Circe by Madeline Miller
The Song of Achilles blew me away, and now I've had the chance to drink up Circe, Miller's other epic novel that is an absolute masterpiece.
Spanning eons, Circe tells her life story as a god. I could tell you the particulars of the plot, but while it's completely engrossing, it's not where the novel shines the brightest. The writing is glorious, true art in itself. And the story weaves together so much Greek mythology that we are treated to a different glimpse of these characters we've heard about over the years--what fuels them, the relationships they had amongst themselves, their pettiness. I never imagined I could feel ambivalent toward Athena.
The courage of Circe, her life as a witch, and her compassion toward mortals enveloped me for days. I feared the end of the novel because I didn't want to leave the space the novel created in my life. We have so much to see in ourselves by reading about these gods and the mortals they interacted with. Greek mythology has been presented to me as somewhat silly, something that ignorant people clung to when they didn't know better. Now I see that we aren't that different with our beliefs today, or in how we respond to our lives.
General consensus: This is a voyage into another realm that forces us to expand our sense of reality.
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