Circe by Madeline Miller

Circe by Madeline Miller
Published April 2018 by Little, Brown, and Company
Source: my ecopy courtesy of the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review

Publisher's Summary:

In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe is a strange child--not powerful, like her father, nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power--the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves.

Threatened, Zeus banishes her to a deserted island, where she hones her occult craft, tames wild beasts and crosses paths with many of the most famous figures in all of mythology, including the Minotaur, Daedalus and his doomed son Icarus, the murderous Medea, and, of course, wily Odysseus.

But there is danger, too, for a woman who stands alone, and Circe unwittingly draws the wrath of both men and gods, ultimately finding herself pitted against one of the most terrifying and vengeful of the Olympians. To protect what she loves most, Circe must summon all her strength and choose, once and for all, whether she belongs with the gods she is born from, or the mortals she has come to love.

My Thoughts:
A relatively minor character in Homer's The Odyssey, Circe comes into her own in this story that draws on both Homer's work and Greek mythology. Miller has everything you'd expect in a story about gods and witches - terrifying power, horrifying creatures, impressive magic, and even more impressive temper tantrums. In a book that spans hundreds of years, there's a lot of action, a lot of characters to track, and you'll definitely find yourself reacquainting yourself with Greek mythology. All of the is terrific but it's the more human aspects of the story that really make the book shine.

Circe grows up the unloved, black sheep of her family who is constantly told no husband will ever have her. When she falls in love for the first time, her heart is broken. Her revenge goes terribly awry leaving her with a guilt that will not end. Left on her own, Circe, learns to care for and protect herself and turns into a serious badass. Which is a good thing, because her family is not done making her life difficult, there will be more trouble with men, and she will have to go to the ends of the earth for her child. In the end, it's her humanity that is what is most appealing about her - the heartbreak she suffers, the desire to be someone other than who she is, her love for her son, her sorrow. I seriously loved this character.

Kudos for my daughter-in-law (after almost a year, it still seems strange to say that!) for bringing this one to my attention and to NPR for bringing it to her attention some months ago. This is definitely one of my favorite books of the year. And since I'm going to have to buy a copy to pass on to my daughter-in-law, I might just read it again.

Dead Beautiful by Melanie Dugan

Dead Beautiful by Melanie Dugan
Published May 2012 by UpStart Press
Source: my copy courtesy of the author and TLC Book Tours

In the traditional version of the myth, Persephone – the daughter of Demeter, Goddess of agriculture and fertility, and Zeus, the top god on Olympus – is abducted by Hades, God of the Underworld. Demeter, devastated by the loss of her daughter, refuses to do her job until her daughter is returned to her. No crops grow, cold settles on the earth. It turns out that while in Hades, Persephone has eaten six pomegranate seeds. As a result, for six months of the year, she must live with Hades; this is when it is fall and winter on earth. For six months she lives with her mother – then we have spring and summer. Dugan asks the question: what if Persephone wasn't kidnapped at all - what if she chose to go with Hades?

In Dugan's modern retelling of the tale, Persephone is a headstrong teenager who is disenchanted with the idea of life on Olympus, tired of the drama of the other girls her age, and completely smitten with Hades. So smitten that she begins plotting ways to win him over.

Why I Picked This Book: I couldn't resist the opportunity to read a modern take on a well-known myth.

What I Liked About The Book: I liked the idea of the book much more than I liked anything about the finished product. It was interesting to see the ways that Dugan dropped the story into a more current time period. But I was very happy that this was a short book and a quick read.

The Writing:  The story is told from multiple first-person points of view: Persephone, Demeter, Hades, Zeus. It was interesting to see events from multiple points of view but there were just too many points of view for me to enjoy them. I got confused, too, by what time period Dugan was trying to drop the story into - sometimes the gods and their cohorts were clearly in our time period but then there were numerous references to Jesus and how he was stirring things up. One character was a plumber and the methods were certainly hundreds of years old yet the young girls talked like some of the girls my daughter knows. I was never sure what audience Dugan was aiming for either. It felt like a YA novel...sometimes.


What I Didn't Like: I was certain, as I was reading the book, that I was reading a first novel, perhaps by someone who has only just graduated from college. Imagine my surprise to discover that Dugan' is a journalist and this is her third novel. There were grammatical errors, the characters lacked depth, the various voices didn't really sound different to me.

If you check out the full blog tour, you'll discover that I'm pretty much alone in my opinion of this book. Most of the other blogs appear to read and review a lot of YA and maybe that's why, maybe this really is a YA novel. If you're a fan of YA, particularly if you're also a fan of mythology, this might just be a book you'll enjoy.

Mythology Mondays - Joseph Campbell

Every since I started thinking about doing Mythology Mondays, I've been wondering what happened to a particular book that my husband bought years ago. For a while I couldn't even remember the name of it. Finally I recalled that it was Joseph Campbell's The Power of Myth. But where the heck was it? Finally this weekend I recalled that it was in a stack of books that's been the display vase for a lovely piece of pottery.

Joseph Campbell (March 26, 1904 – October 30, 1987) is best known for his work in comparative mythology. In his monomyth concept, Campbell talked about  the idea that "the whole of the human race could be seen as reciting a single story of great spiritual importance. Over time, the story evolved based on the culture in which it was being told, taking on different masks based on societal structures and necessities.

Campbell felt that myths served four purposes:

1. Metaphysical: awakening a sense of awe before the mystery of being.

2. Cosmological: explaining the shape of the universe.

3. Sociological: supporting the existing social order

4. Psychological: guide the individual through life.

Ouch, my head is already starting to hurt. Maybe I'm not going to be up to reading this book after all! Oh, but wait. This book is "with Bill Moyers," respected and beloved journalist. The entire book is a conversation between Moyers and Campbell. Surely Moyers will make Campbell explain his theories in such a way that I can understand what he's saying without having to work too hard. And just maybe I'll even be able to explain to you what I've read as I go along.

To be continued....

Mythology Mondays - The Goddess of Healing

You may already have noticed that I haven't been around as much in the past week, not posting, not visiting blogs, not on Twitter. We've had some rather bad news this past week that will probably mean that I will continue to be online much less than I have been. I'll still be reading your blogs as much as possible and working to keep up with review obligations. Beyond that, I don't know how much I'll get to talk to everyone.That being said, this week I've been looking into the gods and goddesses of healing, of which all cultures seem to have one.

For the Greeks, that goddess is Aceso, the daughter of Epione and Asclepius (who, as one site said, was the main healer dude). Her sisters Hygeia and Panaceia.Asclepius was the god of healing and medicine. The rod of Asclepius, a snake-entwined staff is still the symbol of medicine to this day. The Greeks had a number of other gods that also held among their powers healing. Asclepius' Roman counterpart was Vejovis. Angitia was one of the Roman goddess of healing. If you look at both the Greek and Roman gods and goddesses associated in any way with healing, you'll note that most of the names are closely related to current medical terms.
 
In Celtic mythology, the goddess of healing is Brigid. She was also the goddess of fire, poetry and unity. Apparently the Celtics didn't have as many gods; they had to do double duty? She was said to be the daughter of Dagda, the great father-god of Ireland. Dian Cecht was Brigid's male counterpart.

Mesopotamians worshiped Nintinugga, goddess of healing and and Ninazu, god of healing. The Hindu twin gods of medicine were Ashvins. For the Egyptians, it was Bast, whose totem was the cat, and whose image you are probably familiar with.

Once again, I'm surprised, although I don't know why, that there were so many other cultures with such active systems of gods and goddesses. Given what I learned last week about mythology, it's only natural that peoples all of the world would have turned to myths, gods and goddesses to explain the world around them.

Mythology Mondays - What Exactly Is A Myth?

It's been a while since I had time for Mythology Monday and when I was contemplating what I might do this week, I occurred to me that I wasn't sure exactly what constitutes a myth. According to dictionary.com a myth is:

"a traditional or legendary story, usually concerning some being or hero or event, with or without a determinable basis of fact or a natural explanation, especially one that is concerned with deities or demigods and explains some practice, rite, or phenomenon of nature."

Some peoples came to see their own mythology as "true" stories whereas fables were considered to be fiction. A Greek mythologist, Euhemerus, who lived about 1700 years ago, first put out the idea that myths were based on actual events and people. According to Euhemerus, as these stories were based down, they were embellished until the characters become god-like beings. Whether or not the stories have any basis in reality, it's easy to see why people would have created these stories to explain things for which there was no other explanation.

Another theory is that myths have their basis in allegory, particularly for natural phenomenon or spiritual concepts. Yet another theory contends that myths were the result of "personification of inanimate objects and forces." 


Regardless of how "myth" is defined or what their genesis was, they make wonderful stories that have clearly stood the test of time. What do Shakespeare and George Clooney have in common? Mythology. Shakespeare borrowed heavily from Greek mythology in writing him plays. Clooney starred in "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" which was based on The Odyssey.