Circe by Madeline Miller

Description

Madeline Miller’s Circe is a beautiful and absorbing book that turns one of Greek mythology’s most famous witches into a fully developed, complicated, and very human protagonist. It is a beautiful, poetic retelling of an old myth and a timeless look at power, loneliness, identity, and the need to fit in.

Circe is different from the other Titans since she was born among them. Her father is Helios, the cruel and blinding god of the sun, and her mother is the nymph Perse. But Circe doesn’t have the beauty, charm, or raw, overwhelming power of her sparkling celestial relatives. Instead, she has something that makes the gods even more scared: compassion and curiosity. Her family thinks she is weak since she is drawn to mortals and their frail life and tender feelings.

But Circe is not feeble at all. When she finds out that she has the prohibited art of pharmaka, witchcraft that can change gods and men, her power scares Olympus. Zeus himself sends her to the lonely island of Aiaia as punishment for one act of jealousy and defiance. Circe is supposed to be cut off from the world and kept quiet.

But it’s in this seclusion that she really shines. She learns how to master her skill and make a life for herself on Aiaia by studying the herbs and roots. Her island is both a jail and a safe place, a theater for both terrible atrocities and brief, private joys. Miller’s writing brings to mind the island’s lush, spooky beauty, where wolves roam the coastlines and magical lions protect the witch’s chambers.

Circe’s long exile lets her meet some of the most famous people in mythology. She meets the clever Daedalus, whose sadness and brilliance left a lasting impression on her. She fights the horrible Scylla, a monster that came from her own faults. She helps her sister Pasiphaë give birth to the Minotaur, a strange child. And most famously, she meets Odysseus, a clever and charming hero whose time on Aiaia is both a passionate love affair and a painful betrayal.

But Circe is not the narrative of these guys. It’s Circe’s story of how she fights to define herself in a world that wants to deny her strength, how she learns to comprehend her own power, and how she fights to protect what she loves. As the years go by, she struggles with the loneliness of being eternal, the strong love and fear of being a mother, and the dilemma that drives the novel: who am I if I can’t fit in with gods or mortals?

Miller’s writing is both poetic and easy to understand. It brings ancient mythology to life without losing their beauty. She presents us a Circe who is weak but strong, nice but able to get quite angry. Her moral complexity makes her sympathetic and very modern: she is a woman who has to choose between the safety of following the rules and the risk of being free.

Miller also looks at how terrible the gods are, how cruel men are, and how much it costs women to be free when they don’t want to be ruled. The book seems like a feminist reinterpretation because it has a heroine who won’t be silenced, learns to take control of her own life, and finds out that being “alone” doesn’t imply being weak.

Circe is a huge story and a close look at a character. It is a fascinating mix of myth, magic, and real life. It is a novel that celebrates change, strength, and the quiet, hard-won victory of becoming who you really are.

About the Author

Madeline Miller is an acclaimed American novelist and classicist with a talent for reimagining ancient myths for modern readers. She holds degrees in Classics from Brown University and has taught Latin and Greek for many years. Her debut novel, The Song of Achilles, won the Orange Prize for Fiction. With Circe, she cements her reputation as a master storyteller who brings timeless tales to life with emotional depth, lyrical prose, and psychological insight.

Product Details

• Title: Circe
• Author: Madeline Miller
• ISBN-13: 9780316556347
• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
• Published: April 2018
• Pages: 400
• Binding: Paperpack