Circe

I remember absolutely loving Madeline Miller's previous mythological novel, The Song Of Achilles, when I read it way back in 2012, so I had high hopes for Circe - such high hopes that I decided to wait for some of the launch fanfare to fade so that I wouldn't be unfairly starting this novel with overly high expectations. Unfortunately, in setting it aside, I allowed my Circe ebook to vanish into the depths of my ereader so it's only now, some three years after buying it, that I've actually rediscovered and got around to reading the story. Oops!

I didn't find Circe captured my heart in the same way that The Song Of Achilles did and I don't know how much of that was down to the book itself and how much was my moods at the time of reading each of them. Circe is still a brilliantly told story though and I loved learning about this woman's whole life story. I had only glimpsed her before through reading The Odyssey by Homer and The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood. Indeed, I still remembered Circe and her island, Aiaia, dismissed as a whorehouse with Circe as the madam in The Penelopiad so to see how those women's stories linked in Miller's work was fascinating and it felt satisfyingly plausible.

I don't know my Greek mythology very well so I can't comment on how closely Miller's novel retells the original myth of Circe, but I enjoyed the depth of detail she is given in this account. We get a rounded out picture of Circe, the woman, and can understand how her bizarre childhood led to her adult indiosyncracies. I particularly appreciated how Miller kept aspects of ancient deities' lives that don't sit well with modern sensibilities, yet still managed to portray Circe as a woman who makes sense to present-day readers.