It’s my firm belief that when someone hands me a book they love, they’re opening a window to their soul. Peeking through the window is as simple as turning the page…

Getting a Read: Circe

Getting a Read: Circe

My very borrowed, large-print copy of this extremely hard to find book.

My very borrowed, large-print copy of this extremely hard to find book.

It’s my firm belief that when a person recommends a book to me, they’re handing me an inside look at their soul. In this series, “Getting a Read,” I try to uncover truth about books and their recommenders.

THE RECOMMENDER

Piper Sands, one of the major reasons I made it through graduate school with my sanity intact, recommended this book to me. Well, first she recommended something else because she thought I’d like it. Then she realized the purpose of this blog, retracted her original rec, and said “YOU HAVE TO READ CIRCE I LOVED IT SO MUCH!” So I read Circe. How could I possibly have done differently?

HOW TO READ IT

Take this book with you on your summer vacay to Greece. Wend your way through the Greek Isles on a cruise ship and devour this book, along with a plate of half-priced happy hour appetizers, from the top deck. You’ll be sure to see the ghosts of the characters bouncing off the waves as you float through the ancient waters.

REVIEW: Circe by Madeline Miller

It doesn’t take long to be fully wrapped up in the magic of Circe. You remember her, right? She’s the woman from Greek mythology who captures Odysseus and turns his crew into pigs. She’s also the one who gets banished to a lonely island for siding with the Titans against Olympus in the war between the deities. But does the story of this great, ancient being depend on her being a villain? Does she have to be justly exiled by her own family and doomed by Zeus to live out a well-deserved punishment for all of time? Madeline Miller seems to think not.

This modern retelling of the age-old myth is a feminist tale—the Independent even calls Circe “the original Nasty Woman.” Miller places this nymph-turned-witch fully at the heart of her own plot, a central position not oft-afforded to the women of the ancient myths. Though there are scads of people on either side of the political spectrum who might find a feminist reading today at best passé and at worst objectionable, I found it quite lovely.

Even with this empowering feminist structure in place, it bears noting that Circe rarely fully controls her own life, though she does retain a decent amount of control over her day to day activities. This sometimes-lack of control is the focal point of the narrative arc and will likely feel familiar in some way to many readers. After all, who, and might I further suggest who among women, has not felt this pull between centrality and decenteredness in their own lives? I think it’s fair to say we all feel pulled by forces we can’t control and pushed into ways of being we’d rather not inhabit occasionally. Maybe Circe is a bit of a mirror, or for some, an example of the importance of waking up to one’s true self.

The sprawl of this narrative is rather intense, particularly as its central, first-person narrator takes up so little physical space. It takes a master storyteller, I think, to locate a plot in only two major places and yet fill a cast of characters with travelers, wanderers, and gods who flit from island to island with a blink. Circe herself rarely travels. We know of most of the happenings in this world through the words of her visitors. They tell great tales of all the places you’ve likely heard of, from Minos to Crete to Olympus. Somehow, these third-person retellings never get boring. Miller seems to have found a way to make alive the experience of listening at the hearth to a tired, sea-weary wanderer. *applause, and please, Ms. Miller, teach me your ways!*

When Circe does travel, though, it’s—a trip (terrible pun definitely and unapologetically intended). This story doesn’t imagine her to be an angry but minimally-powerful hedgewitch wasting away on her island. Instead we meet a brave, powerful woman ready and able to face down the toughest, fiercest monsters totally alone if necessary, even the ones she must admit are her own fault. (NPR says more about the roll-up-your-sleeves qualities of this character, who remains surrounded by Romance even as she works.)

It’s possible, as The Guardian suggests, that Miller’s prose is far too purple to make the story palpable for some readers. But I disagree, for no particularly academic or critical reason. For me, the half-poetic language only made the familiar world Miller respun more fully immersive. I truly felt for and with Circe. Further, so did many others. This book has, after all, been wildly and widely popular and I think it’s relatability might be the key—that combined with the fact that its author also wrote The Song of Achilles, a book which has since been published in 23 languages.

I could write more here to eloquently draw a conclusion, but in truth, all I really have to say now is: YOU HAVE TO READ CIRCE I LOVED IT SO MUCH!

THE RECOMMENDER IN REVIEW

Piper loves the ocean so it’s not surprising that she would fall in love with a tale so centrally concerned with the sea. Nor is it surprising to me that Piper would love a story about a strong, powerful woman who finds herself and her voice in spite of the world. I think Piper loves this story because it reflects her own persistent, powerful journey toward selfhood and gives her space to imagine the world is just a bit more full of magic than it might seem.

WHERE TO FIND IT

Pick this book up literally anywhere EXCEPT your library. At least, that’s nearly what I had to do. In all of Dallas County, only one large-print copy was available to check out when it came time for me to read this text… and I still have it because I’m terrible about returning library books. Don’t judge. Just go pay for a copy of this book at your friendly, local bookstore.

Getting a Read: Mother Night

Getting a Read: Mother Night

Getting it Write: The Introduction

Getting it Write: The Introduction