READING ROOM:
our pick of the latest books and a Great Read from Madeline Miller
Even though we may not realise it, the ancient Greek myths are embedded in our culture, their tales interwoven in our language and, as US author Madeline Miller has discovered, these dynamic stories of fierce justice and dark emotion still pack a punch. Her first novel, The Song of Achilles, was a New York Times bestseller and with her second tale, Circe, the author has brilliantly tapped into the topical debate around female empowerment with a rollicking page-turner that dazzles at every turn.
Madeline plucks Circe, daughter of the sun god, Helios, from Homer’s The Odyssey, where she’s a nymph who turns into a vengeful sorceress. The novel opens with Circe’s unpromising birth, cast aside by her father. “Her hair is streaked like a lynx. And her chin. There is a sharpness to it that is less than pleasing,” condemns Helios.
The tale is told through Circe’s eyes and we see how she is continually scorned until, as a woman, she comes into her own. Circe discovers she has a gift for pharmakeia – the art of using herbs and spells – and this underpins her power. When she falls in love with a lowly fisherman she transforms him into a god, but instead of being grateful he rejects her for the vain and beautiful Scylla. Bad move! Circe turns Scylla into a sea monster and is promptly banished to an island. But far from fading away, Circe flourishes, setting up her own quasi- kingdom. Her finest moment is when Odysseus sails by her island with his sailors and she turns those who displease her into pigs. “She’s a fascinating figure: at once terrifying and benevolent, and also deeply mysterious,” Madeline tells The Weekly. “How did she start turning men to pigs? She’s the first witch in Western literature. She literally invents her own power.”
Circe is quite the protagonist, her ingenuity breathtaking, her wrath uncompromising. “These myths are timeless, which unfortunately applies to some negative aspects as well, particularly the treatment of women,” explains Madeline. “Centuries later, women are still silenced and abused; kept from power, and those who do find power are distrusted and disliked. I hope this book can be part of the conversation in terms of how far we’ve come, and how far we still need to go.”