Circe by Madeline Miller - 2018 - 338 pages

 

Circe by Madeline Miller - 2018 - 338 pages

An International Bestseller 

In September of last year I read The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller.  I, along with everyone, loved this retelling of a story from Homer.

The Song of Achilles is a retelling of the story line drawn from the Iliad,from the point of view of Patroclus.  Patroclus and Achilles meet when they are in their early teens.  Patroclus had been sent as a punishment for an accidental killing to the Kingdom of the father of Achilles. Achilles is the son of King 

Peleus and a sea nymph, Thetis. When his mother sees Achilles developing  feelings  for a mere mortal boy she with out success tries to end the.  Achilles was prophesied to be the greatest warrior of the Greeks, remembered forever.

In the Odyssey Circe is a minor character, famous for turning men into pigs.  In this marvelous book, we follow her through thousands of years.

Circe’s father is Helios, God of the Sun, one of the Titans.  Her mother is a nymph with alluring powers based on her beauty.  Circe is a strange child, turning mortals for companionship.  She learns she can through witchcraft turn rivals into monsters and can even threaten the Gods.

For disobedience Zeus banishes her to a remote island.  Here she will sharpen her crafts and encounter legendary figures from ancient mythology including the Minotaur, Daedalus and his doomed son Icarus, the murderous Medea, and, of course, Odysseus.

Circe has a son by Odysseus.  The Goddess of War and Wisdom Athena demands he be given to her to be killed least he do something terrible in the future.  Circe summons all her powers to protect her son, casting a spell over the island.  As the years go by her son learns Odysseus is his father and builds a boat to go to Ithaca.  Penelope and her son importantly enter the plot.

There all sorts of exciting and often terrible scenes of the harm vengeful and petty Gods and supernatural creatures do to mortals.  As I read on I was kept in suspense wondering what else can happen?

At the close of the books there are lists of figures in the book and a reader’s guide.

Madeline Miller grew up in New York City and Philadelphia. She attended Brown University, where she earned her BA and MA in Classics. She has taught and tutored Latin, Greek, and Shakespeare to high school students for over fifteen years.

She has also studied at the University of Chicago’s Committee on Social Thought, and in the Dramaturgy department at Yale School of Drama, where she focused on the adaptation of classical texts to modern forms.

The Song of Achilles, her first novel, was awarded the 2012 Orange Prize for Fiction and was a New York Times Bestseller. Miller was also shortlisted for the 2012 Stonewall Writer of the Year. Her second novel, Circe, was an instant number 1 New York Times bestseller, and won the Indies Choice Best Adult Fiction of the Year Award and the Indies Choice Best Audiobook of the Year Award, as well as being shortlisted for the 2019 Women's Prize for Fiction. Circe also won The Red Tentacle Award, an American Library Association Alex Award (adult books of special interest to teen readers), and the 2018 Elle Big Book Award.  It is currently being adapted for a series with HBO Max. Miller's novels have been translated into over twenty-five languages including Dutch, Mandarin, Japanese, Turkish, Arabic and Greek, and her essays have appeared in a number of publications including the Guardian, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Telegraph, Lapham's Quarterly and NPR.org. She currently lives outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.” From http://madelinemiller.com/

I hope so much she will give us a third novel soon.

Mel ulm