Retelling Review: Circe

Summary: This was a great combination of unique story with pieces of familiar tales.

Rather than retelling The Odyssey, this story plucks Circe from the pages of myth and gives her a complete story of her own. She grows up scorned by her naiad mother and ignored by Helios, her Titan father, because she had neither power nor divine beauty. However, love of a mortal leads Circe to discover that she does have the power of witchcraft. Unbound by the rules of the gods, she is exiled to an island by Zeus, where she must protect herself and learn who she wants to be as a woman alone in the world.

This story contains some of the best elements of both a retelling and an original story. Circe’s life and personality are completely original. The plot contains enough elements that are simply not part of any myth that there’s surprise and suspense. The plot is shaped as it need be to best focus on Circe. The way she grows and changes can drive the story because this novel isn’t stuck in the grooves worn by another tale. There are major elements familiar from The Odyssey and other Greek mythology however. Getting glimpses of these stories from Circe’s perspective added depth and background to familiar tales. It was also fun to see the many cameos from characters whose stories I already knew. This mythological context, as well as the author’s writing and the scope of the story, made this feel like an epic.

I feel like I should also be able to say something insightful about the themes of this story. There is certainly a lot of explicit commentary on the power dynamics between men and women; the challenges of motherhood; and social power dynamics. Most of this is right on the surface though. I typically agreed with the author’s commentary. I thought she made her points cleverly and the context made her comments feel fresh. I’m not sure there’s much to excavate here though. I’ll have to see what other reviewers have to say!

PS – I actually felt like many professional reviewers were too dismissive of this book. I still don’t think that there’s much that’s hidden here, but it contains complex themes that fueled some great book club discussion. For me, the most interesting question was whether this is a feminist novel. Most professional reviewers seem to think the fact that a woman is speaking is enough to make this feminist. The author makes this argument more persuasively in a fantastic interview, talking about how epic adventure specifically is a male dominated genre. I do agree that subverting that expectation is a feminist endeavor. However, I was put off by Circe’s dismissiveness of other women early in the story. Folks in my book club highlighted Circe’s character growth as she comes to see other women as allies instead of competitors. I’d missed this piece of her story and like the book even better for having it pointed out to me.

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