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tuesdayritual 's review for:
Helen of Troy, 1993
by Maria Zoccola
adventurous
emotional
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
“gods of difficult things, i’m out there still, foraging/in the threads of the world for a story i like better/than the one i’ve been telling.”
Confession time: I graduated with a degree in Classics in 2018 and I have never read the Iliad nor the Odyssey. I know, I know — I ran a good game in that I never took a class that required me to do so. It’s to my eternal shame, if that buys me any sympathy.
Maria Zoccola’s Helen of Troy, 1993 is the first time that my slither-outing has felt like a shame. Zoccola re-imagines this classic Grecian tale. What if Helen of Troy had been a housewife and mother in 1993, shopping at the Piggly Wiggly and holding her head high despite the gossip at a Chuck E. Cheese birthday party? What if Helen of Troy actually decided her own fate?
Quote after quote striking you down to the marrow crowds this 68-page manuscript. The narrative is sparse, allowing for much interpretation and imagination of how things worked. Just how did The Stranger (Paris) and Helen meet? What did it mean to come home to The Big Cheese (Menelaus) and the Kid (Hermione) after all that adventure? Where there regrets? Was there defiance, even after it all? Zoccola gives you the gift of deciding for yourself.
I almost regret taking this out of the library; I want to savor this story again and again, especially after reading the Fagles’s translation the work is built on.
5/5: This one will stay with me for a long time, haunting even my dreams with thoughts of Helen.
Confession time: I graduated with a degree in Classics in 2018 and I have never read the Iliad nor the Odyssey. I know, I know — I ran a good game in that I never took a class that required me to do so. It’s to my eternal shame, if that buys me any sympathy.
Maria Zoccola’s Helen of Troy, 1993 is the first time that my slither-outing has felt like a shame. Zoccola re-imagines this classic Grecian tale. What if Helen of Troy had been a housewife and mother in 1993, shopping at the Piggly Wiggly and holding her head high despite the gossip at a Chuck E. Cheese birthday party? What if Helen of Troy actually decided her own fate?
Quote after quote striking you down to the marrow crowds this 68-page manuscript. The narrative is sparse, allowing for much interpretation and imagination of how things worked. Just how did The Stranger (Paris) and Helen meet? What did it mean to come home to The Big Cheese (Menelaus) and the Kid (Hermione) after all that adventure? Where there regrets? Was there defiance, even after it all? Zoccola gives you the gift of deciding for yourself.
I almost regret taking this out of the library; I want to savor this story again and again, especially after reading the Fagles’s translation the work is built on.
5/5: This one will stay with me for a long time, haunting even my dreams with thoughts of Helen.