it's all greek

witches, villains and monsters oh my!

Apr 09, 2024

Most of us have a mythology phase right? For me it started with ancient Egypt with Isis, Ra and Anubis but it turned out to have too many cats. So, my focus swerved more towards Greek mythology, but I’m really open to them all. More mythologies in the mainstream please. I love how weird they are, yet how often beats are repeated. Very interesting.

I’ve been lucky enough to celebrate a few milestones in Greece. In 2006, my senior class trip went to Crete before graduation 1 where a handful of seniors decided to go out drinking2 so they were subsequently banned from our end of year “dance” and also the graduation ceremony(!?). Introvert that I am, I elected to stay behind that night.3 Must have been a really good book… This misadventure took place even after one of my classmates was caught drinking red wine from a coke bottle at a school function so was banned from the trip! So much banning. I’m sure that taught them a lesson.

The second milestone was my multi-city honeymoon in 2013, spanning from Thessaloniki to Athens to Mykonos, Santorini and Crete. In Athens I caught a glimpse of my husband’s future obsession with walking as we trekked up to the Acropolis in the blazing sun and then just continued walking all around it, walking down the hill… and then continued walking for the rest of the day 4. After a more refreshing walk around the inside of the Acropolis Museum, I was inspired so I asked at the gift shop for a Ancient Greece themed coloring book. The woman laughed in my face5 so I just ordered one when I got home.

Back to mythology. Explorations into the classic myths through the lens of the women who were simply monster or victim, without much in-between has re-awakened my curiosity into the mythic and has me noticing their ingredients and archetypes all around. Not just women, as we’ll see here, but I’m always in for approaching an age old story through a different lens. What can we learn from understanding the abused, dismissed, the monster-ized or the demonized characters? In the myths they are often one dimensional without motivation or clarity, mentioned almost in passing even as they have huge impact on the wider narrative. But, each of these characters could be seen as the main character in their own story. Aren’t you curious about the who, what, where, when and why of them even if they aren’t named Odysseus? We’re told they are villains or temptresses or monsters, and perhaps that is so, but why are they that way? And what does it say about us if we leave them unexamined?

The revelations and reinterpretations of some of these maligned characters are what we’re looking at today. From witches to goddesses to Minotaurs, let us approach the typical tale from another angle, with inspection at who gets to be named a hero and who a villain and see if we still agree with these labels at the end.

Drape yourself over a chaise lounge under an artfully arranged sheet with a clay jug of wine at your fingertips and someone on hand to feed you grapes then open one of these.

CIRCE by Madeline Miller

this is the RARE time where the US cover is better than the UK one

The daughter of the sun god Helios and a water nymph, Circe is mostly known just as the witch who turns Odysseus’s men into pigs in The Odyssey. Here, classics scholar Madeline Miller gives her a backstory, emotional motivation, power and showcases her active participation in many of the tales we think we already know as a fully rounded, richly drawn character. Someone we grow to deeply understand and root for.

Ah, the book that launched a thousand TikToks and wannabes. This is like the one time that TikTok hype is right about a book and let the record show that I read this way before Booktok was even a twinkle in its founder’s eye. After devouring this beautifully written story in 2018 I immediately gave it as a gift to two or three women in my life. Miller’s writing is lyrical and lovely while the overarching story is clever, exciting and filled with everything you want in an epic; drama, adventure, love, danger, suspense, tragedy and wisdom.

Our (anti?) heroine flits in and out of classic tales, encountering mythic characters and set pieces but sheds new light on our understanding of them all, revealing a lush and often emotionally wrenching story, even when we already know the ending. Somehow Miller makes the mythic tangible and the divine reachable with her detailed, always character driven wider storytelling and then again with her exquisite sentence work. I sincerely adore this book6 and Miller’s gorgeous writing and expertise in her subject makes her one of my must read authors. Additionally, since reading this, I’ve been on a big re-framing “witches” kick. Just you wait for October.7

A WARNING!

Publishers are understandably eager to duplicate the immense success of this book so there have been a resurgence of female centric Greek myth reimaginings recently; Ariadne, Medusa, Elektra, Clytemnestra, Medea, Phaedra and more almost always use Circe as a comp title 8 . I’ve given a few of these a chance and have been deeply disappointed. I’ve yet to read any in this vein that should be mentioned as if they are at the same level and its getting really irritating that they keep trying to equate mediocre work to something as exceptional as Circe. So far, these are trendy imitations, as flimsy as a Forever 21 dress. Read as you will, some may have their merits, just don’t expect Circe.

Extra Credit #1: Want more of Madeline rehabilitating witches? Check out her Guardian essay From Circe to Clinton: why powerful women are cast as witches. I’m greedy for alllll this sort of stuff.

Extra Credit #2: A TV adaptation was announced way back in 2019, so we’ll see if that ever comes to fruition.

Extra Credit #3: Back in 2021 Madeline hinted that she’s started a Persephone book! I want it.

Little by little I began to listen better: to the sap moving in the plants, to the blood in my veins. I learned to understand my own intention, to prune and to add, to feel where the power gathered and speak the right words to draw it to its height. That was the moment I lived for, when it all came clear at last and the spell could sing with its pure note, for me and me alone.

PANDORA’S JAR by Natalie Haynes

Natalie Haynes, another classicist, seeks to bring women to the forefront of the grand sagas that are typically almost completely male driven, focused and authored. This is a work of non-fiction and each chapter explores a famous female character from mythology that we know like one thing about and uses various interpretations, translations and resources to posit a larger more nuanced view of their character, story and actions. Not to condemn or crown, but to provide a wider literary understanding of these fairly flat characters. It highlights the divine like Hera, Aphrodite and Athene along with the mortal like Helen, Jocasta and Antigone and, of course, Pandora.

This is one of those books that feels like a class, in a good way. I would have loved to take a course dismantling our basic understanding of these overlooked or demonized archetypal female characters and where else they’ve shown up in world literature. Ever notice the similarities between the tales of Pandora and Eve?

Extra Credit: Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics is the author’s podcast where she “takes a fresh look at the ancient world, creating stand-up routines about figures from ancient Greece and Rome.”

Every myth contains multiple timelines within itself: the time in which it is set, the time it is first told, and every retelling afterwards. Myths may be the home of the miraculous, but they are also mirrors of us. Which version of a story we choose to tell, which characters we place in the foreground, which ones we allow to fade into the shadows: these reflect both the teller and the reader, as much as they show the characters of the myth. We have made space in our storytelling to rediscover women who have been lost or forgotten. They are not villains, victims, wives and monsters: they are people.

BULL by David Elliott

This one is delightful, even for a poetry avoider like me. Here we get the story of Theseus and the Minotaur told in verse with a modern, raunchy voice full of angst and cheekiness. Aimed for YA audiences, its a funny, playful and lively read. It also revisits a one-note character so we get to see this classic myth with a few more insights and nuance, or at the very least with more humor. Poor Minotaur.

Minos thought he could
Pull a fast one
On me,
Poseidon!
God of the Sea!
But I’m the last one
On whom you
Should try such a thing.
The nerve of that guy.
The balls. The audacity.
I AM THE OCEAN!
I got capacity!
Depths! Darkness! Delphic power!
So his sweet little plan
Went big-time sour
And his wife had a son
Born with horns and a muzzle
Who ended up
In an underground puzzle.
What is it with you mortals?
You just can’t seem to learn:
If you play with fire, babies,
You’re gonna get burned.

EXTRA CREDIT

Stephen Fry's GREAT MYTHOLOGY Series

I haven’t read all of these, but have listened to much of Mythos on a road trip. Who better to accompany you on Route 66 than the wry and witty Stephen Fry narrating his own versions of ancient stories with his varied voices and dry asides? He’s currently got Mythos, Heroes, Troy and Odyssey out and they all look gorgeous.