A very short read that I have picked up from JRL recently (as with the other 2 books that I have just reviewed). An immensely entertaining read albeit a little lacking in the thick (sometimes impenetrable) layers that is characteristic of some of Atwood’s other works.
A revisionist view on the famous Greek myth of Odysseus, this novella offers Penelope and the maids a chance to give their account of events. While the 12 hanged maids’ recounts are relegated to poems, ballads and even a futile trial, Penelope’s narrative forms the bulk of it, occasionally interspersed by the former. From her family in Sparta to her marriage; from her simmering hatred/resentment of her cousin Helen (of Troy) to the tense relations with the Suitors; from her relationship with her missing husband to her frosty ties with her son, she tells it all. Most importantly, is the truth behind the devious 12 maids who were hanged. She tells it all from present-day Hades, where she meets the haunting 12 maids whose feet are still twitching, Helen who’s still flaunting her beauty, Odysseus who’s always opting for reincarnation and all the Suitors (including the one with an arrow through his throat).
If you were a magician, messing around in the dark arts and risking your soul, would you want to conjure up a plain but smart wife who’d been good at weaving and had never transgressed, instead of a woman who’d driven hundreds of men mad with lust and had caused a great city to go up in flames?
Neither would I.
That pretty much sums up how she feels about Helen. I’m rather guilty to admit that I’ve never heard of Penelope (though I have encountered Odysseus) despite having heard so much about Helen of Troy. Penelope is deeply jealous of Helen all her life and despite being married far from Sparta to Ithaca, she has to deal with the issues wrought by Helen’s infamous beauty. Running off with Paris and sparking off the famed battle of Troy, Helen was seen as the root cause for Odysseus’ constant absence. Later, when Penelope finds out from her son that Helen is still as beautiful as ever, while she herself has undoubtedly aged, she gets even more jealous. Jealousy is what makes us human (and arguably women too), and the constant preoccupation with Helen shows how Penelope is pretty much just a normal woman, not simply a detached saintly epitome of femininity. And all ordinary people have a family.
You’ve probably heard that my father ran after a departing chariot, begging me to stay with him, and that Odysseus asked me if I was going to Ithaca with him of my own free will or did I prefer to remain with my father? It’s said that in answer I pulled down my veil, being too modest to proclaim in words my desire for my husband, and that a statue was later erected of me in tribute to the virtue of Modesty.
There’s some truth to this story. But I pulled down my veil to hide the fact that I was laughing. You have to admit that there was something humorous about a father who’d once tossed his own child into the sea capering down the road after that very child and calling, “Stay with me!”
This is what I mean by revisionist. The Penelopiad draws on small incidents narrated in the Odyssey and expounds upon it, providing a totally refreshing (and often hilarious) perspective. Penelope’s relationship with her father was strained at best, because of an oracle that prophesied that she will cause her father’s death. Her father responded by trying to drown her (which failed since she was the daughter of a half-nymph). Why the chase then? Well, because he wanted to save the downry he had to pay to send his daughter off to Ithaca.
It was nothing if not oblique, but then, all Naiads are oblique.
Here’s what she said:
Water does not resist. Water flows. When you plunge your hand into it, all you feel is a caress. Water is not a solid wall, it will not stop you. But water always gets where it wants to go, and nothing in the end can stand against it. Water is patient. Dripping water wears away a stone. Remember that, my child. Remember you are half water. If you can’t go through a obstacle, go around it. Water does.
As for her mother, Penelope hardly sees much of her. Yet her speech before she was wedded to Odysseus proved to be the one that influenced her life the most. Indeed, Penelope did not fight with the Suitors head-on, especially since she did not have the manpower to do so. But she weaved a shroud, which was to remain uncompleted (so as to postpone her wedding to any of those greedy money-grabbers who were of age to be her son).
The shroud itself became a story almost instantly. “Penelope’s web,” it was called; people used to say that of any task that remained mysteriously unfinished. I did not appreciate the term web. If the shroud was a web, then I was the spider. But I had not been attempting to catch men like flies; on the contrary, I’d merely been trying to avoid entanglement myself.
Apart from offering Penelope’s opinions of things mentioned in the Odysseus, this novella also puts the Greek gods in a rather negative light.
Who is to say that prayers have any effect? On the other hand, who is to say they don’t? I picture the gods, diddling around on Olympus, wallowing in the nectar and ambrosia and the aroma of burning bones and fat, mischievous as a pack of ten-year-olds with a sick cat to play with and a lot of time on their hands. “Which prayer shall we answer today?” they ask one another. “Let’s cast dice! Hope for this one, despair for that one, and while we’re at it, let’s destroy the life of that woman over there by having sex with her in the form of a crayfish!” I think they pull a lot of their pranks because they’re bored.
However, despite all her cynicism about the Greek gods and their almost childish behaviour, Penelope still respects and fears them. For instance, she clearly states that all her derisive comments only can be expressed now that she was dead, and that she wouldn’t have dared to do that while she was still alive. She also makes use of them (or rather, people’s respect for them), asserting that the idea of weaving the never-finished shroud was inspired by Pallas Athene. After all, “crediting some god for one’s inspirations was always a good way to avoid accusations of pride should the scheme succeed, as well as the blame if it did not.”
Greek gods are very different from the prevalent monotheistic religions we see today (no prizes for guessing them), because they are not immune to human error and flaws. The things we see on TV today: the rapes (reminds me of yesterday’s article Violation Nation in Life!), the incest, the fall from grace, the sibling rivalry etc, are all the stuff of Greek mythology. So Penelope is articulating a modern view of the ancient Greek gods. How on earth could people have revered them as Gods if they behaved like flawed human beings? Of course, this is very much shaped by our exposure to the flawless Gods of the major world religions today.
Generally, the Penelopiad is quite a enjoyable read. Do give it a shot regardless of whether you have had prior exposure to Greek mythology, or like myself, have only vaguely heard of some prominent names. Thankfully, it does not require an in-depth understanding of Greek mythology, though I think it will make many references self-evident. The interludes by the maids are amusing, though sometimes painful to read (because of the injustice they’ve been through), and as I’ve bored you in this review, Penelope’s insights are immensely precious and thought-provoking. This will not be a disappointing read.
