Short review: I had sky-high expectations and it did not live up to it. It is not a bad read, but I think my expectations were geared towards a fast-pShort review: I had sky-high expectations and it did not live up to it. It is not a bad read, but I think my expectations were geared towards a fast-paced Percy Jackson-ish thriller with a female lead, but it turned out to be more of a Greek mythology retelling from a feminist POV. Which is not bad but was different.
Long review: I love Greek mythology. Throw me a movie, a book or a video game, I will all into it. This book fares superiorly well on that part. It is set in the yesteryears when Greek Gods roamed the fictional world. But this time, we get to see the world that we have seen time and again through a male gaze, through a female lens.
Circe is the heroine. She is the goddess. She is the witch. She is the poster girl of all the sexist biases that most women have gone through in their lives. It was refreshing to see a heroine among the million or so Percy-s.
Circe doesn't go about smashing glass ceilings. Her circumstances bring her to a point where she is pushed to do so. She builds her life all on her own. She makes mistakes. But grow gloriously from them. She falls for the wrong kind of guys - well, don't we all? In the next 100 pages, she realises and checks herself. Circe is a modern woman living in a fictional male-dominated patriarchal world. The book paints a world of oceans, seafarers and nymphs that its pages just fall short of smelling like beach and sand and seaweed. It was stunning.
But that is where the book ends. There is no end point towards which all the book's subplots move. There are a few angry Gods, but is she going to fight them? There is Hermes, who she casually sleeps around with, is that going somewhere? There is a guy (the name would be a spoiler) she really likes but is a mortal, is that going somewhere?
Alright, forget relationships, she is indeed a modern woman and.... who needs men, pfft. She is living by herself on an island. Is she going to escape the island and do a world in 80 days trip? Does she want to overthrow Zeus of some sort?
No. No. No.
This is exactly where the book does not meet my expectations. Simply because it is not a new story set in the Greek God world, but is an entire retelling of the existing Greek mythology from a female perspective. She is not Katniss who fights the fascist government. She is not Hermione who is helping overthrow a Dark Lord. Circe is simply a goddess who likes mortals and is living an eternal immortal life with a fair bit of brilliant character development. ...more
The smaller everyday ones. You might add salt instead of sugar to your coffee, only to discover the birth of a delighStories. They come in all sizes.
The smaller everyday ones. You might add salt instead of sugar to your coffee, only to discover the birth of a delightful - though your colleagues might disagree - watercooler tale. The bigger once-in-a-century ones. The ones historians, a thousand years from now, who hate their lives would write their PhD thesis on. The ones, that are woven by the curious mix of pseudoscience and chauvinistic nationalism. That bends reality into rainbows and morphs truth into fiction. The kind of stories that don't just rewrite history, but also writes the present and directs the future. The kind that could make humanity go to war with itself.
Stories, are after all, parasitic life forms, that etch the grooves for the recursive history.
I am not the one to care for metafors but, it is all just headology, you know....more
This is a book about many little yet important things.
Like how most Terry's books are.
It is about the media. And how, they play an important role in This is a book about many little yet important things.
Like how most Terry's books are.
It is about the media. And how, they play an important role in shaping our minds and history.
It is about monarchy or kings and/or queens. And how, being a ruler often equates to being an asshole. But there is always the option that it shouldn't necessarily be that way.
It is about love. And how, the first passionate kiss with your loved one could last fifteen years and still feel less than a second.
It is about those sneaky witty innuendos that creep up on you, when you least suspect, which is almost always in a Pratchett's book.
But mostly, it is about how you write a goddamn brilliant adult fantasy novel in the ways of a fairy tale.
If you can read between the above lines, I ADORE this book and this man. This is probably my most favourite of his works - to date, coz I wish I come across more of such gems. The story is pretty simple and straightforward, and one that we have heard time and again. A king is stabbed for his kingdom by an evil duke and duchess but his offspring survives, and then comes back later to claim back his land. But, Terry weaves his wyrd magic (pun, very much intended) and the result is the same charming tale, but interwoven with political and moral commentary. Not to mention, the clever puns, his classic footnotes, and my favourite, subtle nods to authors of his like, like Lewis Caroll.
This book, is a magical ride, one that's almost a crime, if not taken....more
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