book review of circe

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Kirkus Reviews' Best Books Of 2018

New York Times Bestseller

by Madeline Miller ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 10, 2018

Miller makes Homer pertinent to women facing 21st-century monsters.

A retelling of ancient Greek lore gives exhilarating voice to a witch.

“Monsters are a boon for gods. Imagine all the prayers.” So says Circe, a sly, petulant, and finally commanding voice that narrates the entirety of Miller’s dazzling second novel. The writer returns to Homer, the wellspring that led her to an Orange Prize for The Song of Achilles (2012). This time, she dips into The Odyssey for the legend of Circe, a nymph who turns Odysseus’ crew of men into pigs. The novel, with its distinctive feminist tang, starts with the sentence: “When I was born, the name for what I was did not exist.” Readers will relish following the puzzle of this unpromising daughter of the sun god Helios and his wife, Perse, who had negligible use for their child. It takes banishment to the island Aeaea for Circe to sense her calling as a sorceress: “I will not be like a bird bred in a cage, I thought, too dull to fly even when the door stands open. I stepped into those woods and my life began.” This lonely, scorned figure learns herbs and potions, surrounds herself with lions, and, in a heart-stopping chapter, outwits the monster Scylla to propel Daedalus and his boat to safety. She makes lovers of Hermes and then two mortal men. She midwifes the birth of the Minotaur on Crete and performs her own C-section. And as she grows in power, she muses that “not even Odysseus could talk his way past [her] witchcraft. He had talked his way past the witch instead.” Circe’s fascination with mortals becomes the book’s marrow and delivers its thrilling ending. All the while, the supernatural sits intriguingly alongside “the tonic of ordinary things.” A few passages coil toward melodrama, and one inelegant line after a rape seems jarringly modern, but the spell holds fast. Expect Miller’s readership to mushroom like one of Circe’s spells.

Pub Date: April 10, 2018

ISBN: 978-0-316-55634-7

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2018

LITERARY FICTION | HISTORICAL FICTION

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'Circe' Author Madeline Miller Battles Long Covid

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THE NIGHTINGALE

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 3, 2015

Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.

Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.

In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs : people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.

Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3

Page Count: 448

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014

HISTORICAL FICTION | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP

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BOOK REVIEW

by Kristin Hannah

BOOK TO SCREEN

‘The Nightingale’ Is Reese’s Book Club Pick

THE SECRET HISTORY

by Donna Tartt ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 16, 1992

The Brat Pack meets The Bacchae in this precious, way-too-long, and utterly unsuspenseful town-and-gown murder tale. A bunch of ever-so-mandarin college kids in a small Vermont school are the eager epigones of an aloof classics professor, and in their exclusivity and snobbishness and eagerness to please their teacher, they are moved to try to enact Dionysian frenzies in the woods. During the only one that actually comes off, a local farmer happens upon them—and they kill him. But the death isn't ruled a murder—and might never have been if one of the gang—a cadging sybarite named Bunny Corcoran—hadn't shown signs of cracking under the secret's weight. And so he too is dispatched. The narrator, a blank-slate Californian named Richard Pepen chronicles the coverup. But if you're thinking remorse-drama, conscience masque, or even semi-trashy who'll-break-first? page-turner, forget it: This is a straight gee-whiz, first-to-have-ever-noticed college novel—"Hampden College, as a body, was always strangely prone to hysteria. Whether from isolation, malice, or simple boredom, people there were far more credulous and excitable than educated people are generally thought to be, and this hermetic, overheated atmosphere made it a thriving black petri dish of melodrama and distortion." First-novelist Tartt goes muzzy when she has to describe human confrontations (the murder, or sex, or even the ping-ponging of fear), and is much more comfortable in transcribing aimless dorm-room paranoia or the TV shows that the malefactors anesthetize themselves with as fate ticks down. By telegraphing the murders, Tartt wants us to be continually horrified at these kids—while inviting us to semi-enjoy their manneristic fetishes and refined tastes. This ersatz-Fitzgerald mix of moralizing and mirror-looking (Jay McInerney shook and poured the shaker first) is very 80's—and in Tartt's strenuous version already seems dated, formulaic. Les Nerds du Mal—and about as deep (if not nearly as involving) as a TV movie.

Pub Date: Sept. 16, 1992

ISBN: 1400031702

Page Count: 592

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1992

LITERARY FICTION

More by Donna Tartt

by Donna Tartt

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Circe, a Vilified Witch From Classical Mythology, Gets Her Own Epic

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By Alexandra Alter

April 6, 2018

On a cold, sunny afternoon in March, the novelist Madeline Miller wandered through the Greek and Roman galleries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, swooning over ancient amphoras and ethereal statues of gods and goddesses.

She was eager to see a particular artifact — a 2,500-year-old wine vessel painted with a scene from Homer’s Odyssey, as Odysseus confronts the goddess and sorceress Circe after she transforms his men into pigs.

Ms. Miller was riveted and horrified by that scene when she first read the Odyssey, and it became a pivotal moment in her new novel, “Circe,” a bold and subversive retelling of the goddess’s story that manages to be both epic and intimate in its scope, recasting the most infamous female figure from the Odyssey as a hero in her own right.

But on her way to see the vase, she kept getting distracted, dazzled by the mythical figures that have populated her imagination since she was a little girl, when her mother read passages to her from the Iliad and Odyssey at bedtime. More age-appropriate fare never grabbed her attention in the same way. “I wanted gods and monsters,” she said.

Visiting the museum felt like a homecoming of sorts. Growing up on the Upper East Side, she spent hours roaming the Met, marveling at the heroes, warriors and deities. Exploring those halls decades later, she was just as awe-struck.

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Circe by Madeline Miller

Circe, a powerful enchantress from Greek mythology, practicing witchcraft in her sanctuary on the island of Aiaia

17 Dec Circe by Madeline Miller

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“Circe” spans several centuries, offering a deep dive into the life of its eponymous character. It begins with Circe’s childhood in the halls of Helios, her father, where she struggles to find her place among gods and nymphs. She discovers her penchant for witchcraft, a talent that leads to her exile on the island of Aiaia. This isolation becomes both a punishment and a sanctuary, allowing Circe to hone her magical skills and interact with various figures from Greek mythology, including Odysseus, the Minotaur, and Athena. The novel is not just a series of events but a profound exploration of Circe’s evolution from a naive nymph to a powerful sorceress, grappling with her immortality and her desire to understand the mortal world.

Main Characters

Circe : Initially a timid and overlooked nymph, Circe grows into a formidable witch. Her journey is marked by moments of vulnerability, strength, and deep introspection.
Odysseus : A clever and complex character, Odysseus’ interaction with Circe adds layers to both their stories.
Telemachus : Odysseus’ son, who visits Circe and develops a unique bond with her.
Athena : The goddess who often stands as Circe’s antagonist, representing the capricious and often cruel nature of the gods.

In-Depth Analysis

Miller’s writing is a standout feature, with its lyrical quality and deep emotional resonance. The novel excels in its portrayal of Circe as a multifaceted character, exploring themes of power, isolation, and identity. It also delves into the pettiness and politics of the gods, contrasting it with Circe’s growing affinity for humanity.

Character Development : Circe’s evolution is the heart of the story. Miller skillfully depicts her transformation, making her a relatable and compelling protagonist.
Lyrical Prose : The writing style is evocative and poetic, enhancing the mythological setting and the emotional depth of the narrative.
Pacing : Some readers might find the middle part of the book a bit slow, as it delves deeply into character exploration.

Literary Devices

Symbolism : Circe’s witchcraft symbolizes her independence and self-discovery.
Foreshadowing : The novel uses subtle hints to foretell key events, particularly in the interactions between gods and mortals.

Relation to Broader Issues

“Circe” speaks to the universal themes of identity, power dynamics, and the nature of humanity. It also touches on gender roles and the struggle for autonomy, particularly resonant in the #MeToo era.

“Circe” will appeal to fans of Greek mythology, character-driven narratives, and feminist literature. It stands out for its fresh take on a mythological figure often relegated to the margins of these stories. Readers who enjoyed “The Song of Achilles,” also by Miller, or “The Silence of the Girls” by Pat Barker, will likely find this novel captivating.

Potential Audiences

Fans of Greek mythology and retellings.
Readers interested in feminist narratives.
Those who appreciate character-driven stories and lyrical prose.

Thematic Analysis

The novel deeply explores themes like female empowerment, the nature of divinity versus humanity, and the search for identity. Circe’s journey is a powerful representation of breaking free from societal constraints and finding one’s voice.

Stylistic Elements

Miller’s prose is rich and poetic, bringing a modern sensibility to ancient myths. Her use of vivid imagery and careful pacing adds depth to the narrative and characters.

Comparison with Other Works

“Circe” can be compared to “The Song of Achilles” in its retelling of Greek myths with a humanistic perspective. It also shares thematic similarities with works like “The Penelopiad” by Margaret Atwood, offering a feminist perspective on classical stories.

Potential Test Questions with Answers

It represents her transformation from an ignored nymph to a powerful witch, allowing her to explore her abilities and independence.
She portrays him as complex and flawed, focusing on his cunning and moral ambiguities.

Awards and Recognitions

“Circe” was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2019 and received critical acclaim for its innovative approach to myth retelling.

Bibliographic Information

Title : Circe
Author : Madeline Miller
Publication Date : 2018
Publisher : Little, Brown and Company
ISBN : 978-0316556347

BISAC Categories:

Historical – Ancient
Fairy Tales, Folk Tales, Legends & Mythology
War & Military

Summaries of Awards and Other Reviews

Mythopoeic Fantasy Award Nominee for Adult Literature (2019)
ALA Alex Award (2019) ,
Tähtifantasia Award Nominee (2022)
Women’s Prize for Fiction Nominee (2019)
The Kitschies for Red Tentacle (Best Novel) (2019) ,
Goodreads Choice Award for Fantasy (2018)
Book of the Month Book of the Year Award (2018) ,
RUSA CODES Reading List Nominee for Historical Fiction (2019)

#1 New York Times Bestseller — named one of the Best Books of the Year by NPR, the Washington Post , People , Time , Amazon, Entertainment Weekly , Bustle, Newsweek, the A.V. Club, Christian Science Monitor, Refinery 29, Buzzfeed, Paste, Audible, Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, Thrillist, NYPL, Self, Real Simple, Goodreads, Boston Globe, Electric Literature, BookPage, the Guardian, Book Riot, Seattle Times, and Business Insider.

Purchasing Links

Is this book a series.

“Circe” is a standalone novel. However, Madeline Miller’s other work, “The Song of Achilles,” explores similar themes in a different mythological context.

About Madeline Miller

Madeline Miller is an American novelist and classics scholar. Her debut novel, “The Song of Achilles,” also received critical acclaim and awards. Miller is known for her ability to reimagine ancient myths with contemporary relevance and emotional depth.

By Madeline Miller

Book review, full book summary and synopsis for Circe by Madeline Miller, an elegant and delightful retelling of Greek mythological tales.

Circe is the daughter of Helios, God of the Sun, and Perse, an Oceanid nymph. Despite her divinity, she is less beautiful and lacks the skills of her siblings, so she is largely shunned and ridiculed among the godly.

When she falls in love with a mortal who, of course, is fated to age and die, she is desperate enough to experiment with a different and illicit type of power -- potions and witchcraft, and with it she discovers her own ability to bend the world to her will.

(The Full Plot Summary is also available, below)

Full Plot Summary

Circe is born a God, the daughter of a Titan and a water nymph. However, she lacks the powers of her siblings and is less beautiful. They treat her unkindly, except for Aeëtes , but he is granted a kingdom and leaves.

Circe falls in love with Glaucos , a mortal fisherman. In hopes of making Glaucos immortal, Circe learns about illicit Pharmaka , herbs endowed with power that only grow where Gods have fallen. She transforms Glaucos into a Sea-God, but he soon becomes enamored with the beautiful but malicious Scylla . Circe turns Scylla into a sea monster.

Circe is exiled to the empty island of Aiaia for her use of witchcraft, and there she hones her knowledge of herbs and magic. One day, Daedalus , a famed mortal craftsman, arrives at Aiaia, requesting help for Pasiphaë , Circe's sister. In Knossos, Pasiphaë gives birth to a Minotaur. Circe uses magic to manage its hunger, and Daedalus builds it a labyrinthine cage. Daedalus is forced to help because they have his son, Icarus. Daedalus later tries to build wings to help his son escape Knossos, but Icarus flies too close to the sun and dies. Daedalus later dies from old age.

Next, Medea (Aeëtes's daughter) and Jason , arrive at Aiaia, asking to be cleansed. Medea has murdered her own brother and used magic to help Jason acquire a golden fleece. Circe warns Medea that Jason's feeling for Medea will wane now that she is no longer useful to him, and Medea angrily departs.

Later, Alke , the daughter of a lesser river lord, is sent to serve Circe, now known as the Witch of Aiaia, as a punishment. Soon, others adopt the idea and send their troublesome daughters there, too. One day, sailors show up. Circe offers them food, but the captain attacks her so turns them into pigs. Other sailors go to Aiaia when they hear of the island of Nymphs. At first Circe attempts to suss out if they are honest men, but Circe eventually assumes they are all dishonest and turns them all into pigs.

One day, Odysseus and his men arrive. He has an herb that prevents Circe from harming him. She finds him charming, sleeps with him and promises not to harm him. For a year, he stays as he mends his ship. Circe knows he is married, but she yearns for him to stay. Before he leaves, Circe sends him to a prophet and warns about the obstacles in his trip home (Scylla, etc.).

But Circe is pregnant and her mortal son, Telegonus , is soon born. Athena wants the child dead and offers her eternal blessings in exchange, but Circe refuses. Instead, Circe uses powerful magic to protect the island. Telegonus grows up, but longs to visit his father. Circe finally relents and helps him gather protections for the journey. She agrees to suffer eternal pain to acquire a deadly weapon, the tail of Trygon , a sea god. But Trygon ultimately doesn't extract the price and simply tells her to return it when she's done.

Telegonus leaves for Ithaca, but returns quickly because Odysseus is dead. Odysseus misunderstood his intentions and fought him instead, scratching himself on the Trygon's tail. Circe realizes that Athena wanted Telegonus dead to prevent this. Telegonus has also brought Telemachus (Odysseus’s other son) and Penelope (Odysseus’s wife) to the island. Penelope is worried Athena will claim Telemachus in Odysseus's absence and hopes for Circe's protection. Circe uses her magic to protect them, but Athena makes her demands. She wants Telemachus to leave and start an empire, but he has no desire for glory and power. However, Telegonus longs for adventure, and he accepts instead.

With Telegonus gone, Circe calls for her father, demanding that he talk to Zeus and release her from exile. She threatens to tell Zeus the Titans' secrets and start a war. Free to leave, Circe and Telemachus go to turn Scylla into stone, and Circe confides in Telemachus all her secrets. (Telemachus fills her in on what ended up happening with Medea — Jason married another. Medea kills the new wife and murders her children. A golden chariot whisks her home.) Penelope becomes an expert on herbs and becomes the Witch of Aiaia instead.

The book ends with Circe making a potion to bring forth her true self. She then has a vision of herself as a mortal, growing old with Telemachus. She drinks the potion.

For more detail, see the full Section-by-Section Summary .

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Book Review

Circe , by Madeline Miller, came out early last year, and I’ve been keen to find time for it, so it seemed like a good book to kick off the spring season.

It’s a re-telling the story of Circe, a character originated circa 8th century B.C. by Homer. In Homer’s in The Odyssey , Odysseus encounters her on the island of Aeaea where she is villainously doling out dangerous potions and turning men into pigs.

While in her original incarnation she’s mostly an obstacle to be overcome, in Miller’s reinvented tale, she’s given a new life, as well as a meaningful and imaginative story deeply rooted in a myriad of mythological tales.

The Palace at Knossos in Crete

A while back, I took a trip to Greece and visited one of the locations that appears briefly in the book, the remains of Minos’s Palace at Knossos in Crete. It was about a hour out from where we were staying, so we had to rent a car, and it was a whole mess, but I desperately wanted to see it.

I’ve come across other references to this site then, but Circe was the first book that ever made me reminisce about it. Reading Circe, I could imagine that crumbling Minoan archaeological site, thousands upon thousands of years old, as a living, breathing palace, gleaming with splendor and marveling that I’d once walked those walkways as well.

Miller’s mythological retelling is so dazzlingly alive . She uses Circe’s story to bring in a whole host of other mythologies, ranging from the Titanomachy (“battle of the Titans”) to the Gift of Fire, various other parts of the Odyssey and so on. The events of these stories all overlap, one washing over the next, intertwining in a delightful and inventive manner. Under Miller’s imaginative gaze, these classic stories are endowed with a newfound energy. Fleshed-out and lively, it’s a pleasure to read, especially if you’re someone who loves mythological tales.

The most difficult part of reading Circe for me was that it took forever because whenever a mention of any character came up, I was always tempted to look them up on Wikipedia to see what parts of their story originate from where. This inevitably led me down deep, and I mean deep , rabbit holes of endless Wikipedia entries and other sources filled with mythological esoterica. (But honestly, I’d consider that a feature, not a bug, when it comes to reading).

Ulysses at the Palace of Circe by Wilhelm Schubert van Ehrenberg (1667)

Themes and Character Development

By the second half of the book, Circe has been alive for over a thousand years. She becomes more reflective about her experiences during various interludes, and certainly when Circe’s story takes a darker turn. At those junctions, Miller is thoughtful and introspective. In the book’s more somber moments, Miller explores Circe’s loneliness, alienation, and how her perceptions may have been warped by her experiences or misunderstandings.

Through the relationship of the gods, Titans, Olympians, lesser gods, mortals and so forth, the book contemplates the meaning of having power, how power is derived and how power effects how people relate to each other. Furthermore, using a range of classic Greek Myths to tell a story provides the perfect foundation and a wide berth to delve into fundamental questions about morals and goodness and pragmatism and ambition and balancing it all with the need to survive and protect yourself.

I loved what a complete character Circe is. She is complex, imperfect and is consistently drawn in a way that grounds her in reality, despite her divine origins.

Read it or Skip it?

I loved this book. I loved this book so much, it actually surprises me how strongly I feel about it. If you like mythology, Circe is a must read, no caveats. It is such a vivid and wonderful story that brings together so many bits and pieces of Greek mythology and somehow turns them into a cohesive book that is well worth your time. It is all at once thoughtful and entertaining and elegantly written. I was delighted by it.

If you aren’t as into mythology, I still think the story is very worthwhile, though you may have to exercise a bit more patience as you get grounded in all the characters and their stories. I’d really encourage you to give it a shot though if you’re looking for an entertaining, yet meaningful and complex story.

Circe won me over about 20 pages in, and it only got better from there. It’s honestly been quite a few years since I’ve found a book I loved as much as this one, so my feeling can be summed up as follows: 1) I’m sad it’s over, 2) I can’t believe I waited so long to read this, and 3) I need to go buy a copy of Madeline Miller’s previous novel, The Song of Achilles .

Have you read this and what did you think? See Circe on Amazon .

Book Excerpt

Read the first pages of Circe

Movie / TV Show Adaptation

See Everything We Know About the 'Circe' Adaptation

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38 comments

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Been meaning to read this. Do you think reading it in electronic format is OK? Some books lose something when read on a device.

Funny you should ask! I actually read half of it as an ebook and half of it on hard copy (I had a hard copy but forgot to bring it and didn’t want to stop reading. Of course, by the end I loved it so much I went out and bought a first edition signed copy, haha, so now I actually have two.)

Anyway, my point is, it’s definitely readible as an ebook, I did just fine with it. But if you’re like me, maybe you’ll just end up wanting it regardless. Mostly my advice is to read it ASAP because it’s really good. :)

Perfect. Thanks!

Thanks for reminding me about this! I’ve added both Miller books to my TBR. We’re great fans of Greek mythology around here: I was hooked during my childhood, when the marionette puppeteers who used to make the rounds of the schools put on a “Golden Fleece” show; and my kids grew up watching the 1950s “Jason and the Argonauts” movie, when it was finally released on video, just as I had been raised on it, back when it was released to broadcast TV (I still love those ancient special effects).

Oh, I’m excited on your behalf, I think you’re going to love it! I honestly don’t understand how anyone can NOT love mythology, it’s so fascinating and fun and dramatic. That’s so awesome they did a Golden Fleece show, it sounds like that would be so much fun! Thanks for your thoughts and happy happy reading! Hope you’re having a great weekend!

I hadn’t thought about the puppet shows for years, and had forgotten the name of the troupe, but it must have been the Cole Marionettes (see Mr. Cole’s obituary, which mentions the Jason and the Golden Fleece show: https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1986-10-21-8603190250-story.html ). The puppet shows were an eagerly anticipated annual event at our elementary school, but the only one I remember is the Golden Fleece. Greek mythology rocks! :)

Oooh! I’ve been hearing nothing but good things about this book! It’s waiting on my shelf … I think it’ll make a good July read?

Yes, do it! I actually bought this book back in September or somewhere around there and I still can’t believe I let it sit there for so long, haha. Hope you love it!

I adored Circe, and The Song of Achilles!

I’m really excited for the Song of Achilles, though I’m a little scared my expectations are way too high now, haha. :)

This has been on my TBR list for awhile. I hope I can get to it soon. Thanks for your thoughts.

So many books, so little time, such a familiar feelings, haha. This one is really good though. Hope you love it if you get a chance to read it!

Yeah this book is amazing.

Right?! The best part about book blogging is getting to chat with others about how awesome a book is when you find one you love… thanks for dropping by!

So glad you read this book!!! Honestly one of our favorites!!! You have to read A Song of Achilles, because like Circe it draws you into Ancient Greece like nothing before! When you get the chance to read, come check our review and tell us your thoughts as well!!

Thanks for dropping by! I’ll give your review a read later today, thanks for the heads up!

Glad to see you enjoyed this book so much! I listened to the audio last summer and found the story lively – it moves at such an absorbing pace, from start to finish.

Yeah, I was surprised how evenly paced it was considering how much of the book hinges on understanding her internal thought processes. I feel like it’s hard to write that stuff in a way that doesn’t make the book drag. I think it worked well in Circe because she does a fantastic job of “showing” you how her perspective on things is shaped, etc. instead of just doing a bunch of internal monologues. Thanks for dropping by!

I finished it today and absolutely love it. your review is beautiful

Thank you for the kind comment! Glad to connect with people who loved this book as well! :) Cheers!

This book was fantastic. Appreciate the review.

Thanks for dropping by and thanks for reading!

Thanks for your review, I’ve been meaning to read this book and whilst I’m not a huge fan of her previous book, I have to admit she has a beautiful writing and a melancholy that I like. Can’t wait to read this one.

Oh, I’m sad to hear you didn’t like A Song of Achilles. I’m really curious about it — I haven’t read it yet so unfortunately I have no insight to provide on a comparison between the two, but I hope you do like Circe, and thanks for reading the review!

Oh it’s not that I didn’t like it, it’s just that the first half of the book was a nit difficult for me. I didn’t quite like how the story was told, but the second half was amazing. I cried by the time it ends. Anw, I love reading your reviews, it’s always well written.

This book does deserve a glowing review! Loved it too!

I honestly can’t believe I didn’t read it sooner! Thanks for dropping by!

I wrote about Circe in my dissertation so it seems incredible I still haven’t read it!! Fingers crossed I get round to it soon!!

I bet you’ll love it! Thanks for reading!

I absolutely rave about this book as well! I was lucky enough to hear Madeline Miller talk about it at an author event – especially hearing her read sections aloud, based on the Ancient Greek oral traditions of storytelling. Your review sums up everything I enjoyed about Circe, I particularly like what you said about the book exploring power and morals in general. It’s amazing how easy it is to relate to the characters, even though they are divine beings living thousands of years ago! 😊

Oh that’s awesome, I’m jealous I would’ve loved to hear that. I’m so glad other people loved this book too! :) Thanks for dropping by!

Nicely written review. I’ll think I’ll read the book.

Thank you! Hope you like it if you get a chance to read it!

I liked Circe :) just wished she had gone deeper into the stories of the other gods!

I’ve just finished this book and the tears are still drying on my cheeks. I was so moved by her relationships with mortals, while the gods were cold and almost lifeless – as the author intended. There are so many themes to explore here. I borrowed a friend’s copy but might have to buy my own so I can revisit this intriguing and complex take on Circe – and spend some more time exploring the many threads of mythology that weave their way through the tale as you clearly have done. Thanks for the great review.

I just finished the audio version of Madelne Miller’s “Circe” narrated by Perdita Weeks. It was an astoundng experience to hear Circe’s story in Circe’s voice.

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Circe, Madeline Miller, review: Feminist rewrite of the Odyssey turns tale of subjugation into one of empowerment

Following her bestselling, prize-winning re-imagining of the 'iliad', miller turns to homer for inspiration once more, article bookmarked.

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The Song of Achilles , Madeline Miller ’s re-imagining of The Iliad that positioned the love story between Achilles and Patroclus centre stage, was both a bestseller and won the 2012 Orange Prize for Fiction. With this recipe for success in hand, it’s not surprising that Miller – who teaches high school Latin and Greek – has turned to the same model for her thrilling second novel, Circe , though this time it’s the Odyssey that provides the primary text.

The powerful witch Circe, who waylays Odysseus and his men – turning the latter to pigs – on their long voyage home to Ithaca, is set free from the few meagre lines of text she’s afforded by Homer, and transformed here into the heroine of her own magnificent story. “How would the songs frame the scene?” Miller’s Circe often asks herself, well aware of the narrative control others exert over the story of her life.

The Classics are undergoing something of a feminist revisionist revolution right now. Emily Wilson’s new translation of the Odyssey – the first to be written by a woman – was published to great acclaim at the end of last year, and this August brings Booker Prize-winner Pat Barker’s new novel, The Silence of the Girls: a “radical retelling of The Iliad ” from the point of view of Briseis, the captured queen-turned-slave. So too, Miller’s Circe is a woman who will not be silenced.

“When I was born,” she begins her tale, “the name for what I was did not exist.” Circe’s witchcraft originates in her rage and jealousy, itself the result of years of harsh treatment at the hands of her more beautiful and powerful Titan kin – she is the firstborn of Helios the sun god and the beautiful nymph Perse (daughter of Oceanos). She’s dismissed as unattractive, her weak mortal’s voice considered most offensive of all, nevertheless she persists; one could well describe her as the original nasty woman.

One fears that once she’s banished to the island of Aiaia – punishment for transforming the beautiful but viper-hearted nymph Scylla, Circe’s rival in love, into a hideous sea monster – the narrative will stall. Instead, Miller weaves the tales of others – Medea, the bride of Jason with the blood of her brother still fresh on her hands; the birth and imprisonment of the bloodthirsty Minotaur; those the sorceress takes to her bed, Hermes, Daedalus, Odysseus, and finally his son Telemachus – in with Circe’s own, all as seamlessly as the beautiful cloth Circe herself spins on the splendid loom the master craftsman Daedalus builds her.

The enchantress’ “virtue” is “endurance,” and Circe is accosted with much that demands forbearance, all of which makes for gleeful, greedy reading. Written in prose that ripples with a gleaming hyperbole befitting the epic nature of the source material, there is nothing inaccessible or antiquated about either Circe or her adventures. Miller has effected a transformation just as impressive as any of her heroine’s own: she’s turned an ancient tale of female subjugation into one of empowerment and courage full of contemporary resonances.

'Circe' is published by Bloomsbury, £16.99

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Circe by Madeline Miller review: a fresh take on ancient mythical tale

A complex, compelling portrait of one of the most intriguing women in western literature.

The daughter of a sea nymph and the Titan sun god Helios, Circe is doomed to immortality

Circe doesn't take up much space in Homer's Odyssey – the visit to her island takes up just 15 pages in Emily Wilson's 2017 translation – but the sorceress who turns men into pigs makes an indelible impact. Since her story was first told several thousand years ago, she's inspired countless artists and writers from Ovid to John William Waterhouse. In her new novel Circe , Madeline Miller, who won the Orange Prize for The Song of Achilles in 2012, offers a refreshingly complex and utterly compelling portrait of one of the most intriguing women in western literature.

Miller, who has an MA in classics from Brown University, draws on a wide range of ancient Greek and Latin sources to tell Circe’s story. Like its classical source material, the novel is episodic, but this structure perfectly conveys one of the novel’s central themes. Circe is immortal, which means that any relationships she may form with humans, from Daedalus to Odysseus, can only be temporary. They will always age and die, and she will have to move on without them, beautiful, powerful and alone.

The daughter of a sea nymph and the Titan sun god Helios, Circe begins her life in the halls of her father. When she was born, she tells us, “the name for what I was did not exist”. Is she a nymph? A goddess? The truth, as it turns out, is something entirely new. Despised by her divine family, Circe discovers her powers of sorcery when she turns a human fisherman into a god. When he spurns her for another nymph, Scylla, Circe transforms her rival into a horrific sea monster who becomes the sourge of all sailors – an act that will haunt Circe for the rest of her life. Circe is exiled to a lonely island, where she spends centuries honing her craft.

But she’s not totally isolated. She visits Crete, where her cruel sister Pasiphae gives birth to a monster that will become legend, and where Circe bonds with the inventor Daedalus. They work together to contain the Minotaur, combining Daedalus’s human skill and her sorcery. Miller’s depiction of what it feels like to work magic is extraordinarily vivid and convincing – after Daedalus gives Circe a beautiful loom, she is struck by the similarities between working with textiles and with spells: “the simplicity and skill at once…your hands must be busy, and your mind sharp and free”.

Unflinching horror

Circe must return to her island, where she is visited by her intense niece Medea and her husband Jason, an encounter which reminds her of her own loneliness. Not long afterwards we discover what turned her into the seemingly capricious sorceress of Book 10 of the Odyssey , who turns visiting sailors into swine. This is dark magic born of cruelty, described in scenes of unflinching horror, and for a while Circe's pain threatens to consume her. Then along comes wily Odysseus, and everything changes yet again. But where can your story end, when you're going to live forever?

This is, of course, a ripping yarn, and in other hands Circe could have been an ancient Greek equivalent of Marion Zimmer Bradley's sprawling 1983 bestseller The Mists of Avalon , which tells the story of Arthur through the eyes of Morgan le Fey. Which wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. But what elevates Circe is Miller's luminous prose, which is both enormously readable and evocative, and the way in which she depicts the gulf between gods and mortals.

The Titans and Olympians in the novel feel both disturbingly alien and utterly convincing. Miller writes of divinity as a quality that can be felt, expressed and, in the case of Circe, sometimes resented. Crucially, Circe never feels like a modern woman. She is the product of an ancient and immortal world, who begins by feeling repulsed by humans and gradually comes to realise that mortals can grow and change while her fellow immortals are doomed to find variety only in manipulation and destruction. Circe can be part of that cycle of cruel and pointless conflict, or she can choose to break it. In this unforgettable novel, Miller makes us care about that magical, mythical choice.

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Circe brilliantly recasts a Greek goddess in a modern light: EW review

Madeline Miller follows up 'Song of Achilles' with another gorgeous novel steeped in mythology

In 2012, a Massachusetts teacher named Madeline Miller published The Song of Achilles , the hard-won work of a decade. The book went on to become an international best-seller, translated into more than 25 languages and awarded the U.K.’s prestigious Orange Prize for Fiction. It was a nifty trick for any first-time novelist, and even more so for its subject: ancient Greek myth, retold with an immediacy that mesmerized not just classics majors but countless readers who probably would have rather pulled out their own eyebrows than finish Homer’s The Iliad in high school.

With Circe , Miller returns to the same fertile, myrrh-scented source, though her lead here is a lesser goddess — or at least a less celebrated one: the first-born daughter of the sun titan Helios and his royal consort Perse. Circe’s pedigree is impeccable, but her perceived imperfections (a too-sharp chin, a reedy voice) are a disappointment from the start. Life among the gods is ruthless, and she has no real aptitude for the petty grudges, plots, and cruelties of dryads and river lords. Golden and gorgeously formed, they’re also vain, vicious, and easily bored, and their blood-soaked soap operas read like the gossipy intrigues of Versailles, or Dynasty for people who can’t die. (The idols eat and sleep strictly for pleasure; even their hangnails heal themselves.)

Noted mostly for the illicit sorcery that earned her exile to the island of Aiaia — and her gift for turning grown men into pigs — Circe’s tale lacks the sweeping arc and central romance of Achilles . Her narrative is more episodic, a string of feuds and love affairs occasionally bisected by myth’s greatest hits (Prometheus, the Minotaur, Helen of Troy). But Miller, with her academic bona fides and born instinct for storytelling, seamlessly grafts modern concepts of selfhood and independence to her mystical reveries of smoke and silver, nectar and bones. And if the Circe that emerges from her imagination isn’t exactly human — technically, she can’t be — she is divine. A-

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Circe by Madeline Miller

A Journey Through Greek Myth and Feminine Power

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Genre: Greek Mythology, Fantasy
First Publication: 2018
Language: English
Major Characters: Circe, Odysseus, Penelope (wife of Odysseus), Glaucus, Zeus (God), Athena (Greek goddess), Telemachus, Daedalus, Hermes,
Minor Characters: Helen of Troy, Prometheus, Medea of Colchis, Aeëtes, Boreas, Minos, Scylla, Minotaur, Ariadne (mythology), Agamemnon
Setting Place: Oceanos’ Halls, Aiaia (island), Crete (Greece), Charybdis (Italy)
Theme: Gender dynamics, Mortality vs. Immortality, Fate vs. Free Will, Maturity and Responsibility
Narrator: First person POV (Circe herself narrates the story)

Book Summary: Circe by Madeline Miller

In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe has neither the look nor the voice of divinity, and is scorned and rejected by her kin. Increasingly isolated, she turns to mortals for companionship, leading her to discover a power forbidden to the gods: witchcraft.

When love drives Circe to cast a dark spell, wrathful Zeus banishes her to the remote island of Aiaia. There she learns to harness her occult craft, drawing strength from nature. But she will not always be alone; many are destined to pass through Circe’s place of exile, entwining their fates with hers. The messenger god, Hermes. The craftsman, Daedalus. A ship bearing a golden fleece. And wily Odysseus, on his epic voyage home.

“He showed me his scars, and in return he let me pretend that I had none.”

There is danger for a solitary woman in this world, and Circe’s independence draws the wrath of men and gods alike. To protect what she holds dear, Circe must decide whether she belongs with the deities she is born from, or the mortals she has come to love.

Breathing life into the ancient world, Madeline Miller weaves an intoxicating tale of gods and heroes, magic and monsters, survival and transformation.

Book Review: Circe by Madeline Miller

Madeline Miller’s story embellishes on the legend of Circe from Greek mythology. Circe is the daughter of the Titan sun god Helios and an ocean nymph.

Circe is a witch, skilled in potions, herbs and transformational arts. Exiled by her father to a remote island in punishment for her use of sorcery, Circe eventually encounters the mortal Odysseus, who becomes shipwrecked on her island. They become lovers and after Odysseus leaves the island, Circe bears him a son, Telegonus. Telegonus later goes in search of his father, an action that ends up having life altering consequences for Circe.

For those who don’t know, Madeline Miller is 2018 Goodreads Choice Winner follows the story of Circe, the goddess of the island of Aeaea. She shows up in the tale of Odysseus, turning his men into pigs & ultimately allowing them to reside on her island for a year. But what of Circe before she enters the story we know?

There are several striking aspects to Madeline Miller’s gift for retelling lesser known narratives from classic Greek mythology .

“I thought once that gods are the opposite of death, but I see now they are more dead than anything, for they are unchanging, and can hold nothing in their hands.”

In Circe by Madeline Miller, author weaves her characters into the situations we’ve all come across a time or two in the canon or through various pop culture references, but her integration is so seamless that it only enhances the original works. It builds up each character in such a believable, effortless way, giving their point of view & prompting readers to reconsider how they may have previously regarded certain events & motivations.

In both of Miller’s novels I’ve read, she has a particular talent for writing her title characters in a flawed but relatable way. More than once I found myself sympathizing with Circe as she navigated the disdainful tangle of gods and goddesses surrounding her. I even found myself feeling as though I would act similarly to, if not worse than Circe did if I were her. When an author is able to naturally create such an affinity between reader & character, especially in the frame of a retelling without compromising original characterization, I’d call that a huge win.

“I would say, some people are like constellations that only touch the earth for a season.”

There are so many solid themes present in the book Circe by Madeline Miller. Breaking away from the expectations of your lineage, taking control of your destiny, parenthood, family, making the best out of the worst, finding your inner peace, loving your body, drawing boundaries. And Every. Single. One of them is expressed exquisitely.

My absolute favorite part of Circe by Madeline Miller, author’s breath-taking writing. This has to be some of the most gorgeously fluid word composition I’ve ever come across. If it weren’t enough to find a unique retelling by a skilled author, Madeline Miller’s every word is like honey. In fact, writing this review makes me feel self conscious because I know I’m not able to use my words to adequately explain just how beautiful the writing in this book is.

I’d highly recommend picking Circe by Madeline Miller, especially if you’re a fan of Greek Mythology. Circe is a spectacularly captivating character, I am incredibly excited to see the next character Madeline Miller will choose to write about!

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'circe' gives the witch of the odyssey a new life.

Annalisa Quinn

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"Later, years later, I would hear a song made of our meeting," says the hero of Madeleine Miller's Circe , of her romance with the mortal Odysseus. Circe is referring to Homer's version of the story, in which Odysseus arrives on her island sea-battered and mourning for his men killed by the cruel Laestrygonians. Circe entraps his remaining men and turns them into pigs. But Odysseus, with the help of the god Hermes, tricks Circe and makes her beg for mercy before becoming her lover.

"I was not surprised by the portrait of myself," Circe says, "the proud witch undone before the hero's sword, kneeling and begging for mercy. Humbling women seems to me a chief pastime for poets. As if there can be no story unless we crawl and weep."

Miller's lush, gold-lit novel — told from the perspective of the witch whose name in Greek has echoes of a hawk and a weaver's shuttle -- paints another picture: of a fierce goddess who, yes, turns men into pigs, but only because they deserve it.

Though most of Circe's fame derives from her short encounter with Odysseus in Book 10 of the Odyssey, Miller's novel covers a longer and more complex life: her lonely childhood among the gods, her first encounter with mortals, who "looked weak as mushroom gills" next to the "vivid and glowing" divinities, the awakening of her powers, and finally, the men who wash up on her shores, souring her trust with their cruelty.

'Women & Power' Links Today's Trolls With Ancient Ancestors

In 'ODY-C,' A Greek Hero Worthy Of Women

Circe is a nymph, daughter of the sun god Helios, banished to the island of Aiaia for using magic to turn a romantic rival into the monster Scylla. Alone, she begins to hone her craft. "For a hundred generations, I have walked the world, drowsy and dull, idle and at my ease," she thinks. "Then I learned I could bend the world to my will, as a bow is bent for an arrow. I would have done that toil a thousand times to keep such power in my hands. I thought: this is how Zeus felt when he first lifted the thunderbolt."

A classics teacher, Miller is clearly on intimate terms with the Greek poem. The character of Circe only occupies a few dozen lines of it, but Miller extracts worlds of meaning from Homer's short phrases. For instance, Homer cryptically describes Circe as having a "human voice," leading centuries of readers to wonder: What is a divine voice? Do the gods have a language? Miller makes Circe's human voice the beginning of a (fraught, because inherently temporary) kinship with mortals that is one of the novel's loveliest strains.

But my favorite of Miller's small recalibrations is less lofty: It has to do with Circe's hairdo. In Homer, Circe is identified with her "lovely braids." The usual scholarly gloss on this is that the braids signal not only beauty, but also exoticism, because Eastern goddesses wore their hair in braids. But in Circe , the braids come about in the first moments of the goddess's magical awakening, when she begins roaming the island to find ingredients for her spells: "I learned to braid my hair back, so it would not catch on every twig, and how to tie my skirts at the knee to keep the burrs off." It's a small detail, but it's the difference between a person of independence and skill, and some male dream of danger, foreignness, and sex, lounging with parted lips while she watches the horizon for ships.

"We are not afraid of telling over and over again how a man comes to fall in love with a woman and be wedded to her, or else be fatally parted from her," wrote George Eliot in Middlemarch . Why, she asks, do we never hear of another kind of love, which also "must be wooed with industrious thought and patient renunciation of small desires" — a vocation? Circe insists that labor, as much as love, makes a life: "No wonder I have been so slow," she thinks when she discovers magic. "All this while, I have been a weaver without wool, a ship without the sea." This Circe braids her hair because she has work to do.

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Book Summary

Winner of the 2018 BookBrowse Fiction Award The daring, dazzling and highly anticipated follow-up to the New York Times bestseller The Song of Achilles .

In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe is a strange child - not powerful, like her father, nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power - the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves. Threatened, Zeus banishes her to a deserted island, where she hones her occult craft, tames wild beasts and crosses paths with many of the most famous figures in all of mythology, including the Minotaur, Daedalus and his doomed son Icarus, the murderous Medea, and, of course, wily Odysseus. But there is danger, too, for a woman who stands alone, and Circe unwittingly draws the wrath of both men and gods, ultimately finding herself pitted against one of the most terrifying and vengeful of the Olympians. To protect what she loves most, Circe must summon all her strength and choose, once and for all, whether she belongs with the gods she is born from, or the mortals she has come to love. With unforgettably vivid characters, mesmerizing language and page-turning suspense, Circe is a triumph of storytelling, an intoxicating epic of family rivalry, palace intrigue, love and loss, as well as a celebration of indomitable female strength in a man's world. NPR's Weekend Edition "Books To Look Forward To In 2018" Esquire's "The 27 Most Anticipated Books of 2018" Boston Globe's "25 books we can't wait to read in 2018" The Millions "The Most Anticipated: The Great 2018 Book Preview" Cosmopolitan's "33 Books to Get Excited About in 2018"

CHAPTER ONE

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 ...

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

Circe struggles to find a place for herself as a woman in a man's world. What parts of her experience resonate with modern day challenges that women face?
A central theme of Homer's Odyssey is a longing for "nostos"—homecoming. In what way does that theme resonate with Circe's story?
How does Circe's encounter with Prometheus change her? How does it continue to affect her actions?
Throughout the novel Circe draws distinctions between gods and mortals. How does Glaucus change when he becomes a god?
Circe wonders if parents can ever see their children clearly. She notes that so often when looking at our children "we see only the mirror of our own faults." What parts of herself does she see when she looks at Telegonus...
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Much of Circe is an exploration into what it means to be female in a world of men and monsters. While it is usually tenuous to compare an author's latest novel to previous work, it does feel as if Miller wrote Circe as a conscious inversion of her prize-winning debut The Song of Achilles in nearly every aspect. The pool of inspiration may be the same – primarily Homer's epics – but whereas Achilles was very much a book about mortal men coming to grips with their own version of masculinity, Circe is about a divine woman trying to consolidate her myriad feminine identities as daughter, sister, lover, mother, witch, and goddess. Graceful and majestic in equal measures, Circe is sure to leave an indelible impression on readers both new and returning to Miller's singular reworkings of Greek myths... continued

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Lurid, violent, imaginative tale told by mythical sorceress.

Circe book cover: Stylized, mythological Greek woman's face in orange on black background

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this book.

Lots of in-depth detail about Greek mythology -- t

Making the best of grotesquely evil, violent circu

Penelope and Telemachus are basically good, ethica

All the characters are from Greek mythology. Both

As told in the original myths, the whole tale is a

Sex is not not explicitly described, but over the

Especially early in the narrative, cursing and cru

Characters drink alcohol, often to excess; Circe o

Educational Value

Lots of in-depth detail about Greek mythology -- the Titans, the Olympian gods, their lurid and violent doings (like Kronos devouring his children), and the many ways they find to mess with the lives of mortals. Like the Trojan War and its aftermath. The tales of the Minotaur, Theseus, and Ariadne; Daedalus and Icarus; Jason and Medea; and other mythological stories are interwoven with Circe's narrative.

Positive Messages

Making the best of grotesquely evil, violent circumstances when you're stuck with them, and doing better when you're shown a better way. Love and kindness offer hope and, possibly, redemption. Making amends for your past misdeeds. Resourceful problem-solving. The life-changing discovery that decent, honest people actually exist.

Positive Role Models

Penelope and Telemachus are basically good, ethical people trying to do right in dire circumstances; Telemachus in particular is haunted by murders he's done because his father ordered it, and seeks to live a better life. Circe is trying to do better, against the odds; she is kind to Prometheus when he's tortured and suffering. Her son Telegonus is kind-hearted and empathetic. Daedalus, who's guilt-ridden about the Minotaur and his many victims, is devoted to his son Icarus, and becomes one of Circe's lovers. Everyone else is pretty much useless, evil, or both, and perfectly willing to lie, maim, and kill to get their way. Like Medea, who kills her brother and throws his body parts in the water to delay her pursuing father.

Diverse Representations

All the characters are from Greek mythology. Both gay and straight romantic/sexual relationships are part of the story.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

As told in the original myths, the whole tale is awash in violence, treachery, and gore. Coming from a family where her uncle was known for devouring his children, and all her relatives are murderously self-serving, Circe does plenty of violent deeds, like turning a romantic rival into a legendary, seafarer-devouring monster. Raped by a pirate, she responds by turning him and his crew (who were planning to take their own turns) into pigs and hacking them to bits. She also drugs many (male) visitors to her island before killing them. Much hacking, slashing, butchery, ritual sacrifice, and two lengthy, graphically described C-sections. One self-administered and the other involving the birth of the Minotaur. The beating of Prometheus, prior to his being chained to a mountain and having his liver devoured anew each day by eagles, is gruesomely described; his fate is important to the story. Many gods and humans are sexual predators, taking what they want and leaving destruction in their wake -- and the skills of treachery and manipulation necessary to deal with them are a strong theme. Assorted massacres of innocents for convenience or political gain; few perpetrators feel guilty about it. A cheating husband's partners all die -- because his wife has cast a spell that turns his semen to snakes and scorpions that kill them from within. The murder of Hector's baby son Astyanax at the end of the Trojan War is vividly described.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Sex is not not explicitly described, but over the many centuries of the story, Circe has several lovers, humans and gods (though not nearly as many as imaginative poets have described from Homer to the present day). Being immortal, she's fated to outlive the mortals -- which gets stranger than usual when she falls in love with an ex's son. Of her relationship with the god Hermes, she says, "He was a poison snake, and I was another, and on such terms we pleased ourselves." As told in The Odyssey , Penelope is harassed by suitors who want to marry her for her money, which is also Odysseus' money. Circe's father regards his many female children as lucrative, power-building assets in his dealings with kings and gods. He also transforms himself into a bull to have sex with his prized cows and breed new ones; Circe's sister has sex with a bull and gives birth to the Minotaur. Circe wonders if her siblings are having sex with each other -- it's not uncommon among gods, so she thinks it's likely.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Especially early in the narrative, cursing and crude language, often brutal, as when the character who gives birth to the Minotaur announces "I f---ed the bull." Later, in the throes of labor, "I've had eight children! Just cut the f---ing thing out of me!" Circe's eyes are described as the color of piss. References to bastards, especially of gods.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Characters drink alcohol, often to excess; Circe often gets unwelcome visitors drunk.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Circe , by classical scholar and author Madeline Miller, first published in 2018, is a best-selling, imaginative, lurid and violent story of the legendary sorceress, written for an adult audience but also popular with teens. Poets have told of Circe's magic, power, lovers, and children (often in contradictory narratives driven by the poet's era and agenda) from Homer to the present. In this version, which follows much of the classics and will be familiar to mythology-loving readers, a young, unloved daughter of the sun god, born to a nightmare world of murderous, sociopathic divinities, experiments with magic and is exiled to a remote island, where over the centuries she encounters Daedalus, takes him as a lover, and becomes involved in the birth of the Minotaur. Later, Odysseus arrives on the island, fathers her son, and sets in motion many of the events that follow. Sadistic violence, rape, betrayal, bestiality (especially with cows), and incest were pretty much everyday occurrences with the Greek gods, and most of it is on parade here, with the rest broadly hinted at. The discovery that decent, honest people exist is life-changing for Circe -- but there's a whole lot of dark, gruesome, evil stuff on the way to it.

Where to Read

Community reviews.

Parents say (2)

Based on 2 parent reviews

What's the Story?

CIRCE, daughter of the sun god Helios, is born into a toxic world of recent cosmic upheaval -- one of her uncles, Kronos, has devoured all his children until their desperate mother spirits baby Zeus to safety, Zeus returns to force Kronos to vomit his devoured children, and they all join Zeus to become gods of Olympus. Feuding, scheming, treachery, and murder ensue, the gods mess with humans for sport, and soon to unfold, the tales of the Minotaur, the Golden Fleece, the Odyssey, and more. Circe, a lot more innocent than her family members and often called ugly and stupid, falls in love with a mortal who's an undeserving jerk even before she uses magic to make him a god, and transforms her rival for his affections into a legendary monster. Exiled to a remote island for her bold rule-breaking by a father who happily reduces people to ash, she delves into the world of herbs, potions, and magic, and finds her power.

"For a hundred generations, I had walked the world drowsy and dull, idle and at my ease. I left no prints, I did no deeds. Even those who had loved me a little did not care to stay. Then I learned that I could bend the world to my will, as a bow is bent for an arrow. I would have done that toil a thousand times to keep such power in my hands. I thought: this is how Zeus felt when he first lifted the thunderbolt."

Is It Any Good?

Madeline Miller's best-selling tale revisits the dark, lurid doings of Greek gods in the wake of a cosmic battle, as seen through the eyes of the lecherous, murderous sun god's unloved daughter. In this imaginative, vivid retelling, Circe struggles amid the carnage to navigate her treacherous world, and over many centuries delves into magic, turns her rival into the monster Scylla, and takes as lovers lost sailors Daedalus and Odysseus, whose deeds are often seen here more for their harm than their glory. The discovery that honest, decent people exist points to new and unimagined possibilities, but like the narrator, the reader may often feel helplessly overwhelmed by evil forces along the way to the glimmers of hope.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about stories like Circe that are based on characters in classical mythology -- and how each version of the tale reflects its author's time, place, and agenda. Over the centuries, murderous Medea has been spun as everything from a monster to a feminist icon; how do you think this version of Circe's story compares with others you know -- and what messages might that imply?

Why do you think some cultures see gods as showing the best qualities of humans, and others see them gleefully outdoing the worst of human deeds? How would it change your life if you believed one or the other?

Using magic to control other people -- good? evil? it depends?

Book Details

Author : Madeline Miller
Genre : Fantasy
Topics : Magic and Fantasy , Monsters, Ghosts, and Vampires
Character Strengths : Perseverance
Book type : Fiction
Publisher : Little, Brown and Company
Publication date : April 10, 2018
Publisher's recommended age(s) : 18 - 18
Number of pages : 400
Available on : Paperback, Audiobook (unabridged), Hardback, iBooks, Kindle
Last updated : May 11, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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BERKELEY FICTION REVIEW

Feminism and Witchcraft: A Review of Circe by Madeline Miller

Rating: 5/5

Book Content Warning: rape

Article Content Warnings: N/A

The Odyssey recounts how the sorceress Circe was bested, tamed, and seduced by the great hero Odysseus. But what if Circe could tell her own version of the story? Madeline Miller explores this possibility within her novel Circe : a story that transcends just a simple rewriting of The Odyssey. Where Circe was only a brief mention in the former, Odysseus is only a brief mention in Miller’s book. Her voice and point of view take center stage, reclaiming the narrative as her own. Miller gives the immortal witch the space to describe all her centuries of life, from a shrinking nymph in her father Helios’ halls to the powerful witch of her own island Aeaea, to something even more in this grand epic of self-discovery.

Her voice and point of view take center stage, reclaiming the narrative as her own.

The most striking thing about this novel is its prose. Each word and metaphor is deliberate and descriptive, almost reminiscent of a bardic tale from thousands of years ago. The language wraps you up, transports you, and enchants you, as if you were under one of Circe’s many spells. The story is a slow burn, but each wonderful detail bleeds into another until you find that you cannot put the book down.

Miller brings to light modern values within the mythical tale. Circe channels many feminist themes, incorporating a rejection of patriarchal norms, empowerment, and self-reliance. However, the focus is always on Circe and her story as an individual first, and as a woman second. Miller avoids any forced performance of feminism in favor of a more rich, dynamic story. In turn, the novel finds itself more genuinely feminist. Thus, Circe’s story begins unexpectedly: with her being meek and overshadowed rather than immediately defiant. She is just an undesired minor goddess whom no one sees any use for. Circe is not particularly beautiful nor powerful— her father cannot even secure her a marriage. It takes the discovery of a new power, witchcraft, for Circe to begin to realize her own worth. Feared for her gift, she is banished to the island Aeaea; but rather than being a punishment, the independence and freedom Aeaea affords her allows Circe to grow into her own.

Circe finds no joy in the “great chain of fear”: the name she coins for the ladder of intimidation with the greatest gods at the top and nymphs and mortals at the bottom.

Unlike the other gods with their natural-born gifts and powers, Circe must work and claw her way to master her ability of witchcraft. It takes more than innate talent; Miller emphasizes Circe’s endurance and strength of will above all. Her propensity for self-improvement and growth is one of the many things which set her apart from her immortal kin. Circe is also ostracized from her brethren through her rejection of greatness. Throughout the story, almost every single character tries to scramble up the ladder of power. Minor gods try to win the favor of greater gods, mortal men try to become heroes, but Circe rejects fame that stems from ego, fear, and violence. Her story is one of empowerment, not of power over others. Circe finds no joy in the “great chain of fear”: the name she coins for the ladder of intimidation with the greatest gods at the top and nymphs and mortals at the bottom.

Despite being a protagonist that we root for and that acts as a champion of feminist ideals, Miller makes Circe far from perfect. Throughout the many chapters of her life, we see the goddess as young and foolish, then old and bitter. Her impulsiveness and wrath rack up quite a hefty death count. Circe may love deeply, but she does not forgive easily: once hurt, she often forgets to recognize the qualities in others that might garner sympathy or redemption. However, Miller makes Circe live with her mistakes and presses her to bear the consequences of them. Circe is able to grow because of her many blunders and, throughout all her actions, she never fails to feel distinctly human. In this way, the goddess’ wrathful actions even feel somewhat justified. In particular, Circe’s notorious habit of turning men into pigs, something that made her a bit of a villain in The Odyssey , is reframed as an act of revenge that is as cathartic as it is horrific.

Circe is able to grow because of her many blunders and, throughout all her actions, she never fails to feel distinctly human .

On the whole, Circe’s story is truly one of self-discovery and change. Like her great powers of transformation, Circe’s own character seems to grow and shapeshift into its truest self. Throughout this grand epic, Circe is constantly changing and learning, but also seemingly searching for who she is and where she belongs. You must wait until the final page to find out, and once you do, you will see that her truest form has made perfect sense all along.

Madeline Miller is an American novelist, author of The Song of Achilles and Circe.

Circe can be purchased here.

Published by Fiona Green

Fiona Green (she/her) Berkeley Fiction Review staff writer. View all posts by Fiona Green

BOOK REVIEW: Circe by Madeline Miller

Hi everyone. Welcome back to Bibliophilia Book Reviews. Today I will review Circe by Madeline Miller. At a later date, I will also review The Song of Achilles , by the same author. Like all my reviews, this one too has spoilers.

Circe by Madeline Miller was first published on April 10 th , 2018, and it has become a critically acclaimed novel since then, winning, for example, the 2018 Book of the Year Award allotted by the Book of the Month subscription book box service and the 2019 Book of the Year Award for Adult Fiction in the Indies Choice Book Awards of that year. It was also selected as Book of the Year by media outlets such as Buzzfeed , Refinery29 , The Daily Telegraph , Guardian , Time Magazine , Washington Post , among others. Additionally, it was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2019, which the author had previously won for her debut novel The Song of Achilles in 2012. Moreover, the book received an exorbitant number of reviews praising it for its lyrical writing style, for making Greek mythology (more specifically, Homer’s The Iliad , with The Song of Achilles , and The Odyssey , with Circe ) more accessible to modern readers, for giving a feminist voice to one of the most enigmatic and intriguing figures of both Greek mythology and Western literature but who, at the same time, has been a victim of a narrative told by men, for giving her both a complex and sympathetic nature that has made modern readers identify with her more easily, despite having been born a goddess, in her various roles as witch, mother, wife, and lover…

Truth be told, it’s an impressive list of accolades. And I was a little hesitant to buy the book and read it when I first started seeing it everywhere. Both The Iliad and The Odyssey are books that I read in college, and to this day, The Iliad is my favorite book of all time. It is the book that made me fall in love with reading. So, needless to say, I’m an avid reader of Greek mythology. Books like Bulfinch’s Mythology , Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes by Edith Hamilton, both Mythos and Heroes by Stephen Fry as well as Troy , countless copies of Homer’s The Iliad and The Odyssey, Helen of Troy by Margaret George, the recently released A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes (see my review here ), The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker (see my review here) and of course both The Song of Achilles and Circe by Madeline Miller are all on my bookshelves. My reluctance to buy Circe when I was still debating whether to get it or not, however, was due to the fact that I didn’t know if it would live up to the hype. Nonetheless, I was still willing to give it a chance.

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

And I really liked it. In The Odyssey , Circe only appears in one book (chapter) of the poem. However, that was enough for her to leave her mark both in Greek mythology and Western literature even though she would also become one of the most misunderstood deities of the Greek pantheon because of her role as a sorceress and the image of a witch that transforms sailors into pigs that she gains just to force/convince Odysseus to stay with her and become her lover. But like most women in history and, in this case, mythology, there is more to Circe’s art of witchcraft and her ability to metamorphosize humans into pigs. Unfortunately, none of that is explained in Homer’s epic poem. Thus, she has been severely maligned by history and those that wrote it; like most women, she has not been given a chance to tell her own story. And that is what Madeline Miller has set out to do, and, boy, what a voice she has given her!

In Miller’s book, Circe is the daughter of the Titan Helios and the nymph Perse. But from a very early age, Circe knows that she is a pariah in her father’s house (palace) and is not wanted. She is deemed strange and different from all the other gods and goddesses, both Titans and Olympians alike. This, however, makes her dangerous to others and she is never fully accepted by those around her. Thus Madeline Miller puts forth the theme of the novel: that of a woman struggling to find a place for herself in a man’s (or gods’) world (something that many modern women can relate to) and, by extension, a longing of homecoming—a theme borrowed from The Odyssey , which chronicles Odysseus’ journey back home after the fall of Troy. Circe’s own journey and search for a home, a place where she can both belong to and be herself, however, begins ironically when she meets another Titan, her uncle Prometheus, who has been punished by Zeus for having given the gift of fire to mortals. And it is during this encounter that Circe first hears about mortals and can’t help but compare them to the gods and goddesses she has known all of her life. It is from this encounter with her uncle also that humans will thereafter be forever linked to Circe’s life, Odysseus chief among them.

“But in a solitary life, there are rare moments when another soul dips near yours, as stars once a year brush the earth. Such a constellation was he to me.”

The first mortal Circe meets is Glaucos, whom she irrevocably falls in love with. Her love for him is such that she does everything in her power to turn him into a god, and she achieves this with the help of some flowers and herbs. She is, however, the first of her kind to ever accomplish this feat. And because nymphs have never been known to do this, no matter how much they’ve wanted to transform the objects of their affections into immortals, we know now that Circe is not a nymph despite having been born from one because she was able to transform Glaucos into a god.

Glaucos, however, changes completely once he is immortal and spurns Circe for her nemesis Scylla. And out of spite and jealousy, Circe transforms her into a six-headed monster. Circe, however, regrets her actions almost immediately and confesses her crime to her father. Helios, on the other hand, doesn’t believe her but when she shows him how she did it, she is deemed a danger to the gods and is exiled to Aiaia.

Aiaia, however, turns out to be the home Circe has always yearned for… and it is here that she hones the art of her witchcraft both by taming the animals of the island, for example, and making them into her companions and by tending her garden. But however beautiful her new home is, Circe is still lonely. And to abate the feeling, she welcomes both gods and mortals to her island, among them the messenger god Hermes, Daedalus, Jason and Medea, and Odysseus, who arrives at her doorstep to ask her to change his crew back into humans after she transforms them into pigs for trying to steal from her.

“Only that: we are here. This is what it means to swim in the tide, to walk the earth and feel it touch your feet. This is what it means to be alive.”

All of these “visitors” to Circe’s island and her interactions with them, however, are important for her own transformation from a goddess to a mortal, a decision she makes at the end of the novel in order to both live and die during her husband’s lifetime. What is interesting about this is that her own transformation is both the complete opposite of how the novel began, where she transforms Glaucos into a god, and is the culmination of her own powers and gift, the gift of transformation, thus bringing the novel to a full circle. That was very well done. I gave this novel an A New Favorite rating.

bibliophiliabookreviews

Circe by Madeline Miller: Book Review

Title: Circe Author: Madeline Miller Trigger Warning: Rape (Not graphic or gratuitous but unquestionable) Genre: Historical Fiction , Mythology , Fantasy , Historical Fantasy Audience: Adult Format: Paperback

My Synopsis:

Circe is the oldest child of the Greek god Helios and the sea nymph Perse. Everyone, including Circe herself, believes that she and her siblings lack divine power. She spends her childhood creeping around the edges of godly feasts and trying to avoid the torments that her younger brother and sister devise for her. When her mother gives birth to another son, Circe bonds with him. Aeëtes eventually leads her to believe that maybe they aren’t quite as helpless as they appear. When Circe accomplishes a couple of dramatic transformations via magic, the other gods realize she and her siblings are witches. Circe bears the brunt of the gods’ punishment and they exile her to the island of Aiaia for all eternity.

I’ve read so many glowing reviews of this book but copies are never available at my library. I finally bought my own book to see what all the fuss is about and I’m so glad I did.

Circe is every woman who has been treated as “less than” because of her gender. As a child, she accepts that everyone overlooks her. She’s not as beautiful as the other nymphs, so why would anyone pay attention to her? She’s starved for attention though, and makes some terrible decisions. But those decisions lead her to discover that she has magic. Her exile gives her room to discover more about her powers and hone them. Watching her grow into her divinity and carve her own space in the world felt empowering to me.

But Circe also has more heart than other gods. Mortals fascinate her, even as a child. When some try to worship her, she rejects their adoration. While other gods view mortals as play things or simply don’t really notice them at all, she’s eager to learn more about their world and how their minds work. In addition, other gods never even realize that they’re capable of making mistakes. Circe not only acknowledges her errors but tries to make amends. A static life seems boring, but growing and changing and trying to improve? That’s the life Circe lives.

I also enjoyed reading about Greek heroes as regular people. Sure, they’re wilier and and stronger than most but at the end of the day, they’re just humans. Daedalus’s suffering began long before he tried to fly. Odysseus is impatient and quick-tempered and regrets some of his decisions in the war, although he would repeat them if he had to. I liked seeing them on a mortal scale.

I highly recommend this. In some ways, it’s a fairly quiet book; but I found Circe’s transformation from an unassuming girl to a powerful force both engrossing and satisfying.

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Buy Circe from Malaprop’s Bookstore in Asheville, NC.

I have an affiliate relationship with Malaprop’s Bookstore/Cafe in beautiful Asheville, NC. I will earn a small commission at no additional cost to you if you purchase merchandise through links on my site.

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Hmm, good point. The Greek pantheon was never portrayed chronologically (I think), so I guess that gives Miller artistic liberty to shift things around. And you know, I first heard of Circe when there were rumors that Circe would be a sorceress in the Harry Potter books and all the fans were like: she’ll probably be Voldemort’s right-hand person.

I read this one on audiobook, and it was fabulous! The feminist underpinnings were quite something — I remembered all those times when Circe was portrayed as this evil sorceress — and the book made me realize that may not have been the case.

It’s been so long since I’ve read The Odyssey, I had Circe and Calypso all mixed up. I don’t know if I even knew she was associated with Daedalus at all. Unless that was just for this book and not really canon Greek mythology?

I absolutely loved this one, too. Lovely review, Jan:)

I had sampled this book a few months back and definitely found it captivating. Didn’t get a chance to get back to it – I hope I can, at some point. Glad to hear that you loved it and recommend it.

I love mythology and this is definitely one that is on my TBR list. Enjoyed your review!

I first didn’t want to read it because it’s a period of history I’m not really interested about, but hey, it’s getting harder and harder to resist, lol ! It’s on my TBR, great review 🙂

I’ve been meaning to read this one for a while! Thanks for the review.

This has been on my radar for quite some time and I hope to get to it this year, probably on audio. I’m glad to see that you enjoyed it!

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July 9, 2024

News and Notions From the Bennington College Community

Book Review: “Circe” by Madeline Miller

Teju Cole, in describing the way a curtain hangs in one of the many German hotel rooms he has inhabited, describes the creases in the fabric as “the divine enfolded in skin.” He sees, in the simplicity of the fabric, an enriching power of the self rooted in the body—the way it bends and creases, at rest and motion simultaneously, expands, contracts, inhales, exhales. A self-supporting system in an imbroglio of entangled systems stitched together to create a curtain, a swath of cloth, cut from other cloth, made from other threads and folds, bendable, luminescent. A creator of light and shadow alike. It blocks the all-mighty glow of an imposing sun; it enshrines the human spatially in a cocoon.

He finds, then, in this fabric, the power humans have over themselves; a seemingly divine power that, when pushed from the inside out, swells into being. The ordinariness of the human, the specificity of the lives they live, the vitality of their self-hood, the richness of their efforts, are endowed by themselves with power.

Madeline Miller’s book Circe bears conceptual similarities; in the nuances of its mythos it enfolds the electric, kinetic capabilities of our humanity in the self-made, effortful portrait of Circe, a witch who—through the tenacity of her own desires—swells into a power of her own construction.

In the book, Miller gives an epic retelling of Circe’s mythical legacy; sprung from the shadow of the space outside the page, she pieces several stories together—Odysseus’s journey and death, the tale of Telemachus, the Trojan War, amongst others.

Circe, daughter of the Titan Helios, banished to the island Aiaia for turning a nymph—Scylla—into a hulking monster, struggles with the loneliness of exile, the cruelties of men, the fears of motherhood, and the immeasurable journey of growing old and strong in her own skin (mostly while she is alone, as the world unfolds around her). To summarize the book would be to reconnect the stories which hold Circe as a unifying thread (the plight of Medea, the odyssey of Odysseus, the birth of the Minotaur and its labyrinth, all stack atop each other as moments testing the power, resolve, and affection of a witch growing into the vibrancies of her power).

Despite the fact that the book is structured in this long-winding, seemingly patchwork sense, rooted in the interiority of a character locked in perpetual stasis reaching outward into the world through the people she encounters, Miller colors the text with a vibrant, electric, and archaic voice, rich in the translatory power of the ancient myth, but rooted in the familiarity of the human.

For instance, when her son—Telegonus, son of Odysseus—asks her permission to leave the island, Circe is upset. Athena has placed a threat upon her and her son, vowing to take him for her own in an act of revenge against Odysseus. In an attempt to keep the goddess at bay, Circe cloaks the island in magic; a spell to hide the island, another to keep Athena away, a dual concoction tied to Circe’s own person and life force, an extension of herself in divine form, an exhausting effort, especially in its early creation, as the unruly baby Telegonus challenged her will. Now, her only son, who for sixteen years has been by her side and poses as a sliver of the man she fell in love with within the years past, seeks not only to leave her side but to step head-first into death. “For sixteen years,” Circe fumes, “I had been holding up the sky, and he had not noticed. I should have forced him to go with me, to pick those plants that saved his life. I should have made him understand all I had carried in silence, all that I had done for his safekeeping” (Miller 272).

Here, Miller places Circe at the center of a web. Around her rests her son and his ambitions, the spell protecting them both from an all-powerful threat, the effort of that magic, the toil of working and stitching the spell together from the earth to make the enchantment—an entangled thread being pulled loose from Circe’s fingers. This tension, however, is not inhibitory; rather, it allows Circe to grow into herself further—she eventually allows Telegonus to go, outfitting him with an all-powerful weapon—the tail of Trygon, whose venom kills even gods upon contact—which she acquired by facing Trygon himself, prepared to bear eternal pain for the sake of her son (she comes out unharmed).

This network defines the intensity of Circe’s journey. She is poised against a heap of conflict that rests outside her agency (i.e. the threat of Athena, the notion of eternal pain to save her son,) and enshrouds herself in a power born from the vitality of her own personhood. It is not an outside entity from whom Circe derives her power, nor an abstract divinity; she weaves spells from the toil of work, cultivating the earth, communing with it to produce a reaction through a kind of symbiosis. It moves, from the inside of her body outwards, in congruence with the earth, not in a binary dynamic, but a shared, collective. Likewise, in the face of certain pain, she steps forward to accept its weight from Trygon for her son, a sacrifice that she did not have to make, because the notion of the act itself was enough to sway him. In other words, Circe, by the fortitude of her own resolve, creates her own power, and uses it to denature the forces around her that meddle in the vitality of her life and love. No one can harm Telegonus; how could they, against a figure, a mother, engulfed by the vitality of love, found within herself, and given manifestation in the physical earth through magic?

Circe pours power from within herself, formalizing it in her decisions and her magic, creating a network with the outside world—including its conflicts—that is enriched by her own femininity, her own motherhood. In a world that seeks to strangle her power as a woman, she—in an act of divine resiliency—crafts its antithesis.

As a result, Miller constructs a story that, with its mythical form, is able to bend itself into new angles, that it may prismatically produce new bursts of light. Circe is reworked from a figure of antagonistic sentiment to a nuanced, rich, and complex character, tangible, vibrant, and electrified by the sheerness of her humanity, by her proximity to us as readers. Mythos, here, is a film, a medium, on which Miller has painted a figure of self-making power in the form of Circe.

Her prose behaves in a similar fashion. Miller’s prose is active, spiced with the same effort of Circe’s resolve: “I cupped my own hands in the dark,” Miller writes, “ I did not have a thousand wiles, and I was no fixed star, yet, for the first time I felt something in that space. A hope, a living breath, that might yet grow between” (226). From this void, the ethereal miasma of existence and nonexistence, the eternal “middle ground” within which we intersect and translate ourselves and the world around us, Miller stitches together a narrative bound by other narratives, a story folded within stories, exhuming a rich, resonant voice from between the blank verse of classical texts.

Her prose, at once incantatory and catalogic, capable of erupting with kinetic force to catalyze the story into motion (I tremble at the cosmic, hulking mass of tentacles Scylla spills from her body to halt Circe’s journey to Minos,) and likewise calm, tranquil, a miasma of image and sensation, of plants and vines swimming before her eyes, dirtying her hands, latching beneath the beds of her nails, clinging to nest-like hair. It is more than illustration; the book moves fluidly as a paintbrush, gliding with tenacity before slowing at the minute details that define and enrich the piece itself.

As a result, Miller’s book is rich with a self-creating vibrancy, a woven, viscous tapestry. It is shaped, like clay, from the effort of her own hands, just as Circe creates her own cosmic power, reaching into herself, into the earth, “elbow deep” at times to pull from the “divinity enfolded” in her skin. The book is Miller’s own testament to this work, and is as powerful, spellbinding, and moving as the sacrifices her Circe makes, as the power she makes from the calluses of her well-worn hands.

Published in Arts & Reviews

Dylan Walawander is a third-term student studying literature and film. He is a book critic contributing review essays, essays on fiction, and nonfiction works. He is also a website administrator.

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Book Review: Circe by Madeline Miller

Before I begin, I think it’s important to note that I opened Circe having almost zero prior knowledge about mythology . Despite majoring in English in college, I never had to read mythology. Crazy huh?

The Summary

In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe is a strange child—not powerful, like her father, nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power—the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves.

Threatened, Zeus banishes her to a deserted island, where she hones her occult craft, tames wild beasts and crosses paths with many of the most famous figures in all of mythology, including the Minotaur, Daedalus and his doomed son Icarus, the murderous Medea, and, of course, wily Odysseus.

But there is danger, too, for a woman who stands alone, and Circe unwittingly draws the wrath of both men and gods, ultimately finding herself pitted against one of the most terrifying and vengeful of the Olympians. To protect what she loves most, Circe must summon all her strength and choose, once and for all, whether she belongs with the gods she is born from, or the mortals she has come to love.

The Book Review

I was immediately pulled into Circe . It was so different from what I normally read, and I fell into the world of mythology with abandon.

And then…the fizzle.

Let’s back up here for a minute, though. Circe is a child in the beginning of the book, and I loved her story. She lives in the house of Helios (her dad, whose chariot pulls the sun across the sky every day), and is generally unliked by all the other gods, including her own family. It’s strange, but pulled me in.

However, even in the beginning, the sheer number of characters in Circe is super overwhelming. I had to keep pausing when names were mentioned to remember who it was, or try to wrap my head around him/her if it was a new character. Mythology is like that, so it makes sense, but man, it made for a difficult read when I was more interested in the story arc than the characters.

This book fizzled a little for me as it went on. I expected more of a story arc, but what I got was more like mythology itself – shorter stories that make a whole. Sure, it was chronological about Circe’s life, but for me, there wasn’t really a peak of any kind – it just kind of rumbled on. Of course, it’s based off of the existing story of Circe, so I don’t think Miller could have done a whole lot to remedy this.

Circe was compelling enough throughout to keep me reading and mostly enjoying, but I do have to say that I was happy to get to the end and put it behind me. Although it was a bit of a slog for me at times, I would recommend it to someone with more of an interest in mythology. I thought the writing was great and it was well done overall, so I gave it 4 stars.

Looking for more awesome books about Greek mythology? Check out our list of Best Fiction Books About Greek Mythology .

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Circe by Madeline Miller | Summary & Review

Circe by Madeline Miller is a pensive and entertaining book. It is Miller’s second novel after debut The Song of Achilles . Vividly lush in description of Greek gods and goddesses, this unique book has a tendency to take us to a world we had never allowed ourselves to imagine.

Circe by Madeline Miller: Introduction

Shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2019, Circe by Madeline Miller narrates the alienation, power, and hankering of the Greek goddess, Circe, caught between gods and mortals. Besides being a novel based on ancient Greek mythology, Circe is an amazing story of self-discovery. You can still enjoy the book if you don’t know much about Greek mythology.

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Table of Contents

1. Circe by Madeline Miller: Book Summary

1.1 a misfit in the house of gods , 1.2 circe’s alienated childhood.

Circe spends most of her childhood in loneliness. Her siblings always mock her and never allow her to get intimate with them. She suffers the pangs of isolation until Aeetes, her youngest brother, is born. As Aeetes grows up, he becomes Circe’s best companion. We see both of them spending every moment together. But Aeetes has to go away to be the king of his own land and Circe is, unfortunately, alone once again. After that she spends most of her time in despair.

1.3 Circe’s Solace in Mortal World

1.4 the discovery of her hidden talent.

At that time, experimenting with different herbs and potions, Circe discovers her hidden power – the power of witchcraft. The power that has the ability to bend the world to her will. Moreover, she discovers that her powerful black magic can transform humans into monsters or animals and even endanger the gods. A misfit among the gods before, now has become a threat for them.

1.5 Circe’s Exile to a Deserted Island

Circe uses her powers to turn her beloved, Glaucos, into an immortal sea-god. After becoming a sea-god, Glaucos unfortunately falls in love with a nymph, Scylla. Triggered by jealousy, Circe turns beautiful yet malicious Scylla into a six-headed sea monster. For her practice of witchcraft, Zeus, the god of the sky, banishes her from the halls of Helios to the deserted island of Aeaea. Here, she becomes an eternal captive.

1.6 Circe’s Encounter with Odysseus & Other Mythological Figures

1.7 dramatic tensions in circe by madeline miller.

Circe is a lonely woman and there is always a danger for a woman who stands alone. During her journey, she also suffers a lot. Unintentionally, she becomes the cause of anger for both gods and men and sets herself in opposition with one of the most formidable and vengeful Olympians. For her survival, she has to make a choice between the worlds of immortality, which she is born from, and mortality, which she has come to love. She bravely fights for her place in a world between the mortals and the gods.

1.8 Circe’s Self Discovery

Despite being the daughter of a god, she loves mortality. She learns from her life that immortality is not a blessing indeed. Instead, it’s a never-ending curse of committing the same mistakes again and again.

1.9 Circe Book Ending

The novel ends with Circe’s vision of herself as a mortal. She is resolute in transforming herself with the same spell that began her adventure with witchcraft. Towards the end of the book, Circe enlightens us with the blessing of being mortal in such words:

“ I thought once that gods are the opposite of death, but I see now they are more dead than anything, for they are unchanging, and can hold nothing in their hands….I have a mortal’s voice, let me have the rest.”

2. Circe by Madeline Miller: Book Review

Circe’s character is depicted by Madeline Miller in a way that grounds her in reality despite her divine origins. Miller’s prose possesses dreamlike simplicity. Her depiction of what it feels like to work magic is extraordinarily brilliant and convincing. Besides its beautiful story, the novel is rich in language and dynamic in characterization. Miller makes brilliant and powerful use of imagery and emotion in depicting the story of a fierce goddess who only occupied a few dozen lines in Homer’s The Odyssey . This book is a triumph of storytelling and must be an immense gift to all who read to seek their own bravery and quest.

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2.1 Is Circe only a Good Book for Greek Mythology Lovers?

Circe is especially a gift for people who like Greek mythology, dense intricate plots, and more formal writing. But you can still enjoy the book if you’re not a big fan of Greek mythology. Thanks to Madeline Miller! She has given a glossary of characters at the back of the book that explains everyone’s role in depth. You can have a look at it to get some understanding of Greek gods and goddesses.

3. About Circe Book Author: Madeline Miller

Miller has also studied at the University of Chicago’s Committee on Social Thought, and at the Yale School of Drama, specializing in adaptation of classical tales to modern forms. She currently lives in Narberth, PA, where she writes and tutors. She has won the 2012 Orange Prize for Fiction for her first novel, The Song of Achilles.

You can follow Madeline Miller on social media:

4. Circe Vs The Songs of Achilles

Madeline Miller’s debut novel The Song of Achilles takes us on a tour of ancient Greece, and retells the siege of Troy from the point of view of Patroclus, an awkward young prince. The story of this book is profoundly moving, breathtaking and also contemplates the importance of myths in today’s modern world.

Like its predecessor, The Song of Achilles , Miller’s second hit novel, Circe , also takes the same stimulating approach to ancient Greek literature. Miller brings a classic story of female empowerment by weaving together Homer’s tale with other ancient sources.

Both these books of Madeline Miller narrates a familiar ancient tale from the perspective of previously muted voices of people in Greek mythology. For instance, in her first book, Miller gives voice to Achilles’s lover Patroclus who was a minor character in the Iliad . In her second book, she has given voice to Circe, the witch who turned men into pigs in Homer’s Odyssey . These people were formerly seen only from the outside in the originals.

5. Circe: Awards and Honors

After its publication, Circe by Madeline Miller became a New York Times No. 1 bestseller. It has won the Indies Choice Best Adult Fiction of the Year Award as well as the Indies Choice Best Audiobook of the Year Award . Miller’s Circe has also been shortlisted for the 2019 Women’s Prize for Fiction and won an American Library Association Alex Award as well. Moreover, the book has also won the Goodreads Choice Awards 2018 for Fantasy Fiction.

Circe by Madeline Miller, is a highly recommended book and, indeed, deserves a good place on your bookshelf! I hope you all enjoyed this review!

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Book Review for Circe

The 2018 adult fantasy novel, “Circe,” by Madeline Miller, has been hailed as a tour de force of feminist literature. Written in a prose style frequently found in Young Adult, “Circe” does not qualify as adult literature. I certainly disagree that it qualifies as a feminist story.

This novel is actually the patriarchy presenting itself on Olympian-powered steroids. Misogyny and rape culture are the engines of this book. To qualify as “feminist literature,” “Circe” demands that the reader be ignorant of the original myths selected to be altered and retold in this Forrest Gump-style romp through Greek mythology. Madeline Miller manages to take the misogyny and rape culture at the foundation of the original myths and intensify the unchecked reign of the patriarchy by a drastic amount. The patriarchy is the star of this book. Reader, please be awed by its might.

**spoilers ahead**

Miller has repeatedly stated in interviews about “Circe” that this book was written as “mythological realism,” which she defines as realistic historical fiction with deities appearing as characters, the same way those deities appear as characters within their original myths. Yet nowhere in the novel’s text is the reader oriented to anything “realistic” from Ancient Greece. Miller does not write any scenes that include historical reality at all. There are no scenes of the actual worship of the gods in Ancient Greece; there are no scenes of animal sacrifice, temple officiants, or realistic displays of worship for any of the deities in this book. Miller is not concerned with the realities of slavery and poverty in Ancient Greek life either, in the military or on ships, which are both depicted in her book.

She also changes each of the Greek myths in her text so drastically that no claim can be made that the mythological canon itself is where she derives her “realism” from. This is in stark contrast to a book like “Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ,” by Lew Wallace (1880), in which biblical canon was carefully and assiduously used in his novel to shape the dialogue and actions of Jesus. Wallace completed extensive research on the geography, culture, language, customs, architecture, and daily life of the ancient world, which permeates every scene in his book. “Ben-Hur” is an authentic work of “mythological realism,” both for Wallace’s adherence to biblical canon as well as historical reality. Miller displays neither in “Circe.”

Most unrealistic of all, Miller never orients the reader to the way that Ancient Greeks defined and understood the word “hero,” a word that appears numerous times in the text. Miller’s characters use the word “hero” the same way a modern American reader would.

The Ancient Greeks (and the Ancient Greek gods) did not think of “heroes” as people who were morally good; they did not view “heroes” as worthy of fame due to being moral exemplars. To the Ancient Greeks, Odysseus was what a modern American would understand as a “celebrity”: someone imbued with an extraordinary attribute or ability, a person who captures public attention due to their actions and lifestyle, regardless of their moral character. Kim Kardashian, to the Ancient Greeks, would also qualify as a “hero”: she possesses an attribute of great beauty, has become famous, and many people emulate her actions, but this does not mean that those people emulate her because they believe she is “morally good.” To the Ancient Greeks, Kim Kardashian’s actions bring her fame and popularity, and her life therefore qualifies as “heroic”: entertaining to discuss, capturing public attention, and therefore worthy of public conversation.

Most modern Americans would never call Kim Kardashian a “hero.” In the interest of brevity, I’ll cite two main reasons why. First, in the days since “The Odyssey” and “The Iliad” were recorded, the historical Jesus of Nazareth was born and walked on the earth, changing forever the Western public perception of what a “god” is, and what a “hero” is. In Christian mythology, Jesus was a God who was born into a mortal body to die for the sins of humanity, saving the entire human race to be reborn into Heaven. Jesus the God is morally good. In the centuries following the rise of Christianity, and the Catholic Church in particular, the concept of “deity” changed from the roles the gods held in Ancient Greece, into a monotheistic, morally good “Savior of All” who rewards his worshipers with immortal life.

To be fair, this is a much more appealing “story of god” than anything the Ancient Greeks had to offer. Many people say that the Bible is “the greatest story ever told” and “the greatest story ever SOLD” for a reason. As we all know, many people are terrified to die. A god who promises immortal life to every human on earth has definitely cornered the market on goodness, kindness, and popular appeal.

Second, the modern understanding of “hero” took a big jump forward in 1841, when Thomas Carlyle published his famous work, “On Heroes: Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History,” and penned, “The History of the world is but the Biography of great men.” Carlyle helped solidify the word “hero” into how most modern Americans understand the word. “Heroes” are “Great Men,” men of bold action who alter the course of human history by the choices they make. Carlyle named “Jesus” as one such Great Man, and a large number of modern Americans would agree with him.

Miller’s text views Odysseus through the modern understanding of a Great Man of History, as well as a modern understanding that “heroes” are “morally good.” Miller’s novel is entirely sympathetic to Odysseus. Rather than displaying his deeds with the hubris and greed the original myths give him, Miller has stated in interviews that she gave her Odysseus Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder from war, so that her reader can have sympathy for him. Miller has stated that she sought to “explain” why a “hero” would commit what her modern reader understands as horrific actions and deeds, not “heroic.”

But the original myths treated Odysseus the way modern Americans treat Kim Kardashian, and the original myths did not give Odysseus PTSD. Odysseus is a hypocrite and a proud boaster in “The Odyssey”; he is not meant to be punished or condemned by the listeners of his tale. Odysseus is never meant to be viewed as “morally wrong,” but as “heroic.” In fact, the people he kills after he returns home to Ithaca are considered “just kills” by the text, including the female servants/slaves Odysseus slaughters. Those women are rape victims who have been reduced to “porneia”: literally, “vile whores,” or “dirty sexual slaves,” in the eyes of Odysseus and the Ancient Greeks. That is the reality of the patriarchy on display in the original myth. Odysseus is viewed as a “hero” as the Ancient Greeks understood the term; he was not a morally-good soldier who “unfortunately” suffered PTSD after he returned home from war. Odysseus was a man of action, a man who killed who he needed to kill, and the details of his killing served as entertainment; it is the purpose of telling his story. When his killing is finished, his story ends.

But Miller’s audience is far removed from Ancient Greece, and understanding the Greek myths within the context of history. Instead of orienting her reader to the world of Ancient Greece, she alters the text in all ways to suit a modern ideology and setting. Whatever motivated Miller to make these choices, in the text, Odysseus becomes a modern Great Man of History, and the entire second half of the novel is devoted to illuminating Odysseus, and sympathizing with him. Odysseus appears in-scene for roughly two or three chapters of the twenty-seven total chapters, but his personality, his life, and his deeds are discussed at length for a full half of the book.

The novel begins with the protagonist, the goddess-witch Circe, best-known for her role in “The Odyssey.” Circe is the sole first-person protagonist of the novel, and she narrates her own autobiography from a distance. The very last page of the novel describes Circe committing suicide, and her narrative voice at the start of the book is told from Circe’s adult voice looking back on her life. The entire book seems to be Circe reflecting on her life, narrating her life story to a mortal listener in the moments before she takes away her own immortality and commits herself to die a mortal’s death. Circe’s mortal listener is later identified as “you,” the mortal reader of the text, in a switch to second person narration that takes place on page 17.

The very fact that this novel stars a woman who kills herself – a woman who destroys herself “for love,” no less – ought to have sent up plenty of red flags that this book does not qualify as “feminist literature.” Women committing suicide “for love” is one of the longest-running misogynistic tropes of storytelling; it often goes hand-in-hand with women being raped and enjoying it, a point I will return to later in this review.

Circe begins the book by narrating the story of her parents meeting, marrying, and giving birth to her. Her father is Helios, the extremely powerful God of the Sun, and her mother is a “lesser goddess,” a nymph named Perse. Circe is born as a nymph, like her mother, and tells the reader that the word “nymph” in the gods’ language means “bride” (page 3). She describes nymphs in this way:

“Least of the lesser goddesses, our powers were so modest they could scarcely ensure our eternities. […] That word, nymph , paced out the length and breadth of our futures” (page 3).

Although nymphs are divine and immortal, they can still be killed. Circe even states that her “oldest fear” is to be murdered by her father (page 361).

In this book, the defining characteristic of nymphs is that they are weak: physically weak, magically weak, and divinely weak. Nymphs are only ever female. Nymphs suffer rape, incest, and violence, including the threat of death, from their male family members (page 147). The word “incest” is never used in the novel, but when Circe’s sister speaks of the violence she has suffered at the hands of their brother Perses, the implication is clear. Circe’s sister also admits that their father forced her to marry a mortal man against her will (page 147). Nymphs are property. Circe’s mother could have been raped by her father, if he had chosen to rape her (page 4). Circe’s father Helios also rapes his female animals, a sacred herd of “fifty snow-white heifers” (page 9) that he “fucks” to sire their calves, and when the cows get old, he cooks them (page 12). Helios keeps two of his daughters as slaves, a pair of beautiful nymphs named Lampetia and Phaethousa, who are forced to watch over and care for his sacred herd (page 10).

The intense misogyny among the gods is not limited to Helios or Perses. It is made clear to the reader that Aeëtes, Circe’s second younger brother, “has never liked a woman in his life” (page 117). Even Hermes, the Messenger God of the Olympians, makes it clear in his own dialogue that nymphs exist to be raped by anyone who can overpower them (page 181). Later in the book, Hermes suggests that even Circe try raping some nymphs who have been imprisoned on her island (imprisoned there by male relatives), and Circe responds in this way:

“That is absurd,” I said. “They would run screaming.”

“Nymphs always do,” Hermes said. “But I’ll tell you a secret: they are terrible at getting away.”

Hermes delivers his words while “grinning like a goat” (page 181), taking pleasure in the helplessness of the nymphs, who can be raped by anyone who has power over them, including Circe with her witch powers, powers she was not “born with” as a nymph, but acquired on her own (pages 83-86). Since Hermes’s own mother is a nymph named Maia, his dialogue also implies an intense loathing for his own mother. In the worldview of of this novel, Hermes is a god who would see his own mother as nothing but a piece of meat.

Nymphs are beautiful, but are still seen as almost entirely worthless, even by their own children. Aeëtes states: “Even the most beautiful nymph is largely useless, and an ugly one would be nothing, less than nothing. She would never marry or produce children. She would be a burden to her family, a stain upon the face of the world. She would live in the shadows, scorned and reviled” (page 71). This information is never questioned, but confirmed in the text as the absolute truth (page 71). Aeëtes’s own mother is the nymph Perse; he has no more respect for nymphs than Hermes does.

Female Titans, goddesses who have more divine power than nymphs, fare no better. Circe tells the reader: “My uncle Proteus lost his palace, and his wives were taken for bed-slaves” (page 15). Male gods possess plural wives, but any god’s wives can be taken away by a stronger male deity, and turned into his sexual slaves, raped and bred at his discretion.

As a modern female reader, I find the patriarchy on display in this novel deeply compelling, and extremely relatable. Circe’s female relatives are also quite vicious. Perse calls Circe “stupid” (page 13) and Circe’s siblings also call her ugly (page 9). My own life experiences made me want to bond and identify with Circe in all ways, since I know exactly what it feels like to be abused by your family members, and to be seen as “worthless,” “stupid,” and “ugly” by your family as well as your community.

In her phenomenal nonfiction book, “Intercourse” (1987), Andrea Dworkin describes the inferiority women experience in the patriarchy:

“Inferiority is not banal or incidental even when it happens to women. It is the deep and destructive devaluing of a person in life, a shredding of dignity and self-respect, an imposed exile from human worth and human recognition, the forced alienation of a person from even the possibility of wholeness or internal integrity. Inferiority puts rightful self-love beyond reach, a dream fragmented by insult into a perpetually recurring nightmare; inferiority creates a person broken and humiliated inside. The fragments—scattered pieces and sharp slivers of someone who can never be made whole—are then taken to be the standard of what is normal in her kind: women are like that. The insult that hurt her—inferiority as an assault, ongoing since birth—is seen as a consequence, not a cause, of her so-called nature, an inferior nature.” (page 213)

Dworkin’s words illustrate why Miller’s novel is so compelling. In the opening pages of “Circe,” it is made clear that Circe is a woman who has been humiliated and broken by the patriarchy, the power structure that places men above women in all ways in this text, a patriarchy that is upheld by both male and female patriarchs. Both Andrea Dworkin and bell hooks write at length in their work about female patriarchs: patriarchal women who have aligned their thoughts and behaviors to meet the expectations of the patriarchy. This patriarchal alignment and complicity is an aspect of conditioning as well as survival; Circe is surrounded by female patriarchs in her immortal society.

Circe’s enslaved sisters, Lampetia and Phaethousa, say judgmental things about Circe’s looks (page 10), as do Circe’s sister Pasiphaë and brother Perses, who are much more scathing: “Her eyes are yellow as piss. Her voice is screechy as an owl. She should be called Goat for her ugliness” (page 9).

Circe receives no love or affection from her mother, aunts, or female family members. Circe longs most to be loved by her father, and many of her childhood memories describe her efforts to spend time with Helios, even though Helios, as a male patriarch, has no more regard for Circe than one of his snow-white heifers. But even that is not quite true. Helios loves to gaze upon his herd of cows, and make sure their cow-bodies stay pristine. But Helios takes no such pleasure from gazing upon Circe, and he gives no care to protecting her body.

Nymphs are also relentlessly slut-shamed in this book, by male and female patriarchs alike. For example, Circe’s cousins say the following about the nymph Scylla: “You know she’s lain with half the halls. I’m glad I never let her have me.” A male river-god adds: “Of course she barks. She always was a bitch!” Scylla’s sister pretends to “howl like a dog” to emphasize the river-god’s words. While the entire hall fills with “shrieking laughter” at the slut-shaming, Circe states: “Even my grandparents had come over to listen, smiling at the crowd’s edge” (page 59).

Circe’s brother Aeëtes later adds: “She was a painted back-hall slattern same as the rest” (page 70). By “the rest,” Aeëtes means “all nymphs” are sluts; “all goddesses” are whores. Circe neither argues with nor condemns anyone who slut-shames another woman anywhere in this book. In fact, Circe deeply hates women. She never puts herself in the category of “female” with the other women in this book because Circe is Not Like Other Girls. Circe is Not Like Other Nymphs. Circe is Not Like Other Goddesses. The slut-shaming stands because Circe believes it is true, and her belief in that truth is what is communicated to the reader. Circe alone is not a Whore, because Circe alone is Not Like Other Girls.

The cruelty of the patriarchy on display in this novel is very realistic and relatable to many modern women, including myself.

But the patriarchy is never named or identified as “the problem” in this book. Since Circe is Not Like Other Girls, Circe sees no problem with slut-shaming, or the patriarchy that creates the word “whore.” In fact, Miller’s novel never discusses the patriarchy at all, the power structure that devalues all women, mortal and immortal alike. Circe never humanizes her fellow nymphs; she never identifies with them or expresses any sympathy toward them. After she has lived more than a thousand years, Circe tells the reader that a nymph is “a dry well” (page 179), by which she means: empty-headed and foolish. Much later in the book, Circe states that nymphs are “shadows flitting at the corner of my eye” (page 341), by which she means: nymphs are so far beneath her notice that they don’t even have physical bodies. Circe is contemptuous of women in this book, especially the women in her own family.

Circe’s story is the story of an unreflective female patriarch, a woman who takes violent male power for her own: the power to rape, maim, and kill. In her state of lovelessness and isolation, Circe tries to make herself whole by inflicting violence upon other people, using her powers to dehumanize, degrade, and destroy, and the novel punishes Circe the way all female patriarchs who “seize male power” are punished in patriarchal stories: Circe dies, and she dies at her own hand.

Circe dehumanizes the vast majority of the people she meets throughout the course of the book. Circe kills a large number of mortal human men, and she kills them sadistically, taking pleasure in their dehumanization and torture (pages 194-196). Circe never feels a shred of remorse for the human men that she kills. And she never regrets completely dehumanizing other women. Circe denies her own female body, the way other female patriarchs nearly always do. She announces her alignment with the patriarchy very early in the novel, on page 17, just before Prometheus is about to be punished for sharing fire with human beings. Circe tells the reader —

“The punishment of a god was a rare and terrible thing, and talk ran wild through our halls. Prometheus could not be killed, but there were many hellish torments that could take death’s place. Would it be knives or swords, or limbs torn off? Red-hot spikes or a wheel of fire? The naiads swooned into each other’s laps. The river-lords postured, faces dark with excitement. You cannot know how frightened gods are of pain. There is nothing more foreign to them, and so nothing they ache more deeply to see.”

Because Circe specifically mentions the pleasure that both gods and goddesses are taking in Prometheus’s future punishment (in this paragraph: female naiads and male river-gods alike), the word “gods” can be read as “mankind.” Circe is identifying all of the gods and goddesses with the male-centric word “gods,” because everyone in her father’s great hall is “excited” and “swooning” to see Prometheus be punished.

The text reveals Circe’s erasure of the pain all immortal women face in this book, including Circe herself: rape, enslavement, violence, and the threat of death. Although the story makes it clear that nymphs and other goddesses may be raped and killed by male gods, and Circe’s “oldest fear” is that her own father will kill her, Circe still tells the reader that there is “nothing more foreign” to the gods—male and female alike—than “pain.”

I need to make it *very* clear that I completely disagree. Violence is painful. Violent death is painful. Enslavement is painful. Being forced to marry someone against your will is painful.

And rape is certainly painful. Rape is so painful, degrading, humiliating, and brutal that rape victims often suffer lasting trauma. Rape is always used as a weapon in war. Rape is used against people of any gender to enforce subjugation, and it is always the first weapon of torture. Rape establishes inferiority, whether someone is raping a small child, an adult woman, an adult man, or any other person. Rape can cause unwanted pregnancy and death. Rape can cause Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. By learning to treat rape victims, modern therapists learned to identify PTSD in combat soldiers, and developed therapies for them. Rape has a higher percentage of PTSD among its victims than combat does.

In this book, nymphs are raped, slut-shamed, and put through any number of horrors at the hands of the male gods who wield power over them. That means that the goddesses in this book are NOT strangers to pain. Pain is not “foreign” to them, and neither is death.

As a child, Circe does not fear being raped because her brother is sadistically torturing her sister Pasiphaë instead (page 147), and Circe is adamant that she does not want to know the details about her brother’s sadistic torture of her sister (page 147). Growing up, Circe believes that no one will rape her because her father is Helios, who is respected and feared. Circe does not look at the rape of nymphs as being “painful” at all. She erases all pain from the nymphs, and denies her own female body as a potential rape victim’s body, a fact that will lead to her own rape later in the book (pages 184-189).

Circe erases all pain from the nymphs because female patriarchs adopt the rape culture mentality of the patriarchy, a mentality that states all women are whores, an ethos best summarized by the rape culture mantra: “She wants it. They all do.” Rape is not “painful” if you were asking for it, if you are really a whore who enjoys it. Likewise, the patriarchy views men as being only animals who rape, an ethos best summarized by: “Boys will be boys.” According to the patriarchy, an erect penis is a knife or a sword to stab people with, which is why the word “vagina” is the Latin word for “sheath”: to emphasize that a cock is a weapon, a knife or a sword to be thrust into women. According to the patriarchy, rape is natural: it is man’s natural state to rape women. And according to the patriarchy, women naturally enjoy being raped: “She wants it. They all do.”

For the record, rape culture is *not* feminism. Feminism is about valuing all people as human beings, whatever a person’s genitalia. Feminism is about recognizing that rape and rape culture is not innate to human biology; men are not “born” to rape. Feminism is also about respecting the fact that no one is ever “asking” for rape.

When I first started reading “Circe,” I thought that the book was promoting White Feminism: a feminism that supports women being seen as human beings *only* so long as they are able-bodied, white, neurotypical, cisgender, upper-middle-class, and heterosexual, which are all qualities that Circe possesses. When I realized that Circe does not give a damn about the rape of any woman but herself, and that she is perfectly fine dehumanizing entire ships full of men as “rapists” in order to murder them, I thought the novel might be promoting a message of Power Feminism, which bell hooks defines as “just another scam in which women get to play patriarchs and pretend that the power we seek and gain liberates us. Because we did not create a grand body of work that would have taught girls and women new and visionary ways to think about love, we witness the rise of a generation of females in our late twenties and early thirties who see any longing for love as weakness, who focus our sights solely on gaining power.” (quoted from the preface of “Communion,” by bell hooks, published in 2002, page xviii)

But the novel “Circe” does not even qualify as a book about Power Feminism. Even though the protagonist does fit the description of viewing love as weakness, and focuses her sights solely on gaining power, Circe is so full of self-loathing that when she finally finds love at the end of her story, she destroys herself. When Circe is about to become the “bride” of a mortal man she has fallen in love with, thereby becoming the “true nymph” or the “bride” that she was “born” to be (because “nymph” is the word for “bride” in her language), she punishes herself by giving up all of the male power she has acquired, including her own divine immortality, and chooses to die a mortal’s death.

This is a book that deeply hates women. Circe deeply hates women, and deeply hates herself.

This is also a book that deeply hates men who are poor. As the modern United States has become more economically segregated, with an ever-widening gap between the haves and have-nots, the classism in American media has radically increased in potency and cruelty. The classism on display in “Circe” is profound. Infantry soldiers and ship crews in Ancient Greece were largely composed of poor and impoverished men, men who were uneducated and used as slave labor. The novel “Ben-Hur” does a better job of exposing the realities of life for the male slaves aboard ships, ships like the ones that land on Circe’s island.

Academic studies of many different eras of history, including modern times, have exposed some essential truths about slavery, military life, and life aboard ships. In regards to Ancient Greece, the majority of men who were forced to row aboard ships did so as slaves. Prisoners were also used as slave labor. Male slaves could be ordered to war, or forced to fight wars that they did not want to fight. For ship captains in Ancient Greece to maintain control over crews that might mutiny, rape and corporeal punishment enforced order. The vast majority of mortal men that Circe turns into pigs and destroys in this novel are largely slaves, slaves who were most likely victims of rape themselves. The reader is allowed to ignore this reality because this is a book that hates men who are poor, and this book especially hates anyone “low” enough to have been born into slavery.

When I read “Ben-Hur” at age fourteen, I fell in love with that book because I could empathize with Ben-Hur’s horrible situation as a slave. Slaves would be chained to their rowing positions, and whipped severely if they stopped rowing. According to the patriarchy, all men in the military, and all men aboard a ship, are considered “rapists,” but in reality, in those situations (aboard a ship or in the military), it is only ever a minority of men who do the raping: the men who have power. Slave-masters are the ones who rape their slaves. This is true whether you are studying a cotton plantation in Alabama in 1843, or a ship rowed with slave labor in Ancient Greece. Miller’s novel depicts Circe dehumanizing and murdering entire ship crews of human men, and justifying her behavior as “killing rapists.” But the brutal truth is: NOT ALL MEN RAPE. The patriarchy teaches that “all men rape,” but the patriarchy is wrong. And what Circe does in this book is wrong.

Circe never regrets dehumanizing and killing those men, and the reader is meant to understand that no regret is required: the book wants the reader to agree with Circe, and believe that Circe’s behavior toward those men is correct, and justified.

Circe states in the text that she spared the lives of less than ten human men from all of the ships that came to her shores (page 192). There were twenty human men on the first ship that arrived on her island (page 184). If there are roughly twenty men per ship, and Circe killed the entire crews of several ships, her victims must number at least one hundred, and probably many more.

Circe does not have the power to read minds. But she claims that of the handful of men she spared, “They did not see me as their dinner” (page 193). By this, she means: by looking into their eyes, she could tell that they did not plan to rape her.

But when Circe killed the entire crew of the first ship, she could not know for a fact if every one of those twenty men was a rapist. She killed them because they witnessed their captain rape her and did nothing to stop him. She killed them because a second man, who was probably the second in command on the ship, stated that he also wanted to rape her immobile body, and the other men did nothing to stop him.

For the record, there are many enslaved men who have watched their male masters rape other people—children, women, and men—and have done nothing to stop them. Slaves, as a class, have no power over their masters.

For example, when slavery was legal in the United States, black male slaves were sometimes witness to their white male masters raping black female slaves. If the male slaves tried to stop the rapes, they could be maimed or killed. Likewise, female slaves were sometimes witness to their masters raping their own children. If they tried to stop the rapes, they could also be maimed or killed.

When made powerless, there are large numbers of people who choose to remain silent and still in order to keep their own lives. To condemn these enslaved people for their survival instinct is vicious and cruel. And yet, that is what the reader is expected to do in order to enjoy reading the novel “Circe.” The reader is expected to condemn powerless people for the actions of the masters who control them.

Miller states that her novel is “mythological realism,” but she does not present historical reality anywhere in her novel. Instead, Miller assumes that her reader is ignorant of the historical reality of Ancient Greece, and her novel is written to perpetuate the reader’s ignorance.

Miller did not grow up in poverty, and neither did most of her readers. It is Miller’s good fortune and privilege that, as a writer, she has not had to identify with the men in her book who were born into poverty, men who were put into prisons, and turned into slaves.

Circe claims that she can tell, just by looking at a man, if he “sees her as dinner” or not. This is just like men who claim that they can tell by “the look in a woman’s eyes” that she was “asking for it.” In truth, those rapist men who believe a woman’s eyes tell them that she is “asking for it,” or that “a woman’s eyes say yes when her mouth says no,” are only justifying their rape of those women. And Circe, by stating that she can tell by one look in a man’s eyes if he is a rapist or not, is justifying her dehumanization and murder of ships full of men.

Not every soldier who goes to war is a rapist. Not every soldier who survives active combat rapes female civilians. Not every seaman is a rapist. Not every seaman in Ancient Greece was a rapist. For Miller’s novel to portray Ancient Greek ships as massive raping machines is a disgusting and revolting way to portray Greek history. It is incredibly classist. It is incredibly cruel. Circe’s thoughts and behavior perpetuate rape culture by demonizing all men, especially men who are poor.

I cannot condemn Circe for killing the man who rapes her, or the man who says, “She better not be dead, it’s my turn” (pages 188-189). Given the situation she is in, lying helpless on the floor, with a crushed windpipe that would have killed a mortal woman, it makes sense that Circe also kills the other eighteen men who might harm her further. Any woman who kills to protect herself will always have my support, and rape is often a life-or-death situation; many rape victims are too terrified to fight at all because they fear they will die. There are far too many real-life women like Circe who have killed their rapists and would-be murderers in self-defense, only to be imprisoned or executed for killing a man. It is a horrible consequence of rape culture. I do not criticize this novel because Circe kills all twenty men in the room when she is physically assaulted, to the point of death for a mortal, and raped.

My problem with Circe is that she could have shrouded her island from future ships, but chose not to (page 192), because she wants to dehumanize and kill more men. Circe wants the men to come to her island, and she is explicitly sadistic about it: “I wanted the next crew to come, so I might see again their tearing flesh” (page 193). After she has poisoned the entire crew with her herbs, she states that her “favorite moment” is the one right before they transform into pigs, and she states of the change: “I am certain it hurt” (page 194).

Andrea Dworkin persistently reminds us that patriarchy justifies the subjugation of women by maintaining that all women are vile, depraved sadists who must be kept under the control of men by violence, or the uncontrolled sadism of women will destroy innocent lives. The novel “Circe” does a fine job of portraying all women as sadists: people who take pleasure, including sexual pleasure, from inflicting pain on others. As an immortal goddess, Circe takes pleasure in turning human men into pigs and killing them in their dehumanized state. Her willingness to dehumanize and murder people is not limited to male rapists. Twice, she threatens to kill the nymphs imprisoned on her island. Long before Circe is raped, she tells the first nymph to show up on her island: “You will feed yourself, care for yourself, and if you cause me a moment’s more trouble, I will turn you into a blindworm and drop you in the sea for the fish” (page 180). That is not a joke, or an idle threat; it is clear in the text that Circe means every word.

When more nymphs are sent to her island, Circe tells Hermes, “Go to my father and see how they can be taken away” (page 181). When Hermes returns to tell her that her father will not be removing the nymphs, Circe says, “Tell my father I will do something awful to them if they do not leave. I will turn them into rats” (page 181). Even before Circe is raped, she is already cruel and sadistic; she takes pleasure in using her power against those who are weaker than she is, including nymphs who have no power at all. It is also why all of the people she kills in this book are powerless in comparison to her.

No woman in this novel is portrayed as being morally good, not even Ariadne or Penelope. In the world of Miller’s novel, the only people who are morally good are all male: Prometheus, Daedalus, and Circe’s own son, Telegonus. These three men possess wisdom, patience, kindness, empathy, compassion, and righteousness. The moral righteousness and altruistic goodness of these men is made explicit in the text. No female in the book possesses what these three men possess. Every woman in this novel is – at best — selfish, scheming, and foolish, as illustrated by the characters Ariadne and Penelope. Outside of Ariadne (who is killed) and Penelope (who Circe must forgive), the other women in this book are either absolutely depraved (Pasiphaë, Medea, Athena, Artemis), or those women are merely “empty wells” and “shadows,” also known as “all of the other nymphs who are not Circe.”

The sadism of women in this book is more extreme and pronounced than any man’s. That sadism and depravity is best represented when Hermes tells Circe about how her sister Pasiphaë dealt with her husband Minos’s infidelity:

“One evening, Hermes told me of a trick Pasiphaë had played upon Minos in the early days of their marriage. Minos used to order any girl he liked to his bedchamber in front of her face. So she cursed him with a spell that turned his seed to snakes and scorpions. Whenever he lay with a woman, they stung her to death from the inside.” (page 160)

Circe admits to the reader that these girls would have been “serving maidens, slaves, merchants’ daughters, anyone whose fathers would not dare raise a fuss against the king. All extinguished for nothing but petty pleasure and revenge.” (page 160)

The immortal women who have power in this book (witch-goddesses and Olympian-goddesses) are all absolutely vicious, far more vicious than any man in this novel. These women use their power for “petty pleasure and revenge.” Circe and Pasiphaë are identical female witches: they target powerless slaves and poor people to torture and murder for their own pleasure. But Miller’s novel never acknowledges that Circe and Pasiphaë are both sadists who prey upon the innocent and the powerless. Circe can never acknowledge that she and Pasiphaë are both villains. Circe can never admit this truth because the novel presents her as a “flawed hero,” not a villain. The reader is never meant to realize that Circe and Pasiphaë are identical in their nature. They share the innate depravity of women, according to the patriarchy.

Miller has repeatedly stated in interviews that she views the Greek gods and goddesses as “sociopathic narcissists,” and that it was her intention to portray the Greek deities as such in her novel. Circe summarizes Miller’s own view of the Greek deities in one of the final lines of the book: “I thought once that gods are the opposite of death, but I see now they are more dead than anything, for they are unchanging, and can hold nothing in their hands” (page 385). Circe gives this statement as the justification to annihilate herself. Because Circe believes she is already “more dead than anything,” then giving up her own immortality in order to die a mortal’s death is no loss of life at all.

Miller presents such a skewed opinion of the Greek deities – that they are “sociopathic narcissists” who are “unchanging” and “dead” – by leaving out all of the stories of Greek deities who do not fit her narrative. The Goddess Demeter, the Goddess Hecate, and the God Dionysus, for instance, all star in Ancient Greek stories that involve gods and goddesses loving women, and making sacrifices for the women they love, whether those women are daughters, human mortals, mothers, or simply people in need. The stories starring these deities also involve change – the change of worldly status, of mortality, even the change of nature itself, as when the seasons change after Demeter rescues her daughter Persephone from the Underworld. Miller’s novel and its messaging are best suited to a reader who is ignorant of Greek mythology. Circe’s story does not even intend to educate the reader about Greek mythology, but rather advances a narrative that upholds the patriarchy as timeless, unchanging, and permanent. Greek mythology is full of characters who challenged the patriarchy. But in Miller’s novel, no one ever challenges the patriarchy, and the Greek myths that do are excluded from her book for that reason.

In justifying her ideas that the Greek gods and goddesses are all “sociopathic narcissists,” Miller repeatedly cites the story of Actaeon, a mortal man and famous Greek hero who came across the Goddess Artemis bathing in the woods, and decided to gaze upon her naked body, watching her in secret. When Artemis realized what he had done, she turned Actaeon into a stag, and his hunting dogs chased him and ripped him apart.

Miller is adamant that this story illustrates the sheer depravity of the gods: that the gods dehumanize and destroy human beings for nothing more than their whims. But Miller fails to place this story within the context of Ancient Greece. Artemis does not destroy Actaeon on a whim, but as a punishment. By gazing upon her naked body, Actaeon severely disrespected her as a goddess. He treated a goddess the way a mortal woman born into poverty would be treated: women in poverty could be gazed upon while naked. Instead of showing reverence to Artemis, Actaeon treated her like a common whore, a vile whore, and that is why she punished him by turning him into a stag.

Andrea Dworkin writes most meaningfully about the role of vile whores in Ancient Greece, and how Ancient Greek ideas about vile whores are still with us today, as modern American readers:

“The word pornography , derived from the ancient Greek pornē and graphos , means ‘writing about whores.’ Pornē means ‘whore,’ specifically and exclusively the lowest class of whore, which in ancient Greece was the brothel slut available to all male citizens.

The pornē was the cheapest (in the literal sense), least regarded, least protected of all women, including slaves. She was, simply and clearly and absolutely, a sexual slave. Graphos means ‘writing, etching, or drawing.’

The word pornography does not mean ‘writing about sex’ or ‘depictions of the erotic’ or ‘depictions of sexual acts’ or ‘depictions of nude bodies’ or ‘sexual representations’ or any other such euphemism. It means the graphic depiction of women as vile whores. In ancient Greece, not all prostitutes were considered vile: only the porneia .

Contemporary pornography strictly and literally conforms to the word’s root meaning: the graphic depiction of vile whores, or, in our language, sluts, cows (as in: sexual cattle, sexual chattel), cunts. The word has not changed its meaning and the genre is not misnamed. The only change in the meaning of the word is with respect to its second part, graphos : now there are cameras—there is still photography, film, video.” (quoted from “Pornography: Men Possessing Women,” pages 199-200, published in 1981)

In Ancient Greece, women born to wealth and noble bloodlines were sheltered from the eyes of men. Only vile whores could be gazed upon by any man. When Actaeon reduces the Goddess Artemis to the status of a vile whore, he is punished accordingly: with violent death.

Contrary to Miller’s beliefs, Artemis’s behavior in this story is not the behavior of a “sociopathic narcissist” who “kills on a whim.” This is moral behavior, deeply rooted in a sense of right and wrong. The myth of Actaeon, like many ancient myths, is a story that teaches a moral lesson: do not disrespect the gods. Do not treat a goddess the same way you would treat a vile whore. If you treat a goddess as a vile whore, that goddess will punish you with death.

Miller earned a combined BA and MA in classics from Brown University. I assume that she was taught how to put Greek myths into the appropriate historical context. Her fictional choices and worldview display a complete disregard for what I assume she learned. Her opinions on the meanings of Greek myths seem entirely shallow and uninformed. And her novel is consequently extremely patriarchal and problematic.

In interviews, Miller has repeatedly stated that her motivation for writing “Circe” was to answer the question: “Why does Circe turn men into pigs?” Miller’s novel answers that question this way: Circe turns men into pigs because a man raped her, a second man wanted to rape her, and eighteen other men did nothing to stop it.

It makes perfect sense that Miller would answer her own question that way because Circe is, in fact, raped by Odysseus in “The Odyssey.” It is the only time the reader ever witnesses Circe being raped in the story.

Miller, however, never uses the word “rape” to describe what Odysseus does to Circe. In interviews, when Miller describes that scene in “The Odyssey,” she states that Hermes gives Odysseus the divine herbs to nullify her witch powers. When Odysseus enters Circe’s home, he pulls out his sword and threatens her with it. Circe screams in terror, falls to her knees, begs for mercy, and “invites him into her bed.” Miller describes the rape of Circe after the 8-minute mark at this link, during her presentation at the 2018 Gaithersburg Book Festival—

I would like to emphasize that when a man pulls out a sword, threatens to kill a woman with it, and then fucks her, that is rape.

Odysseus is a rapist in “The Odyssey.”

But Miller never calls Odysseus a rapist. Miller has placed the modern understanding of the word “hero” over the Ancient Greek understanding of the word. Like many academics who seek to make Odysseus’s behavior in “The Odyssey” more palatable to a modern audience, which would understand rape as a crime, and is uncomfortable with Odysseus slaughtering his female slaves who are rape victims, Miller forgives Odysseus and sympathizes with his behavior by stating that he suffers from PTSD after the Trojan War.

Even if a modern reader decides that “The Odyssey” is about a man who is suffering from PTSD, I must state this emphatically:

Having PTSD does NOT make you a rapist.

And I will say that again, because it begs repeating:

Rape culture is what makes a rapist. Odysseus is a king, a man of great privilege and power, and it is the rape culture of Ancient Greece, combined with Odysseus’s status, that makes him a rapist.

As Miller points out, when Circe is on her knees with Odysseus’s sword at her throat, she “invites him into her bed.” According to Miller, a terrified woman begging for mercy, and with a sword at her throat, who “invites” a man into her bed, is “asking for it.” Circe wants Odysseus to fuck her. This is the mantra of rape culture: “She wants it. They all do.” In Miller’s worldview, Circe is not raped by Odysseus. According to Miller, Circe “invites” Odysseus to fuck her, so he does. Being fucked because you are terrified that a man might cut off your head if you don’t fuck him is not rape. Circe “invited” the fuck. Circe was “asking for it.” She invited Odysseus to fuck her, so Odysseus fucked her. Supposedly, being fucked at sword-point is not rape.

To be clear, this kind of bullshit rape-excusing logic is what is known as victim-blaming. Rape culture always blames the victim. Even if a woman is raped and murdered, rape culture will always maintain that the murdered woman was “asking for it.”

I do not support the victim-blaming that excuses Odysseus’s rape of Circe in “The Odyssey.” Odysseus is a rapist. Odysseus raped Circe.

In “The Odyssey,” during the entire time Odysseus spends on the island, he is armed with the herbs that nullify Circe’s witch powers. Odysseus has these divine herbs because they were given to him by a god. Hermes allows Odysseus, a mortal man, to rape Circe, a goddess. This is true in “The Odyssey,” and Miller repeats this action in her novel (page 203).

But Miller’s retelling of Circe’s story does not portray Odysseus raping Circe, as he does in “The Odyssey.” In Miller’s retelling, Circe is the one who forces Odysseus to have sex with her; Circe becomes Odysseus’s rapist.

In Miller’s novel, long before Odysseus arrives on the island, but after Circe has been raped by a ship captain, she begins to behave as many women do in modern American hookup culture: Circe engages in hookups that are hate-fucks, as an expression of self-loathing. Circe punishes herself by letting men fuck her, which gives her no pleasure. Circe’s real pleasure is in killing the men who come to her island. Of the handful of men Circe spares (fewer than ten), Circe tells the reader: “They did not see me as their dinner. They were pious men, honestly lost, and I would feed them, and if there was a handsome one among them I might take him to my bed. It was not desire, not even its barest scrapings. It was a sort of rage, a knife I used upon myself.” (page 193)

Circe is punishing herself by fucking men who are specifically “handsome,” but their outward appearance evokes no desire within her, “not even its barest scrapings.” The men’s cocks are the knives that Circe controls, knives she uses to hurt herself.

Many modern women who participate in hookup culture can relate to Circe, especially if they have engaged in hate-fucking in order to punish themselves the way Circe does. I have deep compassion for women who use hate-fucking to self-punish. Modern American culture is a culture that deeply hates women: women who are fat, who are too short or too tall, women who are poor, who are ugly, women who dare to tell men no. There is an endless list of reasons why modern women might hate themselves. Rape culture is founded upon the hatred of women, and modern American culture is rape culture.

In modern America, a number of rape victims also engage in promiscuous, self-punishing hate-sex after they are raped. As Circe states of this behavior, “I did it to prove my skin was still my own” (page 193). Many rape victims feel the same way. Promiscuous, self-punishing sex can allow a victim to feel like they are in control of their own bodies once again. As soon as the fucking is finished, Circe states of her sexual partners: “I wanted them gone. I wanted to scrub myself in the sea until the blood showed through” (page 193). Fucking these men makes Circe feel unclean and polluted, and she must wash herself afterwards, a bathing that is also violent and bloody. Anyone who scrubs themselves in saltwater until they can see their own blood is hurting themselves.

In Miller’s novel, Odysseus enters Circe’s home politely, as a gentleman; he has come to retrieve his men, the men she has already transformed into pigs and put in her sty. Odysseus does not take out his sword and threaten to kill her. There is no screaming or begging for mercy. Circe enjoys her first conversation with Odysseus a great deal, to the point that she wants to laugh with pleasure, and states that she feels “giddy” while speaking to him (page 202). Odysseus immediately tells Circe he has a wife, whom he praises (page 199). By the end of their conversation, Circe tells Odysseus that if he wants his men back, then he will have to have sex with her (page 204). In Miller’s novel, Circe is the one who chooses to engage in adultery. Circe is the one who forces Odysseus to fuck her in order to get his men back. Odysseus must have sex with Circe in order to save the lives of his crew, and thereby, save himself. He is the rape victim in the novel, not Circe.

Interestingly, Miller claims her novel is “mythological realism,” when in fact, her protagonist has so much more in common with a character in a seminal work of literary realism: Gustave Flaubert’s “Madame Bovary” (1856). Emma Bovary and Circe both choose to commit adultery. Both women commit adultery with men who do not choose to stay with them, men who Emma and Circe both love more than they are loved in return. Both women’s stories end with the characters drinking poisons to kill themselves. Emma Bovary drinks arsenic, and dies a gruesome, agonizing death that is graphically written, allowing the reader to see Emma being brutally punished for her adulterous behavior.

Similarly, in “Anna Karenina” (1878), the adulterous Anna Karenina throws herself under a train in her act of suicide, killing herself with violence and mangling her body. From “Madame Butterfly” (1904) to “Miss Saigon” (1989) to “Thelma & Louise” (1991), patriarchal audiences are delighted by stories in which women fail to find love and then commit suicide, especially violent suicide that causes excruciating pain and hideous disfigurement. Watching adulterous and/or loveless women commit suicide is a favorite motif of the patriarchy. Adulterous men never commit suicide. But this motif is a running staple for female main characters, especially if the artistic work is named after them, as is the case in all the works referenced above.

Miller has stated that she used four primary texts of Ancient Greek mythology to write her novel: Homer’s “The Odyssey,” Ovid’s “Metamorphoses,” Apollonius Rhodius’s “Argonautica,” and the “Telegony,” a lost poem that survives in summarized form in the “Chrestomathy.” Miller has stated in interviews that she drew closely from all four of these ancient texts to retell Circe’s story.

The second half of Miller’s novel draws largely from the “Telegony,” a story that describes how Circe’s son with Odysseus, Telegonus, brings his father’s corpse to Circe’s island for burial. Telegonus brings Penelope and Telemachus with him. After Odysseus is buried, Circe makes Telegonus, Telemachus, and Penelope immortal. Telegonus marries Penelope, and Telemachus marries Circe. The four of them live together in love and happiness on Circe’s island.

Miller has stated that she wanted to “push back” against this happy ending for Circe, in favor of the ending she gives Circe in her own novel, in which Circe drinks poison to take away her own divine immortality, and die a mortal’s death along with Telegonus, Penelope, and Telemachus. Miller states:

“Actually, the ending of the novel is a huge pushback against mythology, because the Telegony ends with Circe, Penelope, Telemachus, and Telegonus all becoming immortal: she makes them all immortal, and they live as gods on the island of Aeaea. Again, that felt very uninteresting and unsatisfying, and I knew from the beginning that that was not the arc I was following. I felt like this is my Play-Doh, and I can do with it what I want.” (quoted from Miller’s interview with John Plotz and Gina Turrigiano at “Public Books,” found at this link: https://www.publicbooks.org/madeline-miller-on-circe-mythological-realism-and-literary-correctives/ )

For Miller, allowing Circe to use her witch powers for life-giving purposes was “uninteresting and unsatisfying.” Miller wrote Circe to be a female patriarch: a woman who uses her powers to dehumanize and kill. Circe also uses her witch powers to bear a male child and raise him alone. Because Circe despises all nymphs, and believes they are “worthless,” she sends the nymphs away from her island before she gives birth. Rather than allowing the nymphs to help her through childbirth and motherhood, Circe faces all of these struggles alone. Miller describes in detail an extreme Motherhood of Martyrdom, a martyrdom that only occurs because Circe loathes the goddesses who could have assisted her, goddesses who could have given Circe time to nap and rest while her baby screamed, howled, and crawled around on the floor.

Circe falls in love with Telemachus before she drinks the poison. Miller’s novel falls into the classical misogynistic storyline in which women are told: you may have love, or you may have power, but you cannot have both. At the end of Miller’s novel, Circe gives up her powers; she renounces her godhead, and resigns herself to die. Circe does this of her own volition. According to the patriarchal logic deployed in this novel, it is the ultimate sign of her self-actualization and agency that she ends the book by killing herself. Right before drinking the poison, Circe fantasizes about marrying Telemachus and bearing female children for him (page 383). To be a bride, to be a wife, to be a mother of female children, coincides with the end of Circe’s life. It is the end of her divinity. Her future as a wife and mother of daughters is akin to death.

To call Miller’s novel a work of “feminism,” when Miller’s book actually follows a deeply misogynistic storyline, and ends with the female protagonist committing suicide, is disgusting. Reading Miller’s book brought to mind an essay by bell hooks about the movie “The Piano” (1994). In the essay, “Sexism and Misogyny: Who Takes the Rap? Misogyny, gangsta rap, and The Piano,” hooks frames her discussion by introducing the reader to the work of Joan Smith:

“In her book ‘Misogynies’ Joan Smith shares her sense that while most folks are willing to acknowledge unfair treatment of women, discrimination on the basis of gender, they are usually reluctant to admit that hatred of women is encouraged because it helps maintain the structure of male dominance. Smith suggests: ‘Misogyny wears many guises, reveals itself in different forms which are dictated by class, wealth, education, race, religion and other factors, but its chief characteristic is its pervasiveness.’ This point reverberated in my mind when I saw Jane Campion’s widely acclaimed film ‘The Piano.’

‘The Piano’ seduces and excites audiences with its uncritical portrayal of sexism and misogyny. Reviewers and audiences alike seem to assume that Campion’s gender, as well as her breaking of traditional boundaries that inhibit the advancement of women in film, indicate that her work expresses a feminist standpoint. And, indeed, she does employ feminist ‘tropes,’ even as her work betrays feminist visions of female actualization, celebrates and eroticizes male domination. ”

Likewise, Miller’s novel “celebrates and eroticizes male domination,” whether that domination is being expressed by a male or female patriarch.

In the essay, hooks further states:

“In Smith’s discussion of misogyny she emphasizes that woman-hating is not solely the province of men: ‘We are all exposed to the prevailing ideology of our culture, and some women learn early on that they can prosper by aping the misogyny of men; these are the women who win provisional favor by denigrating other women, by playing on male prejudices, and by acting the “man’s woman”.’ Since this is not a documentary film that needs to remain faithful to the ethos of its historical setting, why is it that Campion does not resolve Ada’s conflicts by providing us with an imaginary landscape where a woman can express passionate artistic commitment and find fulfillment in a passionate relationship? This would be no more far-fetched than her cinematic portrayal of Ada’s miraculous transformation from muteness into speech. Ultimately, Campion’s ‘The Piano’ advances the sexist assumption that heterosexual women will give up artistic practice to find ‘true love.’ That ‘positive’ surrender is encouraged by the ‘romantic’ portrayal of sexism and misogyny.”

The same question applies to “Circe”: Since this is not a documentary novel that needs to remain faithful to the ethos of its historical setting, why is it that Miller does not resolve Circe’s conflicts by providing us with an imaginary landscape where a woman can express passionate divine-witchcraft commitment and find fulfillment in a passionate relationship?

The answer to the question is the same answer hooks provides in her essay: Ultimately, Miller’s “Circe” advances the sexist assumption that heterosexual women will give up divine-witchcraft practice to find “true love.” That “positive” surrender is encouraged by the “romantic” portrayal of sexism and misogyny.

In conclusion, I will offer my own plot summary of “Circe.”

In Miller’s retelling, Circe is a nymph born to the patriarchy. Circe longs for the love and respect of her father, but that love and respect is denied to her because she is female. Circe acquires male power in the hope of gaining her father’s respect. She uses her witch magic to turn the nymph Scylla into a murdering monster, and is dismayed to discover that monsters benefit the male gods, not herself (page 98). As a “punishment” for turning Scylla into a monster, Circe’s father gives his daughter her own island and a magical house that cleans itself and provides abundant food. Circe uses the island and her magical house to work on her witchcraft powers for hundreds of years. Circe hopes that if she gains enough power, especially violent male power, her father will one day love and respect her.

Since all women but Circe are loathsome and vile, the gods send other unwanted nymphs to be imprisoned on the island. Circe immediately threatens to kill the other nymphs, because women are shit. Circe is Not Like Other Nymphs, and she is definitely Not Like Other Girls, and if Circe weren’t such a good, compassionate person, she would kill all of these worthless women. Sadly, Circe has some empathy because she once gave Prometheus nectar to drink. Because Circe is so empathetic and good, she doesn’t go on a murdering spree of these shitty, useless women. Instead, Circe just does her best to ignore them, because nymphs are brainless wastes of space and not worth anyone’s time.

One day, a ship of twenty human men arrives on the island. Circe is eager to care for these men, and talk to them, and lavish her affection on them, because men have penises as well as brains. Circe is desperately hoping that these wonderful humans in possession of dicks and brains will worship her, and give her the respect her father denies her. Circe tells the nymphs to stay far away from her house and these men, and she even sends away all of her protective lions and wolves, because Circe wants to be all alone when she invites twenty hardened strangers into her home. Soon, Circe happily serves them delicious food, and eagerly anticipates their love and respect in return.

But instead of worshiping her, one of the men crushes her windpipe and rapes her. Oh no! Circe never expected this! Circe is so angry! Men are pigs! Circe realizes a very hard truth about the nature of men, an important truth that she teaches the reader: men are rapists, and men are pigs. Circe turns all twenty men into pigs and kills them. She takes sadistic pleasure in their painful deaths, and looks forward to more men coming to her island, so she can kill them the same way. The reader is relieved that Circe does this, because men are pigs.

Circe succeeds in dehumanizing and killing at least one hundred more human men. Go, Circe! What a feminist badass! She’s just like Adolf Hitler, but with a vagina!

When Odysseus finally arrives on her island, Circe becomes even *more* badass! Circe rapes a married man and decides to have a baby with him, without even telling him. Talk about a super-feminist move! Circe even raises her male baby all alone, because other women are worthless and Circe is the only woman fit to look after her son. Sarah Palin would be *so* proud. Circe has the Mama Grizzly act down.

After Circe’s son is grown and leaves the island, Circe borrows the poisonous tail of a male sea god, and uses his divine male power to kill Scylla. Circe has now killed a goddess! Wow! Scylla was *way* harder to kill than a mortal. But sadly, not even killing a goddess can convince Circe’s father to love or respect her. Circe will never have the love and respect that she truly wants. The best she can have is the love of a mortal man. Darn. The patriarchy is rough.

Circe falls in love with a mortal man, Telemachus. Unfortunately, Telemachus is a candy-ass who regrets killing rape victims on behalf of his father, so this man is not a true hero like Odysseus. Odysseus was a mighty soldier, a famous warrior who had PTSD. Odysseus only killed innocent people because he was afflicted with trauma. Also, that bitch goddess Athena told him to do evil stuff, and led him astray (page 353). Telemachus has no such excuse. He’s just a candy-ass who has never been to war. Circe loves him anyway. She wants to marry him and bear his female children, so she sentences herself to die a mortal death. She drinks poison to take away her immortality and all her divine power. Go, Circe! What a feminist!

I give this book negative stars.

I would only recommend “Circe” to misogynists, snuff film enthusiasts, fascists, and people who voted for Sarah Palin.

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Emerging Critics

Critical Notes

July 8, 2024

Reviews and More From NBCC Members

By Michael Schaub

Friends, we hope you’re having a good summer so far! This past week, our members have been busy reviewing books by authors including Laura van den Berg, Halle Butler, Garth Risk Hallberg, Francine Prose, and J. Courtney Sullivan, and interviewing writers such as Lilly Dancyger, Caroline Leavitt, Rachel Khong, and Porochista Khakpour. Stay cool, stay safe, and thanks for reading!

Member Reviews/Essays

NBCC Emerging Critics Fellow Hannah Bonner reviewed Kōhei Saitō’s Slow Down: The Degrowth Manifesto , translated by Brian Bergstrom, for the Los Angeles Review of Books .

Rhoda Feng reviewed Kate Abramson’s On Gaslighting for the TLS and Laura van den Berg’s State of Paradise for The Boston Globe .

Carl Hoffman reviewed Dean Jobb’s A Gentleman and a Thief: The Daring Jewel Heists of a Jazz Age Rogue for The Washington Post .

Jeannine Burgdorf reviewed Halle Butler’s Banal Nightmare for the Chicago Reader .

Hamilton Cain reviewed Garth Risk Hallberg’s The Second Coming for the Minneapolis Star Tribune .

Celia McGee reviewed Do Something: Coming of Age Amid the Glitter and Doom of ’70s New York by Guy Trebay for Air Mail .

Laurie Stone reviewed Francine Prose’s 1974 for Everything Is Personal .

NBCC board member Tobias Carroll reviewed Margot Anne Kelley’s A Gardener at the End of the World for the Portland Press Herald , and wrote about five new books in translation for Words Without Borders .

Melissa Holbrook Pierson reviewed Chris Gavaler and Nat Goldberg’s Revising Reality for Hyperallergic.

W. Scott Olsen reviewed Look at the USA by Peter van Agtmael and Paradis Limoilou by Pascal Clement for Frames magazine.

Douglas C. MacLeod, Jr. reviewed Evi Matonis’ Wall Pilates Workouts for Women: 50 Complete Video Tutorials and Illustrations for Feathered Quill ; Jake Johnston’s Aid State: Elite Panic, Disaster Capitalism, and the Battle to Control Haiti for the print edition of Rain Taxi ; Nicole d’Entremont’s Sketching with Renoir for Today’s American Catholic ; and wrote about the film Se7en for Arts & Faith .

Martha Anne Toll reviewed Uchenna Awoke’s The Liquid Eye of a Moon for NPR.

Linda Hitchcock reviewed Kimberly Belle’s The Paris Widow and Jaclyn Westlake’s Dear Dotty for BookTrib .

Carol Iaciofano Aucoin reviewed J. Courtney Sullivan’s The Cliffs for WBUR’s Arts & Culture .

Randy Cepuch reviewed Nick Corasaniti’s I Don’t Want to Go Home: The Oral History of the Stone Pony for the Washington Independent Review of Books.

Jay Rogoff reviewed Margaret Greaves’ Lyric Poetry and Space Exploration from Einstein to the Present for Literary Matters .

Member Interviews

Amy Reardon interviewed Lilly Dancyger about her new book of essays, First Love , for Electric Literature .

NBCC board member Tobias Carroll chatted with Keith O’Brien about his biography of Pete Rose and interviewed Zito Madu about his memoir at InsideHook .

Martha Anne Toll interviewed Joan Leegant for Vol. 1 Brooklyn and Caroline Leavitt for the Washington Independent Review of Books .

In her latest Literary Hub conversation, NBCC Co-Vice President/Events Jane Ciabattari talked to Nina Schuyler about giving voice to nature and other characters in her new climate-themed linked story collection, In This Ravishing World , winner of the W.S. Porter Prize for Short Story Collections and The Prism Prize for Climate Literature.

Grant Faulkner interviewed Rachel Khong about her new novel, Real Americans , on the Write-minded podcast.

Former NBCC board member Anita Felicelli interviewed Porochista Khakpour about Tehrangeles for Alta .

W. Scott Olsen interviewed Rob Wilson for the Frames magazine podcast.

Hélène Cardona was interviewed by Sandra Luz del Castillo on Blue Medicine Journal: A Jungian Podcast .

Member News

Former NBCC board member Ruben Quesada has published two poems from his forthcoming collection, Brutal Companion , in the new issue of Seneca Review 54.1, Spring 2024 . Ruben will also join former NBCC board member Tess Taylor, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, and Forrest Gander at the Library of Congress National Book Festival on Saturday, Aug. 24, 2024.

Jason Berry’s novel, Last of the Red Hot Poppas , has been reissued in softcover by UL Press in Lafayette with a new foreword by Maurice Carlos Ruffin and an updated preface. The cover art (a corpulent alligator) is by Jason’s daughter Simonette Berry. You can watch the trailer here , and an interview Jason did recently about the new edition with WWL-TV here . For a review copy please contact UL Press .

Former NBCC board member Rod Davis was declared a winner in contemporary fiction for his novel, The Life of Kim and the Behavior of Men: Human Bondage in the After-market of War , in the International Impact Book Awards, from Arizona-based Go All In Media. The indie-oriented awards are presented to shortlist finalists in different categories throughout the year, in this unique format with its own rules: “At the International Impact Book Awards, we’re not just recognizing books; we’re celebrating impactful stories that resonate with excellence.”

Susan Kelly-DeWitt’s Frangible Operas has been published by Gunpowder Press.

“the comfort of a bookstore” by Alexandre Dulaunoy is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 .

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A US appeals court will review its prior order keeping banned books on shelves in a Texas county

Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A federal appeals court in New Orleans is taking another look at its own order requiring a Texas county to keep eight books on public library shelves that deal with subjects including sex, gender identity and racism.

Llano County officials had removed 17 books from its shelves amid complaints about the subject matter. Seven library patrons claimed the books were illegally removed in a lawsuit against county officials. U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman ruled last year that the books must be returned. Attorneys for Llano County say the books were returned while they appeal Pittman’s order.

While the library patrons say removing the books constitutes an illegal government squelching of viewpoints, county officials have argued that they have broad authority to decide which books belong on library shelves and that those decisions are a form of constitutionally protected government speech.

On June 6, a panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals split three ways on the case, resulting in an order that eight of the books had to be kept on the shelves, while nine others could be kept off.

That order was vacated Wednesday evening after a majority of the 17-member court granted Llano County officials a new hearing before the full court. The order did not state reasons and the hearing hasn’t yet been scheduled.

In his 2023 ruling, Pitman, nominated to the federal bench by former President Barack Obama, ruled that the library plaintiffs had shown Llano officials were “driven by their antipathy to the ideas in the banned books.” The works ranged from children’s books to award-winning nonfiction, including “They Called Themselves the K.K.K: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group,” by Susan Campbell Bartoletti; and “It’s Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex and Sexual Health,” by Robie Harris.

Pitman was largely upheld by the 5th Circuit panel that ruled June 6. The main opinion was by Judge Jacques Wiener, nominated to the court by former President George H. W. Bush. Wiener said the books were clearly removed at the behest of county officials who disagreed with the books’ messages.

Judge Leslie Southwick, a nominee of former President George W. Bush, largely agreed but said some of the removals might stand a court test as the case progresses, noting that some of the books dealt more with “juvenile, flatulent humor” than weightier subjects.

Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan, a nominee of former President Donald Trump, dissented fully, saying his colleagues “have appointed themselves co-chairs of every public library board across the Fifth Circuit.”

The circuit covers federal courts in Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas.

The decision to rehear the case was a victory for Llano County, whose lawyers argued that there were numerous errors in the June 6 opinion, including the incorrect claim that the books had not been returned the shelves pending appeals.

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A US appeals court will review its prior order keeping banned books on shelves in a Texas county

Associated Press

The circuit covers federal courts in Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas.

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A US appeals court will review its prior order keeping banned books on shelves in a Texas county

Associated Press

The circuit covers federal courts in Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas.

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IMAGES

Book Review of Circe by Madeline Miller (Spoiler Free)
Book Review: Circe by Madeline Miller
Review of Circe by Madeleine Miller
Review of Circe by Madeline Miller
Book Review of CIRCE
Circe by Madeline Miller |Book Review|

VIDEO

BOOK CLUB 📚 Circe Chapter 19
BOOK Club 📚 Circe Chapter 22
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK CLUB 📚 CIRCE CHAPTER 4
Circe by Madeline Miller
Circe Ate Bacon 🥓 Book Club 📚 Chapters 13-14

COMMENTS

Turning Circe Into a Good Witch
She features, too, in the story of the Minotaur: Pasiphae, wife of King Minos and mother of Phaedra, Ariadne and the Minotaur (fathered, of course, by a sacred bull), is Circe's sister. In all ...
Book review: Circe, by Madeline Miller
Review by Ron Charles. April 9, 2018 at 12:33 p.m. EDT. The archaeological evidence is sketchy, but the first pussy hat was probably knitted by Circe. Among nasty women, the witch of Aeaea has ...
CIRCE
Circe's fascination with mortals becomes the book's marrow and delivers its thrilling ending. All the while, the supernatural sits intriguingly alongside "the tonic of ordinary things.". A few passages coil toward melodrama, and one inelegant line after a rape seems jarringly modern, but the spell holds fast.
Circe, a Vilified Witch From Classical Mythology, Gets Her Own Epic
In her novel, Circe's deceptively soft voice produces grave consequences. When sailors wash up on her island, she welcomes them with wine and food, and they mistake her for a mortal. After a ...
Circe by Madeline Miller
Madeline Miller. In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe is a strange child--neither powerful like her father nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power: the power of witchcraft, which can transform ...
Circe by Madeline Miller Review: Mythological Reimagining & Analysis
17 Dec. Circe by Madeline Miller. "Circe" by Madeline Miller is a fascinating and beautifully written novel that reimagines the life of Circe, a minor goddess and enchantress in Greek mythology. Published in 2018, this book has captivated readers with its unique blend of mythological retelling and character-driven narrative.
Recap, Summary + Review: Circe by Madeline Miller
Book Review. Circe, by Madeline Miller, came out early last year, and I've been keen to find time for it, so it seemed like a good book to kick off the spring season. It's a re-telling the story of Circe, a character originated circa 8th century B.C. by Homer. In Homer's in The Odyssey, Odysseus encounters her on the island of Aeaea where ...
Circe, Madeline Miller, review: Feminist rewrite of the Odyssey turns
Circe, Madeline Miller, review: Feminist re-write of the Odyssey Following her bestselling, prize-winning re-imagining of the 'Iliad', Miller turns to Homer for inspiration once more
Circe by Madeline Miller review: a fresh take on ancient mythical tale
Circe. Author: Madeline Miller. ISBN-13: 978-1408890080. Publisher: Bloomsbury. Guideline Price: £16.99. Circe doesn't take up much space in Homer's Odyssey - the visit to her island takes up ...
Review of Circe by Madeline Miller
Graceful and majestic in equal measures, Circe is sure to leave an indelible impression on readers both new and returning to Miller's singular reworkings of Greek myths. Reviewed by Dean Muscat. This review was originally published in The BookBrowse Review in April 2018, and has been updated for the May 2020 edition.
Circe book review: Madeline Miller brilliantly recasts Greek goddess
Circe. brilliantly recasts a Greek goddess in a modern light: EW review. In 2012, a Massachusetts teacher named Madeline Miller published The Song of Achilles, the hard-won work of a decade. The ...
Circe by Madeline Miller
Book Review: Circe by Madeline Miller. Madeline Miller's story embellishes on the legend of Circe from Greek mythology. Circe is the daughter of the Titan sun god Helios and an ocean nymph. Circe is a witch, skilled in potions, herbs and transformational arts. Exiled by her father to a remote island in punishment for her use of sorcery, Circe ...
'Circe' Gives The Witch Of The Odyssey A New Life : NPR
Book Reviews In 'ODY-C,' A Greek Hero Worthy Of Women Circe is a nymph, daughter of the sun god Helios, banished to the island of Aiaia for using magic to turn a romantic rival into the monster ...
Circe by Madeline Miller: Summary and reviews
With unforgettably vivid characters, mesmerizing language and page-turning suspense, Circe is a triumph of storytelling, an intoxicating epic of family rivalry, palace intrigue, love and loss, as well as a celebration of indomitable female strength in a man's world. NPR's Weekend Edition "Books To Look Forward To In 2018".
Circe Book Review
Parents need to know that Circe, by classical scholar and author Madeline Miller, first published in 2018, is a best-selling, imaginative, lurid and violent story of the legendary sorceress, written for an adult audience but also popular with teens. Poets have told of Circe's magic, power, lovers, and…. See all. Parents say (2) Kids say. age 15+.
Feminism and Witchcraft: A Review of Circe by Madeline Miller
Rating: 5/5. Book Content Warning: rape Article Content Warnings: N/A The Odyssey recounts how the sorceress Circe was bested, tamed, and seduced by the great hero Odysseus.But what if Circe could tell her own version of the story? Madeline Miller explores this possibility within her novel Circe: a story that transcends just a simple rewriting of The Odyssey.
BOOK REVIEW: Circe by Madeline Miller
Today I will review Circe by Madeline Miller. At a later date, I will also review The Song of Achilles, by the same author. Like all my reviews, this one too has spoilers. Circe by Madeline Miller was first published on April 10 th, 2018, and it has become a critically acclaimed novel since then, winning, for example, the 2018 Book of the Year ...
Circe by Madeline Miller: Book Review
Circe is the oldest child of the Greek god Helios and the sea nymph Perse. Everyone, including Circe herself, believes that she and her siblings lack divine power. She spends her childhood creeping around the edges of godly feasts and trying to avoid the torments that her younger brother and sister devise for her.
Circe
read the series. preorder for $0.99. Circe by Madeline Miller book review. Circe is a captivating fantasy novel with a wonderful mix of gods, heroes, magic and mythology. It is a refreshing and unique take on Greek Mythology while maintaining the nostalgia of the classics.
Book Review: "Circe" by Madeline Miller
As a result, Miller's book is rich with a self-creating vibrancy, a woven, viscous tapestry. It is shaped, like clay, from the effort of her own hands, just as Circe creates her own cosmic power, reaching into herself, into the earth, "elbow deep" at times to pull from the "divinity enfolded" in her skin. The book is Miller's own ...
Book Review: Circe by Madeline Miller
The Book Review. I was immediately pulled into Circe. It was so different from what I normally read, and I fell into the world of mythology with abandon. And then…the fizzle. Let's back up here for a minute, though. Circe is a child in the beginning of the book, and I loved her story.
Circe by Madeline Miller
My Rating of Circe: 4.7/5. Circe Book Genre: Fantasy, Historical Fiction. Shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2019, Circe by Madeline Miller narrates the alienation, power, and hankering of the Greek goddess, Circe, caught between gods and mortals. Besides being a novel based on ancient Greek mythology, Circe is an amazing story of ...
Book Review for Circe
The 2018 adult fantasy novel, "Circe," by Madeline Miller, has been hailed as a tour de force of feminist literature. Written in a prose style frequently found in Young Adult, "Circe" does not qualify as adult literature. I certainly disagree that it qualifies as a feminist story. This novel is actually the patriarchy presenting itself…
Reviews and More From NBCC Members
This past week, our members have been busy reviewing books by authors including Laura van den Berg, Halle Butler, Garth Risk Hallberg, Francine Prose, and J. Courtney Sullivan, and interviewing writers such as Lilly Dancyger, Caroline Leavitt, Rachel Khong, and Porochista Khakpour. Stay cool, stay safe, and thanks for reading! Member Reviews/Essays
A US appeals court will review its prior order keeping banned books on
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A federal appeals court in New Orleans is taking another look at its own order requiring a Texas county to keep eight books on public library shelves that deal with subjects ...
The 20 Best Restaurants for Easter in University Circle
Discover and book the best Easter restaurant experiences in University Circle. Browse photos, reviews and more.
A US appeals court will review its prior order that returned ...
A U.S. district judge ruled last year that the books must be returned. On June 6, a divided three-judge panel of the appeals court ruled that eight of the books had to be returned to shelves.
A US appeals court will review its prior order that returned banned
On June 6, a panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals split three ways on the case, resulting in an order that eight of the books had to be kept on the shelves, while nine others could be ...

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Circe, a Vilified Witch From Classical Mythology, Gets Her Own Epic

Circe by Madeline Miller

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Circe, Madeline Miller, review: Feminist rewrite of the Odyssey turns tale of subjugation into one of empowerment

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