Circe (Review)

Circe has won numerous awards and gained monumental praise. Hearing the hype was what drew me to read The Song of Achilles. After  Madeline Miller’s earlier retelling, and thoroughly enjoying it, I was finally more than ready to dive into her most praised work.

Circe made the perfect audiobook for my recent road trip, making the nearly twelve-hour drive (each way) actually…enjoyable.

“‘You are wise,’ he said.  ‘If it is so,’ I said, ‘it is only because I have been fool enough for a hundred lifetimes.’”

I was more than happy to find that Circe achieves the success of Achilles and then some. With a more mysterious past, Circe is able to take liberties more easily than Achilles, and Miller certainly takes advantage of this. The book explores the numerous factors of Circe’s life with a flowing writing style rife with simile (but not too densely so). The style is brought to life perfectly by Perida Weeks in the audiobook version, so successfully that I will forever imagine the Goddess with Weeks’s voice.

In Miller’s hands, Circe becomes not only the story of the Witch of Aiaia but one which addresses how women in mythology, and history in general are so often cast as witches and monsters, their stories pushed so easily aside to make room for those of the more famous male figures. She touches on this topic subtly throughout the story, laying down the framework of her feminist ideas without it being blatant. Through this, we gain insight into not only the story of Circe, but that of Pacifae, Penelope, and Scylla, revealing how they evolved to fill the roles they take in the classic myths.

“Humbling women seems to me a chief pastime of poets. As if there can be no story unless we crawl and weep.”

My only quip, and it is a small one, was that when it came to Circe and Odysseus’s meeting, I expected…more. More details and more explanation as to why the famous hero of The Odyssey stayed with Circe when he was said to be so eager to return to his lovely and faithful wife. Part of this was because it is Circe’s most well-known encounter, as most readers will probably relate, which made me anticipate the meeting for the majority of the book. But then again, I understand why Miller would resist delving into a topic which has already been highlighted in so many texts and instead focuses on the more skimmed-over events of the Goddess’s life, shining light on them at last.

I rated Circe 4.5 out of 5 stars. I would definitely recommend it to fans of The Song of Achilles, as it takes all the strengths of that story and exceeds them.