I brought them to my mouth. But my courage failed. What was I truly? In the end, I could not bear to know.
Rating: 4/5
Trigger Warnings: rape, violence
Spoiler Alert! If you haven’t read the book, this review will contain spoilers so it’s up to you if you continue…
Circe is the tale of a goddess, nymph and witch, and her search for power, an identity, and companionship. Not accepted by her family, she struggles with her emotions and her powers, until she is exiled to Aiaia and comes into herself over her hundreds of years of existence.
This is Madeline Miller’s second book, following The Song of Achilles. Just as beautifully written, Circe references the story of Patroclus and Achilles, alongside a plethora of other Greek myths. Jason, Minos, Pasiphaë, Icarus, the Golden Fleece, the Minotaur and the Cyclops Polyphemus all make an appearance, but centre stage is Circe herself. No matter who else visits her island or enters her story, it always comes back to Circe. What I enjoyed about this is that it didn’t come back to her in a self-centred way; for all she is and all she can do, Circe is not an egotistical character. She is full of self-examination and development, she is willing to learn and to change in response to the people she meets. You can see the way she ages throughout the book, and the changes between her naive childhood, infatuated youth, lonely witchery, ignorant motherhood, and eventually the power she earns in her maturity.
It was a beautiful look at the power of Gods and the role of divinity. Odysseus says of Circe that a being has never enjoyed their divinity less, and it is true. I think what made this most obvious was the constant connection between Gods and death. Of course, this is true to mythology - the Gods are almost always harbingers of death , in one way or another. As Shakespeare summarised in King Lear, ‘As flies to wanton boys, are we to th'Gods: / They kill us for their sport’. Every mention of a God in Circe would lead to someone’s pain: in talking of Ariadne’s dancing, Circe explains that God’s ‘find their fame by proving what they can mar’. Though there are plenty of morally bad mortals too, I feel Miller’s writing very carefully displays the power and potential of the Gods is not what we should be praising. Though mortals may live a short life in comparison, Miller praises their strength, their resilience, and their ultimate goodness.
I’ll admit, I was ever so slightly disappointed. I think this is a result of being so in love with The Song of Achilles that I was always going to be a little let down by Circe. The Song of Achilles is such a heartbreakingly beautiful story that it could never be matched in my mind. Circe was something different; I don’t think they can be compared to tell the truth. Not only are they different stories, they’re told entirely differently. The narratives both span whole lifetimes, but one is a Goddess and one The Best of Greeks, one told by a lover and one a first person account of exile, their power lies in different areas and their love is felt by differing degrees.
My only problem with Circe, in comparison to The Song of Achilles, is that The Song of Achilles follows an easy logical chronology. I guess Circe does, too, but her lifespan is so much longer than that of Patroclus and Achilles, meaning events in the book can feel somewhat disjointed. We could never look at everything that shaped Circe’s life, and yet it felt like we were meant to believe we did. None of it felt condensed, and it didn’t feel like Miller skipped anything that could have affected our understanding of her main character; we are genuinely given her entire lifespan from birth to (major spoiler) the magic she uses to turn herself mortal. However, looking back on my reading of it, Circe seems to have told massive periods in a matter of paragraphs. I shan’t complain to vehemently about this as this has only occurred to me in my looking backwards, but some of the emotional connection to Circe was lost in this parts of the book.
I really enjoyed Circe and the tale of a woman who is not particularly strong, but will work to get there, a woman who learns to please herself before others. I just have one question to leave with you: do you think Circe’s description of her potential mortal life is a vision from her divine powers, or simple, human hope?
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