I've finished my second book for Carl's Once Upon a Time Challenge. A little late, but I'm getting there. I may not finish on time (the challenge goes through June 21), but I hope to at least finish reading my planned books (two left and then Shakespeare)! The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood is a modern-day, rather irreverent, retelling of the myth of Penelope, Odysseus's very faithful wife, and her maids.
Canongate (along with other publishing houses) is getting contemporary authors to retell myths in whatever way they want. I like how Margaret Atwood begins The Penelopiad:
"Now that I'm dead I know everything. This is what I wished would happen, but like so many of my wishes it failed to come true. I know only a few factoids that I didn't know before. Death is much too high a price to pay for the satisfaction of curiosity, needless to say."
(Possible spoilers if you are not familiar with the story). Penelope tells her version of the tale straight from the fires of Hades, occasionally enjoying a bit of asphodel, and running into other personages that we know and love from The Odyssey. It has been a long time since I read any Homer, but the story came back to me more or less. Penelope is left behind in Ithaca when Odysseus goes off to fight in the Trojan War (thanks to Helen running off with Paris). He is gone for twenty years. While Odysseus is away, Penelope must fend off a multitude of suitors with the help of her maids. In the end, no kindness goes unpunished (or however the saying goes), not only are the suitors murdered, but the maids are hanged in the end, too.
I really like the idea of this series and will have to look for more of the books at the bookstore. I wanted to participate in Carl's challenge as these are the types of books I rarely pick up and read on my own. I think myth and folklore especially are important, even though I don't do much reading in this area. Karen Armstrong has written, "Myth is about the unknown; it is about that for which we have no words. Myth therefore looks into the heart of a great silence."
It seems as though Margaret Atwood really did her research when she wrote this. I think there is a lot of word play and symbolism that I didn't really pick up on (I read a few reviews after the fact, though, which helped me get an idea of what I missed). To be very honest, though, while I liked this book, I sort of didn't as well--or didn't like aspects of it. I liked the quirkiness of the retelling, and I liked the bawdiness of the maid's interjections between chapters. But I never really warmed to Penelope or any of the other characters (and you get very little sense of what the maids are like--they move in one big group). Maybe you are not meant to get too close? I always just felt like I was on the outside looking in. It all felt sort of mechanical. I would be curious to hear what others thought of the book? Still, I am happy to have read it--there were elements of the story I really enjoyed--and there were some great lines in the story. I wouldn't mind reading more myths--both in this series or on their own.
The Penelopiad was my "mythology" read, and Stardust by Neil Gaiman was my "fairy tale" read. Now I am working on Susan Cooper's Over Sea, Under Stone for my "fantasy" book. It is a YA novel, set in Cornwall. This is the first book in a series about three siblings who discover a map that might lead them to the Holy Grail. It has started out as a fun read, so I have high expectations that it will be a good adventure/fantasy story.