strange and random happenstance: Odysseus

I was never into Greek Myths. They either get you at a young age or you're immune, kind of like ponies. I wasn't a horse girl either. And I sure as hell wasn't Rory and Paris spending their Spring Break in a Florida motel watching Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth. Every few years I think to myself, maybe I should give the Odyssey a second chance. Only to very quickly remember how much I hate Odysseus. And if there was any show that would finally change my mind about Greek Mythology I can safely say that this was not it. The problem is that Percy Jackson and the Olympians wrongly assumes that their audience knows all the Greek Myths and would know who everyone was and what was going on from the start. You know what they say about making assumptions? Well, I don't like being made to feel like an ass. This first season, because, yes, they bafflingly renewed it, only has eight episodes in it and it wasn't until Edge showed up and did a big infodump in episode five that I actually was able to kind of figure out what was going on. And while I'm not a fan of the infodump, Edge as Ares delivers it so perfectly, so insouciantly, that I can't help but love it, even if the arrival of the information is too little too late. Edge, or should I say Adam Copeland, is one of the reasons I turned into this show. The children are nobodies, and Walker Scobell as Percy is the most punchable lead ever unless you factor in the actor playing Percy when he was younger, because Azriel Dalman has made me a hater for life, but the adults, good gods damn, they're a stacked cast; Toby Stephens, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Timothy Omundson, Megan Mullally, Jason Mantzoukas, Jessica Parker Kennedy, Suzanne Cryer, Jay Duplass, and Lance Reddick! But I felt like it was a bait and switch. Our hero's father is Toby Stephens and you get to see him exactly twice in this show. No more, no less, and yes, it will break your heart. Perhaps they're trying to put us in Percy's shoes with how he feels about not having his father in his life, but he never knew his father was Toby Stephens and those of us who did now feel cheated. And also have a desperate need to rewatch Jane Eyre or Black Sails, hell, I'd even rewatch The Camomile Lawn! And I know I'm not the target demographic, I was just hoping I'd enjoy it. And yes, sometimes there's occasionally a really great music choice that made me laugh, but guest stars and jokes that will go over most people's heads like Lin-Manuel Miranda humming the theme to Arthur shouldn't be the only things you like about the show. You shouldn't sit down and think, you know, these end credits really are the strongest part of this series. And yet, that's what I thought after every episode. Because if someone asked me right now what exactly happened in this show I would in no way be able to tell them. But if someone asked me to describe the end credits, I would be waxing lyrical about their WPA mural roots and how perfect they are. Dammit, now I want to go watch the end credits again. Especially because I do love Bear McCreary... OK, that's settled, off to watch the credits and ignore the amazing guest stars they have lined up for season two. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, I will come for you.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments

Labels: Adam Copeland, And the Emmy Goes To, Edge, Gilmore Girls, Greek Mythology, Infodump, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Odysseus, Odyssey, Percy Jackson, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Timothy Omundson, Toby Stephens, WPA

Circe by Madeline Miller
Published by: Little, Brown and Company
Publication Date: April 10th, 2018
Format: Hardcover, 393 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy

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.