Circe

Beautiful writing that perfectly captures Circe's duality of straddling the worlds of gods and mortals.

In the early chapters, where Circe's life is filled with the unknowable whims and indescribable wonders of Olympians, Titans, nymphs and monsters, so much of her narration is deeply abstract and metaphorical. As if to say that only poetry and high prose could come close to conveying that world to mortal minds.

Then, after Circe's exile gives way to a wide-ranging retelling of The Odyssey and The Telegony from Circe's point of view, the narration slows - where pages once covered centuries, eventually we slowly cover years, then seasons, then days - and becomes more plain, less abstract, more dialogue heavy. But, that doesn't mean there aren't plenty of fantastic turns of phrase, even here.

It makes sense for Circe's story to stretch into the Telegony and reach for the stories of Telegonus and Telemachus, but, as with the controversy of the Telgony itself, it does represent a pity at the same time that it not only robs Odysseus of his “happy ending”, but robs Circe of loving a man who deserved it. Her relationship with Telemachus never feels as rich, deep or earned, but by the end, he turns out to be the only truly good man she ever met. Sadly, the story does not really interrogate this fact.

But then, it is told from Circe's point of view, and Circe is never shy of acknowledging her own failures and flaws. So perhaps to her own mind, the Telegony's Odysseus is all the better match for the woman who birthed Scylla out of spite anyway.