"For a hundred generations, I have walked the world, drowsy and dull, idle and at my ease," she thinks. Though most of Circe's fame derives from her short encounter with Odysseus in Book 10 of the Odyssey, Miller's novel covers a longer and more complex life: her lonely childhood among the gods, her first encounter with mortals, who "looked weak as mushroom gills" next to the "vivid and glowing" divinities, the awakening of her powers, and finally, the men who wash up on her shores, souring her trust with their cruelty.īook Reviews In 'ODY-C,' A Greek Hero Worthy Of WomenĬirce is a nymph, daughter of the sun god Helios, banished to the island of Aiaia for using magic to turn a romantic rival into the monster Scylla.
Miller's lush, gold-lit novel - told from the perspective of the witch whose name in Greek has echoes of a hawk and a weaver's shuttle - paints another picture: of a fierce goddess who, yes, turns men into pigs, but only because they deserve it. As if there can be no story unless we crawl and weep."
Humbling women seems to me a chief pastime for poets. "I was not surprised by the portrait of myself," Circe says, "the proud witch undone before the hero's sword, kneeling and begging for mercy. But Odysseus, with the help of the god Hermes, tricks Circe and makes her beg for mercy before becoming her lover. Circe entraps his remaining men and turns them into pigs. Circe is referring to Homer's version of the story, in which Odysseus arrives on her island sea-battered and mourning for his men killed by the cruel Laestrygonians. "Later, years later, I would hear a song made of our meeting," says the hero of Madeleine Miller's Circe, of her romance with the mortal Odysseus.
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