Circe (Spoiler Alert!)

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SYNOPSIS:

In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe is a strange child—not powerful, like her father, nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power—the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves.

Threatened, Zeus banishes her to a deserted island, where she hones her occult craft, tames wild beasts and crosses paths with many of the most famous figures in all of mythology, including the Minotaur, Daedalus and his doomed son Icarus, the murderous Medea, and, of course, wily Odysseus.

But there is danger, too, for a woman who stands alone, and Circe unwittingly draws the wrath of both men and gods, ultimately finding herself pitted against one of the most terrifying and vengeful of the Olympians. To protect what she loves most, Circe must summon all her strength and choose, once and for all, whether she belongs with the gods she is born from, or the mortals she has come to love.

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REVIEW

(3.5 stars)

Madeline’s Miller book is based on several ancient Greek works such as Odyssey (by Homer), Theogony (by Hesiod) and Metamorphoses (by Ovid). Because I haven’t read any of these yet, I don’t know how much of Circe is Miller’s input and how much is not, but even so, I have to say this book is beautifully written.

The author gives us a wide span of Circe’s life, from her birth to her plea for humanity in Aeaea’s mountain top, which allows us to see her grow as a woman, as a mother, as a lover and lastly as an immortal Goddess.

The first years (or shall I say centuries?) of Circe’s “childhood” were complicated and made me feel terribly frustrated - she was a naive girl, eager to please her Titan father, an invisible being with no mind of her own. After falling in love, she becomes obsessed with turning her lover into a God, her ingenuity leading her to disappointment and, later on, revenge.

She was careless, annoying and I started wondering why so many people found this a good read when all I could see was a bad chick lit.

But then, Circe is sent to her exile on Aeaea, a punishment given by Zeus and Helios, who were both too afraid of her newfound powers and wanted to keep her away from causing any trouble. The moment she sets foot on her island is the moment she starts discovering her powers, becoming more independent and shrewd.

After meeting Daedalus and helping her sister with the Minotaur, Circe finds the inner strength and self-love she lacked, a process that only progresses and reaches its climax when she turns the man who raped her into a pig.

I think this was the book’s climax as well since after that it became clear to me that there was no continuous timeline nor plotline.

This book started feeling like a patchwork quilt, one unconnected story following another, the only common element being our main character.

That is, as the author put it, the burden of being a god.

As the story progresses, we see Circe falling in love yet again and we get to know her as a mother, one fierce enough to dare death. Her life gained a new meaning as she gets braver and yet more frightened, haunted by her son’s mortality.

This was, I think, the very thing that made me give this book 3.5 stars: how fleeting the human lives she connected with were and how uninteresting they became after a while – funny enough, this was something the author constantly criticized because it was the opinion Titans and Olympians had of Ptolomeu’s creation and exactly what made them insensible and arrogant.

I could not connect with Circe anymore because she failing to connect with people, her son the only exception.

As we approached the finish line, my mood turned more sour an I just wanted to moved on, especially after the son-in-law swing that takes place. It could've been much worse, let be tell you, because while we see the romance between Circe and Telemachus flourish, the fact is that her own son with Odysseus, Telemachus, marries Penelope, his widowed wife.

This is something Miller chose to omit, as were a few other things such as the fact that Circe had more sons with Odysseus (Latinus and Ardeas, according to Hesiod), making Telegonus their youngest; or that Odysseus was buried in Aeaea and that after the funeral the witch turns Penelope and Telemachus into immortal beings.

Despite not being fundamental information, this could've been an interesting opportunity to gather all the stories about the witch goddess and turn it into a book, so I have to say I was a bit disappointed to find out Miller polished it.

To summarize, despite her writing being good this book failed to keep me interested to the end and as I closed it I felt ready to immediately move on.