Greek myth retellings are having a serious
moment at the moment, and so Book Break has
come to Greece!
OK, well from the grey cloudy sky and my shivering,
you can tell that's not exactly true, but
we are touring around the hidden Greece that
you can find in London.
And I have six amazing books to talk to you
about today, all inspired by Greek mythology.
So the first book is A Thousand Ships by Natalie
Haynes, and this is a feminist retelling of
the Trojan War.
It covers everything in the Iliad and beyond,
all of the other myths that connect to that
story, but all from the women's point of view.
Which is so great, because women are actually
so important in these stories, but they're
always just used basically as just massively
important plot devices, but without ever having
a voice or personality of their own.
So this is the book that finally changes that.
And it's this amazing tapestry of so many
different perspectives.
So we hear from the Greek women and the Trojan
women, the goddesses, muses, even the Fates
themselves.
And it makes the whole world of Greek mythology
so much richer, but also so much sadder and
more brutal.
But ultimately more real.
It feels like this kind of behind the scenes
look into some of the most famous stories.
I only just recently finished this book and
I already want to go straight back to the
beginning and read it all again, because there's
so many layers, so many different characters.
I just want to learn all of their stories
inside out.
And I did kick off a massive binge reading
of so many different Greek myth retellings.
So, let's tell you about some of the other
ones that I've read.
So sticking with the same author for a moment,
I'm going to go back to Natalie Haynes's last
book, Children of Jocasta.
And this one was an Oedipus retelling.
So it's told from two main timelines.
We have Jocasta, who is the woman who in mythology
is Oedipus's mother and then later wife, and
then we also go to the second timeline, a
generation later, and hear about Jocasta's
children.
And that bit is told from the perspective
of Ismene, the youngest daughter, who doesn't
really have a voice in any of the other tellings
of this story.
And I thought it was really really clever
what Natalie Haynes did with this story.
It takes a very cynical approach to the idea
of the Oracle and prophecies and a curse set
on the city.
It's kind of giving other explanations for
what really could have happened to make this
myth.
And it also does change quite a lot of the
story which is fun, so even if you think you
know the stories of Oedipus and Antigone really
well, there are still surprises in store for
you, so I really enjoyed this one.
So next I've got two Odyssey retellings to
talk about.
The first one is The Penelopiad by Margaret
Atwood.
So this is a retelling of The Odyssey all
from Penelope's point of view.
And so, instead of painting Odysseus as the
cunning hero that he's always seen as, he
is instead basically a manipulative liar,
and this book is all about what his very intelligent,
very fed up wife got up to in the twenty years
while he was away.
And it's very experimental, classic Margaret
Atwood.
Parts of it are told as a play, part of it
is told as a lecture examining the significance
of the story, so it's very very meta, really
clever.
This is one of the first Greek myth retellings
that I ever read, and I absolutely adored
it.
And then of course, the book that everyone's
been talking about, Circe by Madeline Miller.
And this one really does live up to the hype.
So Circe in the Odyssey is a witch, who turns
Odysseus's men into pigs, and who Odysseus
lives with on an island for a year as her
lover.
So Circe only has a fairly small role in the
Odyssey, and so Madeline Miller only gives
Odysseus a pretty small role back in return.
He appears about half way through this book,
by which time we have already fallen in love
with Circe as this powerful witch, learning
her own craft, and defying her family.
And we see all the connections that Circe
has to other myths, so we meet Jason and Medea
as they flee from Aetees, who is her brother.
She also helps Daedalus build the cage to
keep the Minotaur in, the half man half bull
who was born from Circe's sister Pasiphae.
So she's connected to everyone.
So it's a really empowering version of the
Odyssey, and Penelope does feature in this
one as well, and I love what happens with
her storyline.
So those were Odyssey retellings, I'm going
to finish by going back and talking about
some Iliad retellings.
And there is one place in London we definitely
have to visit for this.
So for the Iliad retellings, I have two very
different versions of this story.
Two different versions of the story about
Achilles and Patroclus, and the relationship
with the slave girl Briseis.
And I read them literally back to back, which
was quite a jarring experience, but also really
fun to look at the very different ways you
can interpret Achilles, that most famous 'Best
of the Greeks'.
He's not that great though.
So the Song of Achilles, this is the first
book by Madeline Miller, author of Circe.
This is a love story between Achilles and
Patroclus.
So the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus
has been very open to interpretation over
the years, but I loved this version of them
truly having fallen in love.
It's all told from Patroclus's perspective,
and we meet these two from when they meet
as children, all the way through the Trojan
War and, crucially, the relationship with
Briseis, and the massive impact that has on
the war.
And then there's Silence of the Girls, which
is a much more brutal read.
And in this one, Achilles and Patroclus don't
have a traditional romantic relationship,
though they do have an amazing connection.
But this time, the story is told mainly from
the perspective of Briseis, who is a slave
girl who is captured and traded around in
the war camp, so it's very hard to read about.
And Achilles isn't always a likeable character
anyway, even in Song of Achilles, I loved
him because Patroclus loved him, but he's
very flawed.
But in Silence of the Girls, you suddenly
hate him for a lot of it.
But there are parts told from his perspective
to kind of balance that out.
And one of my favourite things about this
story was how Pat Barker wrote the soldiers
as so recognisable as modern men.
So, she used a range of different British
regional slang to reflect the fact that there
would have been so many different dialects
from all the Greek cities, and they sing drinking
chants, and they just felt so so real.
Which is sometimes a barrier when you're reading
ancient stories to actually be able to relate
to the characters, but Pat Barker did that
really well.
And the same for the women.
The way that the women in the camp spoke to
each other and laughed with each other about
their experiences felt so familiar.
So what are your favourite Greek myth retellings?
Do leave me a comment, because I'm absolutely
loving this trend.
I love trying to figure out where the myths
might have been based in truth, and also,
thanks to feminist retellings like this, actually
finally getting to imagine what the lives
of women might have been like in those times.
So comment below with your favourites, or
just leave us a Greek flag emoji, and of course
do give this video a thumbs up if you liked
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In the meantime, you can always go over and
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Coming up next week on Book Break, we've got
Jean back!
She's going to tell us all about her favourite
classic sci-fi books.
See you next time.
