Circe

i have read absolutely nothing to do with Odyssey so while i may know the names (Odysseus, Jason, etc.) i know nothing about it. for the other “side stories” of Glaucos, Pasiphae, Minotaur, Daedalus, and so on, i only really know the most superficial level. i have never heard of Circe as a character or even as a mythological figure before, so i was really going in mostly blind to this. i found that i enjoyed it quite well, all in all! the writing was easy to follow, and although the driving point of the plot was kinda opaque for most of the book, the pacing and unfolding of the events were pretty engaging so i didn't really feel bored throughout (it helps that it's such a short read too). until now i have no idea exactly how much was changed from the mythology to the book, so i'm just gonna comment on the book as it is (i intend to read up more deeply on the mythology soon).

Circe is pretty much a god who struggles with (and even hates) her own divinity, and for the most part of the book, she's also just learning to understand mortals as well. the promiscuity, the ruthlessness, the sadism and general apathy of the other Greek gods was well portrayed imo, and it really gives you a sense of why Circe loathed her kind. i kinda wish that more had been done with the whole Pasiphae/Minotaur arc, when Circe had a bit of a truce with her sister after realising that they both hated the gods - it just kinda felt set up to lead to nowhere? the only plot-valuable thing to come out of that arc was Circe's fondness for Ariadne, which continues to stay on in her mind as how fragile mortality is.

i was also kinda sad that Telegonus would rather hear more about Odysseus's adventures than about his mother's, when he has never laid eyes upon him. and i was annoyed that Circe didn't assert herself more on that, and just chose to keep her life to herself in a sense. no wonder there's a gulf between herself and her son? when she would tell him sanitised and aggrandized versions of his father's adventures but not share more about her own. instead, she tells them to Telemachus. continuing from that, the ending was a little weird for me that she ended up with the son of her an ex-lover... i mean, i get that it's certainly not on the list of weirdest things in Greek mythology, but considering the fact that this was not part of the original mythology and was added in later on, it still feels weird to me.

as i've said, the writing was definitely engaging, but i had issues with how repetitive some sentence structures felt by the end. for example, “Full of pain, it was. Full of searing pain.” (not actually in the book) it was still easy enough to read though, and it didn't annoy me a whole lot, but it was obvious enough to notice and i was a little tired of it by the end.