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A review by hellojupiter
Pandora's Jar: Women in the Greek Myths by Natalie Haynes
funny
informative
medium-paced
5.0
Natalie Haynes is one of my no skip authors. She's proven why yet again. I loved this so much!
As a Classical Civilisation student, Greek Myths mean a lot to me. I have always loved them ever since I was a child, addicted to reading as many versions of my favourites myths I could find (the age appropriateness often meant there was usually only 1). Even then though, I could see that the women in Greek mythology were treated awfully; they were always either a monster or a placid wife, never any grey area for them to exist in. Natalie Haynes, however, shows that this may not have been the case entirely. She tells that Women were in fact treated as multi faceted characters, by many people (but let's be honest here, mostly Euripides, as she mentions a few times. For good reason too) and that what really happened is people picked and chose the version that had the least active women to continue with, leaving most to die out over time. Dissapointing but not unsurprising.
This book was very powerful for me, and informative and humorous and sad. It delivered in every way. Many stories I did not know had multiple versions; one that comes to mind is Eurydice. Others I was aware of, but had no idea just how crucial they were to mythology as a whole. These being the Amazonian's. And then there were people that I had not stopped to think of at all, simply taking the myth at face value. Phaedra. I admire Haynes for giving so much more personality to these forgotten and mispresented women, It's rekindled my love and passion for the myths, and has changed how I interact with them, and will further interact with them from now on.
As a Classical Civilisation student, Greek Myths mean a lot to me. I have always loved them ever since I was a child, addicted to reading as many versions of my favourites myths I could find (the age appropriateness often meant there was usually only 1). Even then though, I could see that the women in Greek mythology were treated awfully; they were always either a monster or a placid wife, never any grey area for them to exist in. Natalie Haynes, however, shows that this may not have been the case entirely. She tells that Women were in fact treated as multi faceted characters, by many people (but let's be honest here, mostly Euripides, as she mentions a few times. For good reason too) and that what really happened is people picked and chose the version that had the least active women to continue with, leaving most to die out over time. Dissapointing but not unsurprising.
This book was very powerful for me, and informative and humorous and sad. It delivered in every way. Many stories I did not know had multiple versions; one that comes to mind is Eurydice. Others I was aware of, but had no idea just how crucial they were to mythology as a whole. These being the Amazonian's. And then there were people that I had not stopped to think of at all, simply taking the myth at face value. Phaedra. I admire Haynes for giving so much more personality to these forgotten and mispresented women, It's rekindled my love and passion for the myths, and has changed how I interact with them, and will further interact with them from now on.