The Penelopiad | Margaret Atwood #Novella

 

Independent Scottish publisher Canongate Books brings together some of the world’s finest writers, in the Myth series, each of whom has retold a myth from various cultures in a contemporary and memorable way. The project was conceived in 1999 by Jamie Byng, owner of Canongate, who hopes that 100 titles will eventually be published in the series.

Authors in the series include Karen Armstrong (A Short History of Myth), A.S. Byatt (Ragnarok), David Grossman (Lion's Honey), Natsuo Kirino (The Goddess Chronicle), Alexander McCall Smith (Dream Angus), Philip Pullman (The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ), Ali Smith (Girl Meets Boy), Michel Faber (The Fire Gospel), Victor Pelevin (The Helmet of Horror), Jeanette Winterson (The Weight), Su Tong (Binu and the Great Wall), Milton Hatoum (Orphans of Eldorado), Klas Östergren (The Hurricane Party), Dubravka Ugrešić (Baba Laid an Egg), Salley Vickers (Where Three Roads Meet), and of course, Margaret Atwood with The Penelopiad.

The Penelopiad was one of the first books published in this series, in 2005. Simply put, it's the story of Penelope as she waits for the return of Odysseus. But this is Margaret Atwood at her best, so much, much more is going on once you enter this world.

Penelope is dead and 'living' out her time in the underworld. From this place of eternal wandering, she decides to do some story-telling of her own, to set the story straight. Her story is interwoven with the voices of her very own Greek chorus - the twelve maids hanged by Odysseus on his return.

Our various mothers | Spawned merely, lambed, farrowed, littered, | Foaled, whelped and kittened, brooded, | hatched out their clutch. | We were animal young, to be disposed of at | will, | Sold, drowned in the well, traded, used, | discarded when bloomless. | He was fathered; we simply appeared 

Why were they hanged? What crime did they commit? What was Penelope's role in their downfall?

Atwood teases out these questions as she explores the roles of women in Ancient Greek life (and the many similarities to modern life) in verse and in prose. 

I was a kind girl...I knew I would have to have something to offer instead of beauty. I was clever, everyone said so...but cleverness is a quality a man likes to have in his wife as long as she is some distance away from him. Up close, he'll take kindness and day of the week, if there's nothing more alluring to be had.

The role of patience, waiting and the appearance of submission hide the reality of women's lives lived away from the male gaze. The friendship and jealousy, the camaraderie and gossip that makes up one's daily life, when one has nothing else to do.

There are many misunderstandings and many conversations misconstrued. Stories and myths are created to cover up deceit and misadventures. Where the truth lies, nobody really knows. Not even Penelope, in the end. Or the maids. All they know is that they were murdered and that their 'most pitiable end' has gone down in history unremarked and uncontested.

It pays to be conversant with The Iliad and The Odyssey, to appreciate where Atwood has used original narrative or woven in her own interpretation. Every word is wrought with an older meaning which leads back to the original stories. However the snarky, sardonic voice is pure Atwood!

I loved every minute with this novella and I plan to reread it at some point (maybe when I finally get around to reading Emily Wilson's translation of The Odyssey).

First Lines: 

• 'Now that I am dead I know everything. This is what I wished would happen, but like so many of my wishes it failed to come true.'

Favourite Quote:

We had no voice,
We had no name,
We had no choice,
We had one face,
One face the same

Have you read any of the other Myth series books?

Can you recommend which one I should try next?

I'm leaning towards Jeanette Winterson and A. S. Byatt at this point.

#NovellasinNovember

#MARM2020

The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker

I've had a lovely run of Homeric stories retold from a feminist perspective this year - Madeline Miller's Circe and The Song of Achilles, and now Pat Barker's The Silence of the Girls.

After Miller's wonderful, rich storytelling, I was looking forward to seeing what Barker would come up. I was thrilled that her story was going to be told from Briseis' point of view, as I enjoyed the brief glimpse that Miller gave me into a possible story for her in The Song of Achilles.

Briseis, the wife of the King of Lyrnessus, Mynes is one of the women and girls captured as spoils of the Trojan war. She is given to Achilles as a war trophy, but becomes a disputed object between Achilles and Agememnon which leads the reader into the central crisis in Homer's The Iliad.

Barker doesn't shy away from the sexual nature of these transactions. The women and girls knew they were going to be enslaved, raped and abused. Knowing this, I'm not sure why more of them didn't leap from the top of the tower, like Barker described two young women doing early on, as the Greeks crashed through the front gate.

Maybe there wasn't that much difference between their husbands and their new masters? Or perhaps the violence wasn't as horrific as I imagined and Barker suggested? Maybe a form of love or tenderness bloomed between master and subject? Perhaps the Greeks were looking for the comforts of home not more violence?

We will never really know, which is why I'm so fascinated by these modern retellings.

However, in the end, Barker's was a fairly straight version of events as originally told in The Iliad.

I enjoyed the first person narrative of Briseis, but found the occasional third person narrative from Achilles point of view very clunky. There only worth was to highlight just how objectified the women in the camp were to the men. They were sexual objects for barter and to show off. Barker showed these men as being unable to remember the names of the women that they took to their beds on a regular basis, dismissing their words, their presence and their humanity.

I also struggled with the language. Barker's writing style abounded in cliches with her characters often behaving in implausible ways. The dialogue in particular was banal and didn't seem to lead anywhere or show anything. I was disappointed to say the least.

So for now, this ends my run of Homeric retellings with a feminist twist. I still have Margaret Atwood's The Penelopiad to look forward to one day and Gareth Hinds graphic novel adaptation of The Iliad on my TBR pile...maybe the next readathon?

Favourite Quote: I didn't underline one single phrase or sentence.

Favourite or Forget: Forgettable.

Facts:

• Costa Novel Award 2018 Shortlist
• Women’s Prize for Fiction 2019 Shortlist
• Longlisted for the 2020 International Dublin Literary Award.

9/20 Books of Summer Winter
Sydney 19℃
Dublin 18℃

Circe by Madeline Miller

I recently read and loved The Song of Achilles, and couldn't really understand why I had waited so long to read a book that was so obviously designed to appeal to my reading temperament. Ancient Greek mythology, historical fiction, women's issues and award winning book all packed into one delightful package.

I was determined not to make the same mistake with Madeline Miller's second book, Circe.

Eight years in the making, for the early fans of The Song of Achilles, Circe would have definitely been worth the wait. I discovered a rich, engrossing, fabulous ride into the Ancient Greek world of gods, goddesses, nymphs and legends all told from the perspective of the daughter of the sun god Helios and the ocean nymph, Perse.

Circe, the nymph of potions and herbs, has long fascinated me thanks to a visually stunning painting by J. W. Waterhouse that I spotted in one of my early visits to the Art Gallery of NSW gift shop. A print of Circe Invidiosa has been hanging on my wall ever since.

I love the colour of the liquid in the bowl as it flows into the sea (that I now know was used to turn the beautiful naiad, Scylla into an ugly, deadly monster) and I love the look of incredible intent and purpose on Circe's face. This is a woman who will not be crossed or deterred from her course. Beauty and power, good and bad reside in her actions. I've always wanted to know what she was thinking about at this moment.

Miller gives me options to ponder. 

I moved straight-backed, as if a great brimming bowl rested in my hands. The dark liquid rippled as I walked, always at the point of overflow, yet never flowing.

Circe Invidiosa (1892) - J. W. Waterhouse

Telling the well-known and much loved story of Odyssey's travels via a feminist lens is not new. Pat Barker went there recently with The Silence of the Girls and Margaret Atwood has also been there with The Penelopiad, which, like Penelope herself, is still waiting patiently on my TBR. (I'm sure there are more examples, but I'm too tired to search them out tonight). 

I enjoy these modern interpretations of ancient stories. A lot. 

Back in my twenties I dabbled wit a few Marion Zimmer Bradley retellings - The Mists of Avalon and The Fall of Atlantis in particular. But don't get my started on my Arthurian obsession!

The ancient myths and legends were guideposts for the people of the time to help them to explain the world they lived in, gave meaning to their lives, validated their experiences and entertained. Generally this world was a world of men.

Our lives now are far more equal, balanced and diverse. Acceptance and openness are the norms we have come to expect in our lives and in our literature. No longer is, humbling women the chief pastime of poets. As if there can be no story unless we crawl and weep.

Miller has reclaimed the role of women in this world of men. They are not just put there to be the playthings of men. Their lives are not to be judged or explained by men alone. 

With this retelling, Miller has turned a somewhat chest-thumping, male-ego excursion into adventure and boastful escapades (The Iliad) into a more human, more authentic and more possible version of events simply because it considers more than one perspective.

In these modern retellings women have active roles, they have agency over their life choices and they have their own opinions and ideas.

I, for one, rejoice at this modern turn of events. And I wait with baited breath for Miller's next venture into this ancient world.

Favourite Quotes:

That is one thing gods and mortal share. When we are young, we think ourselves the first to have each feeling in the world.

Every moment mortals died, by shipwreck and sword, by wild beasts and wild men, by illness, neglect and age. It was their fate...the story that they all shared. 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. 

Favourite Character: Circe, naturally.

Favourite or Forget: One of my best reads this year so far. It was gorgeous, epic and enchanting! I'm very disappointed that Circe did not win The Women's Prize this year.

Facts:

• Longlisted for the 2020 International Dublin Literary Award.

5/20 Books of SummerWinter

Sydney 16℃

Dublin 18℃

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

I'm not sure why it has taken me so long to get my thoughts together about The Song of Achilles, but sitting down to write about my response to this amazing story is probably a story in itself!

It was during my early high school days that my love of history developed. My first history class took me into the fascinating world of Tollund Man - the mummified bog body found in 1950. I was amazed at what scientists and historians were able to deduce from these remains about the world and times he lived in. There was even a Seamus Heaney poem - my first (very young) adult experience of seeing how we have always made up stories and songs to help us interpret and reinterpret our history and give meaning to our present day experiences.

Some purists and classicists may disapprove of this mode of story telling, but retelling old stories with modern sensibilities helps to keep the old stories alive. Old ideas such as hubris can be brought to life for contemporary audiences to ponder about how it might present itself now.

That's what Madeline Miller does so well here.

Using the well-known, very masculine, very war-like story of The Iliad and turning it into a romance between Achilles and Patroclus gives this old story a new lease of life. This is still a world of men and war, but Miller gives a us a chance to see this world through the eyes of Achilles goddess mother, Thetis and through the ideas of a captured Trojan girl, Briseis.

The first half of the story that fills in the childhood back story of both young men is the most interesting part to my mind. It shows the human side of Achilles before he gets caught up in his prophecy and god-like fate. I also found their first love scene to be one of the most tender, beautiful moments I've ever read.

Once we moved into the world of The Iliad proper, I felt less involved until Briseis turned up. Seeing the camp though a female lens while being reminded of how the lives of women and children were affected by this long siege was a nice touch.

I also enjoyed the scenes between Patroclus and Achilles that showed their relationship at work - how they influenced each other, how they debated, argued and compromised, how they knew each other so well that they knew what to say and how to say it to appease or enrage each other.

It is these contemporary humanising additions that allow a modern reader to reach into the old story again to find deeper meaning. Reading between the lines and filling in the gaps is the realm of all artists. Reinterpretation is a continual process, dependant on the era and experience of those doing the reinterpretation.

Homer's Iliad was just one (and possibly the first) interpretation of the events that happened on the plains of Troy to explain to those left at home and those who came after, what happened. We all seek meaning and purpose in our lives. We want to make sense of big world events. Our search for understanding, knowledge and insight is perennial.

Revisionism is a natural, organic process that occurs during, and for, every generation. The Song of Achilles is a stellar example of how that can work.

Favourite Passage:

But fame is a strange thing. Some men gain glory after they die, while others fade. What is admired in one generation is abhorred in another....We cannot say who will survive the holocaust of memory.

Favourite Character: Briseis - she is brave, loyal and inclusive.

Favourite or Forget: Favourite, but not likely to be a reread. Highly recommended to lovers of historical fiction, Ancient Greek retellings, or for those looking for LGBTQI themes.

Facts: Winner of the Orange Prize 2012

Poem: The Song of Achilles

The Song of Achilles - a poem

I'm currently reading and loving The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller and wanted to honour the story somehow. A Poem for Thursday seemed like the perfect way, especially when I discovered The Song of Achilles fanpage on Tumblr. Hannah has encapsulated the tone and feeling of Miller's story just so with this tender little offering.

Jennifer @Holds Upon Happiness posts a lovely Poem for a Thursday each week. I'm enjoying sourcing poems from my recent reads to join in with her at the moment.

Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie

Home Fire was longlisted for this year's Man Booker and I so wish it had got the nod for the shortlist. It was a stronger, more consistently interesting story than 4 3 2 1, but perhaps the judging committee felt they had ticked the refugee/migrant experience by including Exit West?

Either way it's a shame, because Kamila Shamsie's story is engaging, thought-provoking and quite a page turner. It's easy to read nature beguiles you until you find yourself in the middle of a very serious situation with very heavy consequences. Faith, family, moral dilemma's and parliamentary heavy-handedness clash head-on in this story of choice and consequence.

Shamsie based her story on Sophocles play, Antigone which is the story of a young girl who has to chose between the law (in particular her uncle Creon, the King of Thebes, laws) or her own moral compass. Shamsie was also influenced by Seamus Heaney's play about Creon as imagined through the lens of the Bush administration, The Burial at Thebes (2004).

Shamsie's epigraph referenced Heaney's play which I now see actually highlights her particular focus within this story - love versus law - the faith of her characters simply reflects modern concerns and gives Shamsie's story the contemporary touch.

Knowing the basic premise of the play, meant you also knew how the book would end. Incredibly Shamsie managed to create a lot of tension in the build up to this end. The details of the disaster and it's catastrophic results still caught me by surprise. Being an adaptation, you weren't quite sure how she would follow the original story and which bits she might adapt. Having a slightly different arrangement of main characters also created some doubt about who, what, why and how.

What makes this story work so well though, is that you can read and enjoy Home Fire all on it's own without any knowledge or thought of Antigone at all. Universal themes are universal for a reason!

If the Man Booker was still a Commonwealth only award, I believe that Home Fire would have been the stand-out winner. But that's another debate.

Travels With Herodotus by Ryszard Kapuscinski

The plan was to reread Herodotus' The Histories in January/February along with Ruth @A Great Book Study.

The reality however, turned out to be a little different.

I knew I was going to be away for most of January, and as much as I wanted to take The Histories with me, I knew I wouldn't be able to do it justice on the road...or so I thought, until I read Travels with Herodotus (2004) by Ryszard Kapuscinski .

Kapuscinski's reminiscences of travelling with Herodotus throughout his extensive journalistic career was not only a great book for me to travel with, it also made me wish that I had actually packed my copy of The Histories.

I was tempted by people still unmet, roads yet untraveled, skies yet unseen.

I first heard about Kapuscinski last year, when one of our regular customers requested a copy of the book. It sounded like my kind of thing, so I ordered a copy for myself as well...and waited for the right time to dip into it.

Kapuscinski reread The Histories so many times during his lifetime, that he became an unofficial Herodotus expert. He quoted excerpts from the book and found that his experiences as a journalist often complemented those of the ancient world.

One must read Herodotus's book - and every great book - repeatedly; with each reading it will reveal another layer, previously overlooked themes, images and meanings. For within every great book there are several others.

As I read Kapuscinski and his excerpts of The Histories, I found myself making connections between what I was experiencing in Cuba and Mexico with what I was reading. I also found myself drawing parallels between the rise & decline of the Persian empire with news coming out of the States.

It seems to be easier to fool a crowd than a single person.

Xerxes is unbalanced, unpredictable, an astonishing bundle of contradictions. 

Travels with Herodotus is almost like a Herodotus primer - Kapuscinski discussed who Herodotus was, what his aims were, how he went about gathering his information as well as going over some of the controversies and criticisms surrounding the book and the author's technique.

Memory, perspective and time are themes that both men returned to over and again.

His book is yet another expression of man's struggle against time, against the fragility of memory.

I loved the mix of personal and historical, of current and ancient. Kapuscinski was a thoughtful and thought-provoking writer.

How often do we consider the fact that the treasures and riches of the world were created from time immemorial by slaves?

Like Herodotus, his work was journalistic, anthropological and philosophical in nature.

The present existed always, that history is merely an uninterrupted progression of presents, that what for us are ancient events were for those people who lived them immediate and present reality.

Kapuscinski was a Polish journalist and foreign correspondent post-WWII. He spent time in India, China, Africa & Latin America - and wherever he was posted, he took his copy of The Histories with him. In 1999 he was made 'journalist of the century' in Poland.

Travels with Herodotus was translated by Klara Glowczewska in 2007.

The Histories by Herodotus - Readalong

I first read The Histories at school.

I was studying Ancient History and we were meant to read a handful of chapters in Herodotus that related to the topic we were focused on.
But I fell in love. I couldn't get enough of this world and these people that I knew nothing about. I wanted to know more. Much more.

Over the summer holidays I brought my own copy of Herodotus (& The Peloponnesian War, but that's another story!) & I read the book from cover to cover, underlining and highlighting as I went.

Yes, I have been a bookish 'conchie swot' geek all my life!

I've been wanting to reread it ever since (& The Peloponnesian War).

Ruth @A Great Book Study is working her way through Susan Wise Bauer's book, The Well-Educated Mind. She has now reached the History section...and the first book on the list is Herodotus The Histories.

Given our holiday plans for January and my intention to host my very own #HLOTRreadalong2017 starting in February it will be a juggle. But I'm willing to give it a shot!

My school copy fell apart years ago - being held together with nothing but tape and contact.
I had purchased a new copy a couple of years ago in the hope I would find time to reread it soon.

First published in 441BC, Herodotus is often referred to as the father of history. The translator of my current 2003 Penguin Classics edition is Aubrey de Sélincourt.

One of the masterpieces of classical literature, the "Histories" describes how a small and quarrelsome band of Greek city states united to repel the might of the Persian empire. 

But while this epic struggle forms the core of his work, Herodotus' natural curiosity frequently gives rise to colorful digressions - a description of the natural wonders of Egypt; an account of European lake-dwellers; and far-fetched accounts of dog-headed men and gold-digging ants. 

With its kaleidoscopic blend of fact and legend, the "Histories" offers a compelling Greek view of the world of the fifth century BC.

How to Read History:

According to Susan Wise Bauer, these are questions to consider when reading a historical work.

Level I:
Who is the author, and does he/she state the purpose for writing?
Who is the story about, and what are the major events?
What challenge did this hero/heroine face, and what causes this challenge? What is the result of the hero/heroine?
Do the characters progress/regress, and why?
Where/when does the story take place?

Level II:
What are the historians' assertions, and what questions is he/she asking?
What sources does the historian use to answer them?
Does the evidence support the connection between questions and answers?
Does the historian list his or her qualifications?

Level III:
What is the purpose of history?
Does this story have a forward motion?
What does it mean to be human?
Why do things go wrong?
What place does free will have?
What relationship does this history have to social problems?
What is the end of history?
How is this history the same as - or different than - the stories of other historians who have come before?

Are you game?

Are you ready to go back in time, to the beginning of Western civilisation?

The Odyssey - Finale

Finishing The Odyssey has been...well, an odyssey!

I started (re)reading it July last year (see previous posts here), which is the middle of our winter months. I enjoyed dipping into it a chapter at a time as our dark wintry evenings drew in. I reveled in the poetry - often reading sections out loud to savour the sounds as well.

But then I got stuck in the Kingdom of the Dead!

The roll call of names did my head in and I lost my way. My momentum was disrupted and the story slipped from my grasp.

Now - a New Year - a renewed resolution - a new Classics Club Spin #5.

I sneakily added The Odyssey to the end of my spin list in an attempt to help me finish it...and its number was drawn. I thought it was a sign from the ancient gods - it was meant to be!

However February and March, in Australia are the end of our summer months. It's still very hot & sultry. Our evenings are lovely long twilights suffused with the scent of frangipani and the sounds of mating fruit bats!

Personally, we're also very busy with the start of a new school year & pre-season soccer training and friendlies. February & March also sees a last flurry of end of summer BBQ'ing opportunities with family and friends!

As a result, I found it very difficult to find time to sit down and enjoy the slow pace of storytelling that is the second half of The Odyssey.

I finally got out of the Kingdom of the Dead, only to hit my own personal doldrums!
I was bored. I wanted things to hurry up. I got tired of all the tricks and strategies of the gods and Odysseus.
I got tired of the repetitions (necessary, I know, for an oral retelling, but tiresome to read).

I was ready to move on long before Homer was prepared to stop!

I cant help but think, that I would have been one of the buffoons nodding off to sleep over my mulled wine 3000 years ago long before the story ended!

The Odyssey is a boys own adventure from start to finish. It's a world of gods & men doing their share of great & dastardly deeds.

Robert Fagles translation is certainly a beauty. I highly recommend his verse version over the prosaic prose of E. V. Rieu's Penguin Classic text that I read twenty years ago.

I also recommend time - slow, leisurely time - to do this story justice.

My final suggestion is to source a quality audio version.
Listening to this story allows the language to weave its magic the way Homer meant it.

The Odyssey and the Female Voice

I had been rereading The Odyssey for the latest Classics Club spin, when I came across the article below by Mary Beard (thanks to Lee Anne at Lily Oak Books).

I had had no idea who she was, but by coincidence, the night before I had been reading my copy of The Quarterly Essay #50 from June last year titled Unfinished Business: Sex, Freedom and Misogyny by Anna Goldsworthy.

In her article, Goldsworthy mentioned some of the very personal abuse that Beard had endured in the public arena over the last year in the UK.  

I was naturally curious when her name crossed my path again the very next day.

This is what Mary Beard had to say on the public voice of women.

"I want to start very near the beginning of the tradition of Western literature, and its first recorded example of a man telling a woman to ‘shut up’; telling her that her voice was not to be heard in public. I’m thinking of a moment immortalised at the start of the Odyssey.  

The process starts in the first book with Penelope coming down from her private quarters into the great hall, to find a bard performing to throngs of her suitors; he’s singing about the difficulties the Greek heroes are having in reaching home. She isn’t amused, and in front of everyone she asks him to choose another, happier number. At which point young Telemachus intervenes: ‘Mother,’ he says, ‘go back up into your quarters, and take up your own work, the loom and the distaff … speech will be the business of men, all men, and of me most of all; for mine is the power in this household.’ And off she goes, back upstairs.

But it’s a nice demonstration that right where written evidence for Western culture starts, women’s voices are not being heard in the public sphere; more than that, as Homer has it, an integral part of growing up, as a man, is learning to take control of public utterance and to silence the female of the species. The actual words Telemachus uses are significant too. When he says ‘speech’ is ‘men’s business’, the word is muthos – not in the sense that it has come down to us of ‘myth’. In Homeric Greek it signals authoritative public speech (not the kind of chatting, prattling or gossip that anyone – women included, or especially women – could do).

There were too many connections and coincidences crossing my path...I had to explore.

After reading the article through, I decided to hunt down some of the various translations of The Odyssey to see how this particular section of the story was treated by different translators at different times. (Check out this website for some other comparisons).


George Chapman 1616

Go you then in, and take your work in hand, Your web, and distaff; and your maids command To ply their fit work. Words to men are due, And those reproving counsels you pursue, And most to me of all men, since I bear The rule of all things that are managed here.

Alexander Pope 1726

Your widow'd hours, apart, with female toil And various labours of the loom beguile; There rule, from palace-cares remote and free; That care to man belongs, and most to me.

 Samuel Butler 1898

Go, then, within the house and busy yourself with your daily duties, your loom, your distaff, and the ordering of your servants; for is man's matter, and mine above all others- for it is I who am master here.

AT Murray 1919

Nay, go to thy chamber, and busy thyself with thine own tasks, the loom and the distaff, and bid thy handmaids ply their tasks; but shall be for men, for all, but most of all for me; since mine is the authority in the house.”

TE Lawrence 1932

Wherefore I bid you get back to your part of the house, and be busied in your proper sphere, with the loom and the spindle, and in overseeing your maids at these, their tasks. Speech shall be the men's care: and principally my care: for mine is the mastery in this house."

WHD Rouse 1937

Nay, go to thy chamber, and busy thyself
with thine own tasks, the loom and the distaft and
bid thy handmaids ply their tasks; but speech shall
be for men, for all, but most of all for me; since
mine is the authority in the house.

EV Rieu 1946

So go to your quarters now and attend to your own work, the loom and the spindle, and tell the servants to get on with theirs.Talking must be the men's concern, and mine in particular; for I am master in this house.

Robert Fagles 1996

So, mother,
go back to your quarters. Tend to your tasks,
the distaff and the loom, and keep the women
working hard as well. As for giving orders,
men will see to that, but I most of all:
I hold the reins of power in this house.

DW Myatt

You should go to your chambers to manage your own work Of weaving and spinning, and also command your attendants To occupy themselves with their work. That mythos is of interest to all men -

And to me most of all because the dignity of this family now depends upon me.
I was curious to see that two of the more recent translations have moved away from using 'speech', 'talking' or 'words' when translating the word muthos.

Wikipedia has μῦθος (•muthos)
something said: word, speech, conversation

1. public speech
2. (mostly in plural) talk, conversation
3. advice, counsel, command, order, promise
4. the subject of a speech or talk
5. a resolve, purpose, design, plan
6. saying, proverb
7. the talk of men, rumor, report, message
I feel that this says all sorts of interesting things about books in translation & changing times. When reading in translation, we read a book quite different from what the author intended, but also different to previous translations. A translation reflects as much of the translator (& the times he or she lives in) as of the original author to the reader.

Surely, in modern times, though, women's voices are now being heard loud and clear and equally? Surely, we are no longer being told to go back to our quarters and be quiet and let the men do the real business of discussing the important stuff?

Not so, according to Goldsworthy.

She quotes the VIDA:Women in Literary Arts statistics that highlight the "damning" discrepancy in books reviewed by women and men. 

These statistics have provoked a great deal of commentary, including the suggestion that women - by writing about "smaller" topics such as friendship, motherhood and domesticity - ghettoise themselves from a male readership. Similar criticisms have rarely been made about the male writer, lovingly documenting his midlife crisis. The assumption is that women, as the more accommodating sex, are better prepared to read across gender." 

(Please click on the link above to view the stats & graphs yourself. The London Review of Books was particularly depressing.)

Finally, it would seem that it all still comes back to Virginia Woolf and having a room of one's own.
Carrie Tiffany, the winner of the inaugural Stella Prize for women, said in her acceptance speech last year,

To write - to take the work of reading and writing seriously - you must spend a great deal of time alone in a room....For women to spend time alone in a room, to look rather than be looked at, means rejecting some of this pressure. It means doing something with your mind rather than your body."

The story continues....

Classic Spin #5

The best thing about The Classics Club blog being based in the USA, is that it is still the 10th of February there.

Which means that it is still my birthday!

Happy Birthday Me!!

I've believed for sometime now that my birthday should not be constrained to just one day.

I've been claiming the closest weekend to my birthday as my special weekend for quite some time. In fact, I'm not far off claiming the entire month of February as mine!

So imagine my delight when The Classics Club choose my birthday as their next spin date! It has given me the perfect excuse to extend my day - the 10th - by nearly 24hrs thanks to the International Dateline!

And our lucky spin number on the 10th Feb is ...... 20!!

Which means the spin has been kind to me and my cheats methods of finishing chunksters.

I started the Odyssey last year with Allie's readalong at A Literary Odyssey, but I got stuck half way. I put it on this spin in the hope that it would encourage me to finish it :-)

I will be reading along with Plethora of Books who also had The Odyssey as book no. 20.

The aim is to finish it by the 2nd April and post my review on The Classics Club.

Happy Reading.

The Odyssey #3

I have a confession.

I'm stuck.

I was thoroughly enjoying my first ever reading of The Odyssey in verse thanks to Robert Fagles translation. I had even tempted Mr BB to try a little of it and he was impressed with the language and rhythm.

But then I hit Book 11.

OMG!

The long, tedious roll call of the dead had me pulling my hair out. I checked my prose version to see if that was any better, but no....name after name, woe after woe...the dead just kept on coming. (I had obviously read it through once upon a time as I had highlighted all the names of the dead! Although maybe I was just keeping a body count?!)

Help!

I've given myself a half-way break (joining in a To Kill A Mockingbird readalong and now the Austen in August) but I fear I'm just avoiding it now and won't find my way back.

Could this be my own private Odyssey?
Is is my own trial and tribulation? Do I need a wily, cunning trick to get back on track?

Anyone?
What am I missing?

The Odyssey by Homer #2

I first read The Odyssey when I was in my final year of school.

I was studying Ancient History and I had the (bad) habit of not only reading my required texts but also all the optional extra texts from start to finish...just for fun! My Ancient History teacher was delighted, but the rest of my subjects suffered from this little obsession.

Five years later, I took off overseas to work in London and travel around as much of Europe as I could afford to in the 10 months I had up my sleeve. Space was an issue in my luggage. The one book that took the entire trip with me was my prose penguin edition of The Odyssey. I borrowed, bought and released untold numbers of other book whilst traveling, but Homer was my constant companion.

Fortunately my traveling adventures shared nothing in common with Odysseus. The most hardship I endured was 6 months nannying a rather horrid 6 year old, a nasty tummy bug in Egypt and breaking up long distance with my boyfriend (the same boyfriend who became my husband 18 years and many, many adventures later!)

Any discomfort with Youth Hostel beds, or annoyance at smoke filled over-heated buses, late trains or currency exchange rates paled into insignificance every time I picked up The Odyssey. Certainly, there was one YH manager in Scotland that could have been mistaken for a modern day Cyclops and one young man at a Hyde Park concert that had nymph-like tendencies! But I made it home safe and sound with lots of wonderful memories and in a timely fashion.

This readalong has given me a chance to rehash old times as well as creating new ones thanks to my first reading of a verse edition of The Odyssey.

I have found it interesting to compare the two versions as I go along (below).
The Fagles verse is definitely more poetic whilst Rieu's translation can be quite prosaic and pragmatic.

Book 1: "You must not cling to your boyhood any longer -
               it's time you were a man."     (lines 341-342)

"You are no longer a child: you must put childish thoughts away." (pg 34)

Book 2: "Few sons are the equal of their fathers;
              most fall short, all too few surpass them.
              But you, brave and adept from this day on -
              Odysseus' cunning has hardly given out in you -
              there's every hope that you will reach your goal."   (lines 309- 312)

"Few sons, indeed, are like their fathers. Generally they are worse; but just a few are better. And since we have seen that you are by no means lacking in Odysseus' wits, and that no fool's or coward's role awaits you in life, why then, you have every reason to feel that you will make a success of this undertaking." (pg 45)

Book 4: "...when all you Achaeans
              fought at Troy, launching your headlong battles
              just for my sake, shameless whore that I was."   (lines 160-162) 

"...when you Achaeans boldly declared war and took the field against Troy for my sake, shameless creature that I was!"   (pg 68)

              "What other tribute can we pay to wretched men              
               than to cut a lock, let tears roll down our cheeks?"   (lines 220-221) 

"Indeed, what other tribute can one pay to poor mortality than a lock of hair from the head and a tear on a cheek?" (pg 69)

             "Zeus can present us              times of joy and times of grief in turn."  (lines264-265)

"...each of us has his happy times, and each his spell of pains."  (pg 70)

Book 6: "And out he stalked
              as a mountain lion exultant in his power
              strides through wind and rain and his eyes ablaze" (lines 142-144)

"Then he advanced on them like a mountain lion who sallies out, defying wind and rain in the pride of his power, with fire in his eyes." (pg 105)

I've included Helen's line in Book 4 about being a "shameless whore" because this struck me like a slap on the cheek. It reminded me that this book was written (and before that told) in a time when the lives of men were paramount. Women's issues and stories were only told in relation to what was important to men.

My stance on 'his'tory and 'her'story has changed over the last twenty years, but my enjoyment of this rolicking story has not.

Bring on the second half!

The Odyssey Read-a-long

Allie at A Literary Odyssey is hosting an Odyssey read-a-long this month.

She obviously LOVES this book with a passion, enthusiasm and knowledge that I usually reserve for Jane Austen.

Her opening posts for the read-a-long are truly inspirational (click on the link above to see for yourself).

Allie is reading the Fagles verse translation...which is when I realised that my 30 year old edition of The Odyssey is the Penguin Classic PROSE edition translated by E.V. Rieu in 1946!

I decided to do a little comparison of the opening lines to get me started on my own personal odyssey.

I give you Fagles verse translation (thanks to Allie)...

“Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns
driven time and again off course, once he had plundered
the hallowed heights of Troy.
Many cities of men he saw and learned their minds,
many pains he suffered, heartsick on the open sea,
fighting to save his life and bring his comrades home.
But he could not save them from disaster, hard as he strove—
the recklessness of their own ways destroyed them all,
the blind fools, they devoured the cattle of the Sun
and the Sungod wiped from sight the day of their return.
Launch out on his story, Muse, daughter of Zeus,
start from where you will-sing for our time too.”


And now for good old E.V's prose translation...

The hero of the tale which I beg the Muse to help me tell is that resourceful man who roamed the wide world after he had sacked the holy citadel of Troy.
He saw the cities of many peoples and he learnt their ways.
He suffered many hardships on the high seas in his struggles to preserve his life and bring his comrades home.
But he failed to save those comrades, in spite of all his efforts.
It was their own sin that brought them their doom, for in their folly they devoured the oxen of Hyperion the Sun, and the god saw to it that they should never return.
This is the tale I pray the divine Muse to unfold to us.
Begin it, goddess, at whatever point you will.

Hmmmmm.
I think we have a clear winner!

I was rather curious to see the Christian reference to sin in Rieu's version. 
To me this highlights the problems with many translations...the feelings and opinions of the translator often filter their way into the work. Feelings and opinions not intended by the original author or even relevant to the times of the story.

"start from where you will-sing for our time too" is magic stuff.

It melts into you. It prepares you for the storytelling ahead.

You feel yourself relax; mentally you put up your feet, wiggle down comfortably into your seat & sip your mulled wine.

It weaves the past, present and future into one moment.

Let the story begin....