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4.28 AVERAGE
4.28 AVERAGE
funny
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
challenging
dark
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
funny
informative
reflective
medium-paced
Okay, Natalie Haynes, I’ll read everything you write from now on.
emotional
funny
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
informative
reflective
slow-paced
A really insightful and witty book about some of the most misunderstood women in Classical mythology. The level of detail in the analysis is insane and the amount of sources Haynes includes, from ancient writings to contemporary receptions, is so wide. And yet the tone is just about conversational enough for the book not to be preachy. I did find it a little dense in places and there were a few slightly unnecessary tangents, but overall I really enjoyed it and any book that describes Jason as “oily” is an automatic slay for me.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Misogyny
Moderate: Child death, Incest, Infidelity, Rape, Slavery, Xenophobia, Murder, War
funny
informative
medium-paced
One of the books of the year for me, even though I am not smart or cultured enough to understand all the references. I read the customary Greek myth books as a child, which was over a couple of decades ago. I remember vaguely some of the names and their deeds, but no more than that.
My son had a phase a couple of years ago, when he got super interested in mythology, after devouring the Percy Jackson series. He had give out long detailed explanations about what gods did to various humans in their care. This book goes way beyond a mere list of deeds. It analyzes the female Greek characters in the context of their time, their stories, and the added layer of our own modern views. I found it brilliant, even though I could feel how much knowledge I’m lacking. In a lot of classical stories, the women, while present, are either pretty props, or figures tormented and weakened by their feelings and passions, serving the purpose of the author, not the flow of their own narratives. Judged harsher than their male counterparts, and relegated to stand ins to what the male writers thought of women, not of what women really were. Natalie Haynes takes a symbolic surgical knife to these stories, to expose, analyze and turn the narrative upside down, if needed, to allow us to see these, real or imaginary, women characters in a three dimensional view. Complex characters, with complex wants, needs, and motivations.
I listened to the audiobook version, and while the narrator was brilliant, I would really recommend this to be read in a more traditional format - this books needs note taking, highlighting, and tabbing, it needs you to go back and reread passages and excerpts, it needs you to work with its material, for a better understanding. I really plan to return to it someday soon, and do exactly that.
My son had a phase a couple of years ago, when he got super interested in mythology, after devouring the Percy Jackson series. He had give out long detailed explanations about what gods did to various humans in their care. This book goes way beyond a mere list of deeds. It analyzes the female Greek characters in the context of their time, their stories, and the added layer of our own modern views. I found it brilliant, even though I could feel how much knowledge I’m lacking. In a lot of classical stories, the women, while present, are either pretty props, or figures tormented and weakened by their feelings and passions, serving the purpose of the author, not the flow of their own narratives. Judged harsher than their male counterparts, and relegated to stand ins to what the male writers thought of women, not of what women really were. Natalie Haynes takes a symbolic surgical knife to these stories, to expose, analyze and turn the narrative upside down, if needed, to allow us to see these, real or imaginary, women characters in a three dimensional view. Complex characters, with complex wants, needs, and motivations.
I listened to the audiobook version, and while the narrator was brilliant, I would really recommend this to be read in a more traditional format - this books needs note taking, highlighting, and tabbing, it needs you to go back and reread passages and excerpts, it needs you to work with its material, for a better understanding. I really plan to return to it someday soon, and do exactly that.
informative
reflective
medium-paced
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
I really wanted to love this book, and I did, once I got used to the text jumping from here to there, across aeons of time, media, into the underworld and back etc. This isn't a complaint, it was necessary. I just struggled to keep up.
The last 4 pages are where it all happens. It's not a spoiler to say that here Haynes really forces home the idea that what we perceive as canonical texts aren't so. They are just selected translations & texts that have been upheld in the past, and often don't even reflect the origins of the myths, nor their varying perspectives and non-fixed narratives. Even the characters' viewpoints are received as somehow being correct - we often are shown the "heroics" through the eyes of sociopaths. There are other characters in these stories, and they have been relegated, substituted or subdued. 3000 years of classical writing and academics being a male preserve might just, ever so slightly, possibly, cause that to be the case...
The last 4 pages are where it all happens. It's not a spoiler to say that here Haynes really forces home the idea that what we perceive as canonical texts aren't so. They are just selected translations & texts that have been upheld in the past, and often don't even reflect the origins of the myths, nor their varying perspectives and non-fixed narratives. Even the characters' viewpoints are received as somehow being correct - we often are shown the "heroics" through the eyes of sociopaths. There are other characters in these stories, and they have been relegated, substituted or subdued. 3000 years of classical writing and academics being a male preserve might just, ever so slightly, possibly, cause that to be the case...