Gifts from the goddesses

CONTEMPORARY RETELLINGS OF GREEK MYTHS OFFER FRESH PERSPECTIVES ON THE CLASSICS – WORTHY OF A PLACE IN THE MOST MODERN OF READERS’ HOLIDAY PILE

Perhaps your first encounter with Greek myths was with a giant wooden horse, or maybe watching the 1963 adventure classic Jason and the Argonauts one rainy Sunday. The first one I learned was Theseus and the Minotaur in primary school. Theseus used string to escape the Minotaur’s deadly labyrinth; we twisted string to create our own versions. We don’t need to have read Homer to recognise the stories from the Odyssey and the Iliad. But there’s a new influx of mythical literature hitting the shelves. The likes of Circe – the tale of a witch so powerful that even the gods feared her – and Pat Barker’s The Silence of the Girls, which shifts the focus of the Battle of Troy to share a female voice, feature heavily on reading recommendation lists, offering a new, feminist viewpoint on these seemingly well-worn tales.

Mythical retellings can feel like historical novels with sprawling family trees, or the Marvel Universe, each one like a puzzle piece of a bigger picture, and you certainly don’t need a classics degree to enjoy them. In her introduction to Greek Myths: A New Retelling, Charlotte Higgins explains their enduring popularity: “Greek myths remain true for us because they excavate the very extremes of human experience: sudden, inexplicable catastrophe; radical reversals of fortune; seemingly arbitrary events that transform lives.” Every facet of human nature is shared in those tales, and it makes for captivating stories.

The new retellings also teach us more about ourselves. A story that is compelling but familiar