troisoiseaux: (0)
troisoiseaux ([personal profile] troisoiseaux) wrote 2019-11-11 02:15 pm (UTC)

Although unless the author changed their ending somehow it would be really hard to read - at least as a full-length novel - might work better as a poem or short story.

Margaret Atwood kind of already did this, in the Penelopiad!

To steal from my own review of it:

...Penelope's narration was interspersed with commentary from the twelve maids killed by Odysseus on his return to Ithaca, in the form of poems, skits, a court transcript, even a mock anthropology lecture on the maids as symbols of a matriarchal moon cult (which ends with a punch-to-the-stomach quote along the lines of “isn’t it so much easier to think of us as a metaphor, instead of actual flesh and blood girls, because then you don’t have to acknowledge that we suffered?”)


Re: Helen and Menelaus— I found it less anticlimactic than, like, deeply bizarre in its normalcy. Like, it's HELEN OF TROY and MENELAUS, yet we see them knitting and mourning and side-conferencing with each other over what to do about this crying teenager who may or may not be the son of Menelaus' friend. They're like..... somebody's parents.

Re: Calypso— I was thinking that too, but like, she's a goddess stuck on this gorgeous island with everything a person could ever want but, like, other people, and then this human man comes along and she loves him, yet he refuses immortality and just sits there crying on her perfect, perfect beach because he wants to go home??? To his wife*??? I feel like there's definitely a backstory there to explore/a story in itself to expand upon.

* Odysseus: the original Wife Guy.

Post a comment in response:

This account has disabled anonymous posting.
If you don't have an account you can create one now.
HTML doesn't work in the subject.
More info about formatting