Readers of
Greek mythology know Circe as the sorceress who waylaid Odysseus as he sailed
home to Ithaca after the Trojan War.
Odysseus came to rescue his men whom she had transformed into pigs and
ended up staying with her for a year.
This book is a modern feminist retelling and embellishment of Circe’s
life.
Circe’s
childhood is detailed. She is the
daughter of Helios who has no time for his daughter whom he describes
dismissively when she is born: “’Her
hair is streaked like a lynx. And her
chin. There is a sharpness to it that is
less than pleasing.’” She tries
desperately to get her father’s love and acceptance but Helios has no time for
her and neither do her mother or siblings who bully her, so her life is full of
“dull miseries.” She falls in love with
a mortal and thoughtlessly lashes out at a rival: “I did it for pride and vain delusion.” This impulsive act leads to her being exiled
on an island, though she does not live in total isolation because she
encounters several famous figures from mythology: the Minotaur, Daedalus, Medea, Jason,
Odysseus and others, both mortal and immortal.
In this
telling, Circe is neither an irresistible seductress nor an evil
sorceress. She is a neglected and
emotionally abused minor immortal who initially behaves like her childhood role
models, Titans and Olympians, who “find their fame by proving what they can
mar: destroying cities, starting wars,
breeding plagues and monsters.” Once
sent into exile, she has time to reflect on her actions and their consequences,
especially for mortals who have always fascinated her. Gradually she learns to stand up for herself,
and once she becomes a mother, she learns to fight to protect her family. She tries to atone for the impulsive act that
had such dire consequences for so many.
As she matures, she becomes more and more sympathetic to the
reader.
It is not
just in its portrayal of Circe that this book excels. Other mythological figures emerge as
full-fledged characters, Odysseus being one of the most noteworthy. There is much of Tennyson’s “Ulysses” in the
portrayal: “But back home in Ithaca,
there would be no such fractious heroes, no councils, no midnight raids, no
desperate stratagems that he must devise or men would die. And how would such a man go home again, to
his fireside and his olives?” Miller
develops Odysseus in such depth that he emerges as totally realistic. Even monsters are shown to be victims, so though
their savagery may not be forgivable, it at least has a context.
The book
uses the gods to show how power can be abused.
Circe’s mother, like most immortals, sees humans “like savage bags of rotten flesh”, and “Olympians spend their days
[thinking] of ways of making men miserable” because miserable men give better
offerings. Humans are at the total mercy
of the gods; even Circe, an immortal, realizes she is a pawn: “Every moment of my peace was a lie, for it
came only at the gods’ pleasure. No matter
what I did, how long I lived, at a whim they would be able to reach down and do
with me what they wished.”
Despite their
disadvantages, mortals, Circe decides, are admirable; they find fame “Through
practice and diligence, tending their skills like gardens until they glowed
beneath the sun.” Unfortunately, “No
matter how vivid they were in life, no matter how brilliant, no matter the
wonders they made, they came to dust and smoke.
Meanwhile every petty and useless god would go on sucking down the
bright air until the stars went dark.” In
the end, she concludes that gods are actually dead: “I thought once that gods are the opposite of
death, but I see now they are more dead than anything, for they are unchanging,
and can hold nothing in their hands.”
Though the
book tells an ancient tale, it is relevant to our time with its #MeToo
Movement. Circe observes that daughters
are often disciplined but “Sons were not punished.” When a nymph is raped, she thinks, “I am only
a nymph after all, for nothing is more common among us than this.” Circe describes the behaviour of men towards
her as she grew up: “My uncles’ eyes
used to crawl over me as I poured their wine.
Their hands found their way to my flesh.
A pinch, a stroke, a hand slipping under the sleeve of my dress. They all had wives, it was not marriage they
thought of. One of them would have come
for me in the end and paid my father well.
Honor on all sides.” She also comments,
“Humbling women seems to me a chief pastime of poets. As if there can be no story unless we crawl
and weep.” By finding her voice and strength,
Circe becomes empowered.
This is a
thoroughly enjoyable read. Perhaps
Circe’s final spell is successful because she emerges humanized.
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