Review

Plot overview: Circe is born to Helios, the god of the sun and the mightiest of the Titans, yet she is has no detectable power nor allure like her nymph mother. However, in her desire to be accepted, Circe reveals the power of witchcraft that can transform others into monsters. Threatened, Zeus banishes her to a deserted island, where she hones her craft and crosses paths of many famous mythological figures. Yet, not is all quiet on her island and Circe must protect herself and what she loves against not only a powerful Olympian but also mortal men.

Although this is Miller’s second novel that deals with Greek mythology, with a twist, you do not have to have read the first to tackle this one. In fact, I did not even now that Miller had written an earlier novel and at no point was I unsure of the plot, characters, or

Miller effectively weaves different stories and characters from Greek mythology into Circe’s narrative, building a rich and realistic world that readers can get lost in.

Yet, the heart of Circe’s novel is not mythology, instead Miller has rooted it in the life and emotions of a woman, and it is this that makes Circe so relatable. She is a daughter who feels that she disappoints her father Helios; she is a loner who is out of place; she is striving to find her place in the world; she is banished and becomes a single mother and must fight to protect him against a God who wants to harm him; and she must protect herself against those who would harm her.

I spent the whole novel rooting for Circe, I wanted her to find her strength and fight back against those selfish, egotistical Gods who shunned and looked down on her. At times, I wanted to jump into the pages of the book and shake her, and tell her fight, maybe even help her do it. Yet, Circe’s power is not the explosive and reactive ones of the Gods, instead she is the river, taking the knocks, yet constant in its desire to reach its destination. Circe works at her craft, builds it, plans and when necessary, finds an inner strength that will ultimately bring her the happiness that she has always desired.

This was an enjoyable read, at times it was slow, but I enjoyed being immersed in Greek mythology and the connections that Miller makes between characters. By the end, I felt like I understood Circe and her motivations and, as with any good book, I felt connected to her character.

Extract

WHEN I WAS BORN, the name for what I was did not exist. They called me nymph, assuming I would be like my mother and aunts and thousand cousins. Least of the lesser goddesses, our powers were so modest they could scarcely ensure our eternities. We spoke to fish and nurtured flowers, coaxed drops from the clouds or salt from the waves. That word, nymph, paced out the length and breadth of our futures. In our language, it means not just goddess, but bride.

My mother was one of them, a naiad, guardian of fountains and streams. She caught my father’s eye when he came to visit the halls of her own father, Oceanos. Helios and Oceanos were often at each other’s tables in those days. They were cousins, and equal in age, though they did not look it. My father glowed bright as just-forged bronze, while Oceanos had been born with rheumy eyes and a white beard to his lap. Yet they were both Titans, and preferred each other’s company to those new-squeaking gods upon Olympus who had not seen the making of the world.

Oceanos’ palace was a great wonder, set deep in the earth’s rock. Its high-arched halls were gilded, the stone floors smoothed by centuries of divine feet. Through every room ran the faint sound of Oceanos’ river, source of the world’s fresh waters, so dark you could not tell where it ended and the rock-bed began. On its banks grew grass and soft gray flowers, and also the unnumbered children of Oceanos, naiads and nymphs and river-gods. Otter-sleek, laughing, their faces bright against the dusky air, they passed golden goblets among themselves and wrestled, playing games of love. In their midst, outshining all that lily beauty, sat my mother.

…

At my birth, an aunt—I will spare you her name because my tale is full of aunts—washed and wrapped me. Another tended to my mother, painting the red back on her lips, brushing her hair with ivory combs. A third went to the door to admit my father.

“A girl,” my mother said to him, wrinkling her nose.

But my father did not mind his daughters, who were sweet-tempered and golden as the first press of olives. Men and gods paid dearly for the chance to breed from their blood, and my father’s treasury was said to rival that of the king of the gods himself. He placed his hand on my head in blessing.

“She will make a fair match,” he said.

“How fair?” my mother wanted to know. This might be consolation, if I could be traded for something better.

My father considered, fingering the wisps of my hair, examining my eyes and the cut of my cheeks.

“A prince, I think.”

“A prince?” my mother said. “You do not mean a mortal?”

The revulsion was plain on her face. Once when I was young I asked what mortals looked like. My father said, “You may say they are shaped like us, but only as the worm is shaped like the whale.”

My mother had been simpler: like savage bags of rotten flesh.

“Surely she will marry a son of Zeus,” my mother insisted. She had already begun imagining herself at feasts upon Olympus, sitting at Queen Hera’s right hand.

“No. Her hair is streaked like a lynx. And her chin. There is a sharpness to it that is less than pleasing.”

My mother did not argue further. Like everyone, she knew the stories of Helios’ temper when he was crossed. However gold he shines, do not forget his fire.

She stood. Her belly was gone, her waist reknitted, her cheeks fresh and virgin-rosy. All our kind recover quickly, but she was faster still, one of the daughters of Oceanos, who shoot their babes like roe.

“Come,” she said. “Let us make a better one.”