books 2007: The Penelopiad, by Margaret Atwood

[supercheesegirl]

Eh. Kind of disappointing. I was all excited to find this at the library, figuring that the Oddysseus and Penelope story told by Atwood would be all revolutionary and cool, but it was kind of just the same story. A lot of focus on the 12 maids who were killed right after Oddysseus killed the suitors, which, I agree, benefitted from the exploration, but mostly it was a lot of oh wasn't this unjust, and wasn't this terrible, and oh the patriarchy. And Penelope never even tells him what a jerk he was to kill the maids. It was a quick read, but I was disappointed.

Comments

[aerynne.livejournal.com]

I was terribly impressed by it, but I listened to it on CD. Which I can highly recommend. I think I would have been less impressed by it just reading. I do love Atwood, though.

[supercheesegirl.livejournal.com]

I guess I just feel like there are a lot of people doing that sort of thing--taking the ancient story and writing it from the perspective of the peripheral female character--so much so that it's got to be really remarkable if I'm going to like it. Biblical retellings in particular are really big these days, but it's the same sort of thing. And this just didn't stand out to me as giving much of a different slant on the original story.

Although, with the chorus, I bet it was really cool to listen to.