is pregnant with his child, Telegonus. She hides him away for years and years until he builds himself a boat and goes and kills his father. Accidentally. When he returns home he brings with him Odysseus' wife, Penelope, and her son, Telemachus, seeking her protection. But perhaps her island isn't a refuge but a crutch. A place to hide from the world. Now, perhaps, with Telemachus by her side, she might see the world.
Every once in awhile I have this almost uncontrollable urge to read Homer. In recent years this is because Tasha Alexander's wondrous creation, Lady Emily, is always espousing reading him. In the original Greek. And if there's one person in life that it wouldn't be bad to emulate, it's Lady Emily. She's smart, witty, and well educated. Something we all wish we were. This is one of the reasons I was so excited to read Circe. Here I could dip my toe back in the Aegean while getting to see Odysseus through the female gaze. And while I wasn't the member of my book club who mentally checked out as soon as there were people with blue skin, I quickly remembered why I don't read Homer. I hate Odysseus. With a passion. I don't know what makes me forget this information and then keep trying to reread the Odyssey, but it's a hate the likes of which Mrs. White would sympathize. I read the Odyssey in freshman English and I detested it. Odysseus is just everything wrong with men. I just can't with him. The first time I fooled myself into thinking that I couldn't have hated the Odyssey as much as I thought was when NBC did a prestige miniseries in 1997 staring Armand Assante and Greta Scacchi. The real reason I was interested in it is because Jim Henson's Creature Shop did the special effects but that's just extraneous information. I didn't make it through the miniseries. I don't think I even made it through part one. And Odysseus is the reason I didn't like Circe. This isn't her story. It's his. And his. And his. And his. There is no insight into her unless you call a woman's entire life being formed around the men in it revolutionary, well, then I guess that's an insight, but personally I'd say, welcome to womanhood... Especially around 12th or 13th century BCE. I just can't understand why people are saying this is such a powerful and feminist book. Did we read the same book? Because her life is blighted by men and in the end she sacrifices everything for a man and it's never about her it's about them. This is just the Odyssey from another point of view without any depth. I don't care if there are blue skinned people, I don't care if Odysseus had to make a cameo, I do care that this is being praised as revolutionary writing when it's just the same old thing. This could have been something. But it wasn't. Stop deluding yourself that it was.
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