Favorite Great Book Reads
Throughout the semester in our Great Books class, I have been exposed to several modernized and contemporary forms of greek myth and literature. Reading these stories, discussing them in class, and over all diving deep into the meaning behind the lines has been a great experience. As a book lover and a avid greek myth fan (mainly stemming from my Percy Jackson days), being able to share my thoughts and opinions on three of my favorite books from the class will be amazing. With that being said, my three favorite reads would be The Oresteia, Cassandra, and Circe, in no particular order of importance or rating. The Oresteia Plot : The Oresteia is a trilogy of plays, the first of which titled Agamemnon. Following the theft of Helen, the sacrifice of Iphigenia (Agamemnon’s daughter), and the Trojan War, Agamemnon returns home to his wife Clytemnestra and the rest of their family, with Cassandra in tow as a prisoner. After failing to listen to Cassandra’s prophecy foretelling the fall of the House of Agamemnon, Clytemnestra sets her plan to kill her husband into motion, by the hands of his cousin Aegisthus. After killing Agamemnon and Cassandra, Aegisthus and Clytemnestra have Orestes exiled. All the while the chorus in the background talks about a foreboding future in store for the family. In the second play titled The Libation Bearers, Orestes returns from exile to join his sister Electra, following her guidance and with her help to kill Clytemnestra and Aegisthus as revenge for killing their father. After doing so, he proclaimed justice had been sought after, and then after witnessing the primal furies spring forth to reek vengeance on behalf of his mother and his act of matricide, he flees to find Apollo, who pushed him into killing his father. The third and final play titled The Eumenides, follows Orestes traveling to Athens at the behest of Apollo for Athena herself to judge his crime. There, a trial is put on, the furies leveling the charge of matricide at Orestes feet. After a fiery case is held, Athena breaks a tie and rules in the favor of Orestes, setting him free. The furies are angered, but are soon tamed by Athena’s judgment and wisdom, and accept her offer in joining her in Athens. Opinion : Overall I loved The Oresteia. The story told was one that really encapsulated the heart of greek myth. One of corrupt power, family wars and struggles, godly intervention and fights, and national upheaval. It showed the true nature of absolute power, and what people will do in order to grab hold of it, and what they will do in order to defend it. It also combines this with a varying family dynamic, showing how it can tear relationships apart, and loved ones from each other. Power, the need for it, tore a mother away from her son and daughter, and even led to a father to sacrifice his own daughter to save his ruling class. Combine this with godly and mystical intervention and one has quite the story on their hands. The element of godly intervention adds in a layer of impossibility, a whimsical style. Something that the reader, nor even the characters themselves, have control of. Seeing things that we do not have control over, always fascinate me. It is humbling, and giving a figure or being behind the uncontrollable helps to see that there are in fact things beyond are reach, things we can not sway in our favor. This story did a great job in being a true guide as to what greek myth and literature is, from the style it was written in, the character creation and background, to the themes at play. Overall, it is one of my favorite classical greek myths. Cassandra Plot : Told from Cassandra’s perspective looking back at her life, treating time itself as a malleable medium, the story follows Cassandra’s life and the lead up to her being taken prisoner by Agamemnon and ultimately killed in Clytemnestra’s plot. Cassandra, Priam’s daughter, was blessed with the gift of prophecy, however was soon cursed by Apollo so that no one will ever believe her. As Priam’s daughter, she was exposed to many of the matters of state and the political environment surrounding their connections to the other nations. Upon hearing of the plot to make people believe Helen was in Troy, and finding out that Helen being in Troy was a lie to make her nation attack which ultimately results in Troy’s downfall, she attempts to warn her father. Her prophetic foresight confirms her belief in this plot, however it also curses her again to make no one believe her. Due to this, she watches as the war unfolds, based on the lie that she could not get people to see past, and was then taken prisoner by Agamemnon. Heading back home with him, she realized she would meet her death by the hands of Clytemnestra’s plot, however she was not angry at Clytemnestra. She was angry at herself surely, but she could not bear to judge someone with whom she identified in ways with. She saw herself in her, and so Cassandra accepted her death, knowing it would pass whether she did or not. Opinion : As a modernized take on an already established character and myth, the story was very well told. By drawing inspiration from already told stories surrounding the Trojan War, and creating her own unique twists, Christa Wolf successfully told a classical myth through the eyes of a more feminist and modern standing. Often times, classical greek myth had a viewpoint that was a stark contrast to more modern feminist pro-equality ideals. Women were often overlooked, seen as more of a victim to the story itself not really even a character. Even if the story was about them, in some ways the story would not treat them as a main character, but as a side character to their own life. In Christa Wolf’s rendition, she drew inspiration from this method, while commenting on the absurdity. By using Cassandra, a priestess with a cures of prophetic knowledge who no one will believe, she can showcase a strong female lead who is yet again a victim of the story, while showing the craziness of it. By showing the struggles Cassandra faced, the emotions she experience in her life, a deep dive into her character, we can see this flawed logic that many old greek myths seem to share. In a way, I enjoyed this piece of writing for this fact alone. Being able to comment on history and their treatment of certain subjects, while still making a interesting story that does not seem to be shoving an agenda into the readers face, is no easy task. Christa Wolf did exactly that, which speaks volume of how great a book this truly is. I also enjoy the idea of knowing ones destiny is to fail, trying hard to avoid that, but end up leading oneself exactly into the fate they were trying to avoid. Seeing the avoidance of ones destiny displayed through an articulate character like Cassandra, tugs at my liking of the idea of destiny. Fate, ones purpose in life, are things I love to sit and ponder, and being able to read a story from the perspective of a brilliantly written character, again makes me fall in love with the book ever more. Circe Plot : Circe shares the story of the witch Circe herself, told from her perspective, it shares the backstory of her life as a whole, instead of just as a side character in someone else’s life. Starting from her upbringing in her Titan father Helios’s hall, Circe shares the life she lived and how different she was from everyone else. She did not connect with anyone there, always feeling alone in the great halls. After centuries of repeating the same thing day to day, and seeing her younger brother grow up and abandon her, she eventually falls in love with a fisherman, and uses a flower bloomed from the Olympians blood to make him a god. After seeing who he became after becoming a god, and him rejecting her love, she takes her anger out on his love interest, turning her into a monster. Eventually confessing of her crimes to her father, she is banished to an island in a deal made between Zeus and Helios in order to keep her and her powers away from them, out of fear of what she could do. Circe at first hates her exile, but soon comes to love it. The freedom it brings, the chance to be able to hone an art, a life that was hers to create. She practices her magic more and more, until one day she is approached by Hermes. Eventually the two fall into a rhythm where he comes and visits every now and again to share stories with her. After more years pass, she is faced with her first visitors, pirates. They try and harm and assault her, however she after being attacked gets the upper hand and turns them into pigs to wander on her island. More and more men come and she continuous to do this. Eventually Odysseus comes into the story, and she attempts to do the same with him and his men, however Hermes intervenes and helps him trick her. The two have a short romance, one which births a son, Telegonus. Odysseus leaves to return home, and Circe raises their son. Eventually he too leaves the island, but in search of Odysseus. However when he finds him, he is forced to kill him. Returning home with Penelope and her son Telemachus, he is distraught and stays with his mother, until Athena offers him the offer to come help build her a kingdom after Telemachus refuses to do so. After he leaves, Circe meets with her father and threatens him into breaking her exile, she then decides to travel around with Telemachus helping mortals across the world, even stopping to turn Scylla, the girl she turned into a monster, into stone as a way of fixing her past mistakes. After a while of traveling together, Circe falls in love with Telemachus, and the two decide on a future together. Before Circe leaves off the story, she decided to use more of the flowers grown from Olympian blood in hopes to turn herself into a mortal so she can be with Telemachus for the rest of their days, instead of for only a short time. Opinion : The story of Circe herself is an amazing addition to her as a character. Her role in Homer’s The Odyssey was small and cut short. Getting to see her as a main protagonist was a great change of pace. Often times drawing from already existing characters, and giving them their own story, can be hard. People might not like their interpretation of the character. However I for one loved Madeline Miller’s version of the character of Circe. In The Odyssey the motives for why she acted as she did with men who came to her island, and her being portrayed as evil, was lacking. Madeline Miller decided to provide a reason for why she treated men the way she did. It was because of how some attacked her when she tried to help them, resulting in her taking a more wary and distrusting approach to all men who came ashore. With her being portrayed as evil in Homer’s story, Miller instead showed her as misunderstood and put into complicated situations, often times being the victim herself. For the majority of her life, Circe was at the mercy of her father and the olympians, to afraid to stand up and change her life, believing what she had was all she could get. However, after seeing Prometheus and his path in breaking from the mold in life, she eventually discovered the courage to try and stop being a victim, to own her path, to be herself. This resulted in her journey of self discovery. Another thing about this story that I believe made it beautiful, would be its comments on humanity itself. Circe and her family were all immortals, and all looked at mortal beings as pathetic and terrifying, not understanding how they could live knowing they would die. Through Circe’s journey of discovery, she found that the reason why they could live even though they would die, is simply because there was an end. The end forced them to enjoy the moments they had, to enjoy their family and friends, to live the life they had. The gods did not have an end, which created a lot of complacency and no trajectory in anyones life. Everyone committed to doing the same thing day in day out. Upon seeing this, Circe wanted that drive to live a life, a purpose, which is why she strove to be mortal. While being mortal was scary, it was beautiful. Stories are beautiful, and stories have an end. Without an ending, one does not have a story, meaning the beauty is unachievable. The Song of Achilles After reading the books throughout the semester, and by looking at the themes and ideas represented in my favorite three reads, I found The Song of Achilles to be a very good fit and a worthy addition into the class. Sharing very similar themes and core ideas, even written by Madeline Miller, the author of Circe, the story fits very smoothly into the telling of the Trojan War myths. Following the story of Achilles told from the perspective of Patroclus, it shares a version of Homer’s Iliad and a version of the two mens relationships, one where they more romantically involved. From their meeting as children, to their growing friendship, to the oaths they swore to each other to fight together, to trying to avoid their promise to fight in the Trojan War, and ultimately to their fateful deaths, the epic does a great job and revising these character roles with a new, fresher version. By changing and creating a more prominent focus on their romantic involvement, changes the meaning behind why they fight. Their motivation for war, to protect each other, to protect the vows and oaths they swore to uphold. This was not just a story where two people decided to jump straight into war. No, it was a story of struggling to coming to terms with what they must do, even trying to avoid their duties, but ultimately joining in order to protect those dearest. Often times old epics and greek stories, motivation is left out and the jump and headlong dash to war always leaves out hesitation. Hesitation is more realistic, reluctance is more feasible. The Song of Achilles does just that. It takes a story, the story of Achilles and the Trojan War, and gives a more realistic modern take. In all, I would love to see this story taught with the Trojan War unit. Sharing similar themes of power, war, corruption, and trying to protect each other and your loved ones from harm. A great greek epic indeed. |
Websites Referenced
https://www.supersummary.com/oresteia/summary/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassandra_(novel)
https://www.litcharts.com/lit/circe/summary
https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/song-of-achilles/summary/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassandra_(novel)
https://www.litcharts.com/lit/circe/summary
https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/song-of-achilles/summary/