January is overrated
I've decided that my New Year officially begins on Monday 14 January. That's mostly because yesterday, I was somewhere that was sunny and 25 degrees. Today I'm somewhere that...isn't.
We very much enjoyed the sunshine, even if Gran Canaria turned out to not really be for us. We've been to Menorca, Mallorca and Lanzarote, and in all of those, it's quite easy to get away from built-up areas, and to drive through nice scenery. The roads in GC mostly go through industrial areas, and nothing quite sat comfortably. Still, it was sunny, and we had a flat with a balcony that made you feel like you were in the sea, so it was worth it.
As I've got a few days before 2019 offically starts for me, I thought I'd get these book notes posted while I remember them! I won't dump it all in one post, as I have quite a lot to say about each one, but let's start with my last book of 2018.
There's a big Waterstones right where I get off my bus, so it was impossible to miss the splash that Madeline Miller's follow-up to The Song of Achilles made. I own that one, but haven't read it, and as my brain has been having trouble concentrating on the written word, I reserved the audiobook. Especially at the end of last year, I did a lot of reserving but not a lot of listening, but I had a couple of days to get us ready for Christmas, and decided to give this one a go.
For those that don't know, I studied Classics at university, having been passionate about it since I was 8. Classics was my world, and while I studied mostly Rome, you can't study classics and not know your Homer. While Achilles' story has been done a thousand different ways, I admit that the idea of a story centred on Circe was intriguing. Not only was it uncharted territory, it was taking a very minor character and giving her a whole voice. As the author was universally acclaimed, I was expecting it to be good.
What I wasn't expecting was to feel like I was reading the modern equivalent of Homer. It's hard to describe, but the style caught the idiom and patterns of epic verse, while being totally readable and understandable. Translating Homer is hard, because even for its time, epic was an elevated form. It was poetry, and it was the tales of heroes and gods, meaning that even to its early listeners, it would have been distinctive. I loved how this book picked up the feel of that language, without tripping over into parody. It felt like the best translations, which manage to translate not just words but cultural impressions. It helped that the reader was superb, picking up the rhythms of the prose and managing to stay away from anything melodramatic that wasn't already there in the story. I find poetry difficult to relate to, and have always preferred prose, so this book really felt like it had been recorded just for me.
Like all the best mythological re-tellings, Miller takes the originals and twists them just enough, bringing people from different places and times together in new ways. She puts Circe's family connections front and centre, allowing characters who are also connected to Helios, the sun god, to come to her. It's a clever twist, like the people who try to produce the story of mythological character's lives. Usually they discover that heroes performed deeds with people who were supposed to be dead before they were born (Heracles/Hercules' life story is a MESS), and there's a sense of that messed-up time about this story. Circe has it make sense because of her divinity, and I liked the way it all came together at the end, like one of Penelope's tapestries.
In case it wasn't clear enough, I loved this book. I'm not sure everyone will - the characters are far from all three-dimensional, and there isn't a plot so much as a series of things that happen all to the same person - but it felt like it had been written just for me, and that's the best kind of read.
As a final note, it gets pretty stunning reviews pretty much everywhere, but this review said everything I wanted to say, and much more eloquently!
This entry was originally posted at https://jadesfire.dreamwidth.org/594246.html where there are
comments
We very much enjoyed the sunshine, even if Gran Canaria turned out to not really be for us. We've been to Menorca, Mallorca and Lanzarote, and in all of those, it's quite easy to get away from built-up areas, and to drive through nice scenery. The roads in GC mostly go through industrial areas, and nothing quite sat comfortably. Still, it was sunny, and we had a flat with a balcony that made you feel like you were in the sea, so it was worth it.
As I've got a few days before 2019 offically starts for me, I thought I'd get these book notes posted while I remember them! I won't dump it all in one post, as I have quite a lot to say about each one, but let's start with my last book of 2018.
There's a big Waterstones right where I get off my bus, so it was impossible to miss the splash that Madeline Miller's follow-up to The Song of Achilles made. I own that one, but haven't read it, and as my brain has been having trouble concentrating on the written word, I reserved the audiobook. Especially at the end of last year, I did a lot of reserving but not a lot of listening, but I had a couple of days to get us ready for Christmas, and decided to give this one a go.
For those that don't know, I studied Classics at university, having been passionate about it since I was 8. Classics was my world, and while I studied mostly Rome, you can't study classics and not know your Homer. While Achilles' story has been done a thousand different ways, I admit that the idea of a story centred on Circe was intriguing. Not only was it uncharted territory, it was taking a very minor character and giving her a whole voice. As the author was universally acclaimed, I was expecting it to be good.
What I wasn't expecting was to feel like I was reading the modern equivalent of Homer. It's hard to describe, but the style caught the idiom and patterns of epic verse, while being totally readable and understandable. Translating Homer is hard, because even for its time, epic was an elevated form. It was poetry, and it was the tales of heroes and gods, meaning that even to its early listeners, it would have been distinctive. I loved how this book picked up the feel of that language, without tripping over into parody. It felt like the best translations, which manage to translate not just words but cultural impressions. It helped that the reader was superb, picking up the rhythms of the prose and managing to stay away from anything melodramatic that wasn't already there in the story. I find poetry difficult to relate to, and have always preferred prose, so this book really felt like it had been recorded just for me.
Like all the best mythological re-tellings, Miller takes the originals and twists them just enough, bringing people from different places and times together in new ways. She puts Circe's family connections front and centre, allowing characters who are also connected to Helios, the sun god, to come to her. It's a clever twist, like the people who try to produce the story of mythological character's lives. Usually they discover that heroes performed deeds with people who were supposed to be dead before they were born (Heracles/Hercules' life story is a MESS), and there's a sense of that messed-up time about this story. Circe has it make sense because of her divinity, and I liked the way it all came together at the end, like one of Penelope's tapestries.
In case it wasn't clear enough, I loved this book. I'm not sure everyone will - the characters are far from all three-dimensional, and there isn't a plot so much as a series of things that happen all to the same person - but it felt like it had been written just for me, and that's the best kind of read.
As a final note, it gets pretty stunning reviews pretty much everywhere, but this review said everything I wanted to say, and much more eloquently!
This entry was originally posted at https://jadesfire.dreamwidth.org/594246.html where there are
comments