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℃

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....