Ms. Hen reviews The Penelopiad

 

The Penelopiad

Margaret Atwood

Canongate Books

2005

Ms. Hen decided to read this because she had read THE ODYSSEY recently, and she wanted to find books that were inspired by it. She had already read CIRCE, but she had never heard of this book, which is the reimagined backstory of Odysseus' wife Penelope, and the twelve maids that were hung at the end of the epic poem.

Penelope was the daughter of a king, and a Naiad, or a water spirit. Her father tried to drown her when she was young, because it was prophesied that she would weave his death shroud. She did not drown, but survived, so he decided to give her the nickname, "Duck." Penelope's cousin was Helen, the great beauty. When Penelope got married, she traveled with Odysseus to his kingdom, a rocky island filled with goats.

She is lonely there, but she had a son, and befriends the young maids. Odysseus goes to fight in the Trojan war, but gets lost on the way home. She struggles to keep his estate together, her suitors try to woo her, but she waits patiently for her husband. The men eat all their food. Her maids inform her about what the suitors are doing. She is devastated when they die.

In between some of the chapters, the twelve maids sing a type of Greek chorus, like in the ancient plays by Sophocles and the other playwrights. Ms. Hen thinks this is charming, and it's poetry thrust into the middle of a novel. The novel is brimming with poetry.

Ms. Hen thinks this novel is dark, and it might be triggering for some people. But she thinks that students of literature should fight against being triggered, because the whole world is shocking and upsetting, and a highly educated person should be able to read a book and not become traumatized. Ms. Hen thinks that younger people today have gone weak, and don't know how to deal with the horrors of daily life. She's glad she's not any kind of teacher, because she would end up insulting the students, and she might get fired.

A hen house is mentioned, which excited Ms. Hen. Odysseus has come back home, and Telemachus and he are ganging up on Penelope, "I could see he had a rosy little picture in his mind: the two of them, siding up against me, grown men together, two roosters in charge of the henhouse." Ms. Hen likes this analogy, though she feels sorry for Penelope. It's difficult for a woman who has been in charge of her own house to relinquish her power.

Ms. Hen raced through this small book. She thinks it's great to read, if you want to be angry about women's place in society, and want to understand how an ancient tale can become new again, like all great tales, they never get old, and can be seen with fresh and and colorful eyes.