Jennifer Saint: Ariadne (2021, Flatiron Books)
304 pages
English language
Published June 20, 2021 by Flatiron Books.
This is my second time reading a "retelling" of greek mythology from the caracter's point of view, the first time being Miller's famous "Circe". It is difficult not to compare the two and in this comparison, Jennifer Saints book comes out a bit less elegant and poetic in the writing. It was still a nice read.
Despite the focus allegedly being on them, Ariadne and Phaedra are given no real personality outside of 3 men in their lives, and never have any hobbies, ambitions, or friends. They sort of care about each other when they remember the other exists but aren't concerned at all about their mother. In this book, men are all Evil (unless raised by a group of pure selfless women) and all women are passive victims. At least Hera gets to be an actively petty goddess (though even that's because of Zeus' wrongdoings), though the other goddesses who are petty and cruel in original mythology have been totally removed from the story. (ampelos just tripped)
Dionysus is ridiculously written, with no regard for the actual duality of his personality in antiquity. The author also clearly doesn't understand animal sacrifices in ancient Greece, evidently thinking the whole point is "gods love cruelty mwa ha …
No longer was my world one of brave heroes; I was learning all too swiftly the women’s pain that throbbed unspoken through the tales of their feats.
I'm not sure if I did myself a favor or a disservice by reading this one so soon after Circe by Madeline Miller. The two books are pretty similar in theme, and also, they draw from the same segment of Greek mythology, although they focus on different aspects of those myths and interpret some of the "parts of the puzzle" differently. That meant I was constantly comparing the two subconsciously as I read, as well as trying to reconcile them into a single narrative—a futile exercise, given that they're entirely different books, although I have to say it actually worked weirdly well a lot of the time.
Anyway, I quite liked this take on the Greek myths and the focus on womens' fates …
No longer was my world one of brave heroes; I was learning all too swiftly the women’s pain that throbbed unspoken through the tales of their feats.
This is a pretty straight retelling of Ariadne and her sister Phaedra's stories. It was just lacking a little oompf, maybe because Ariadne always seems on the edge of the myths, some of them just being relayed to her by others.
