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54 reviews
The Bacchae and Other Plays by Euripides
Like many others new to Ancient Greek classics, I suppose, I was attracted to Euripides specifically because he was known for centering plays on interesting women. In his time, there was speculation of whether he actually abhorred women enough to continuously draw them in a certain light, and was the brunt of many jokes and satyr plays because of his non-traditional depiction of women as thinkers, provocateurs, or straight up batshit (the notorious favorites). I think my only insight to his position on writing women is swept into the points brought up by Richard Rutherford in the general introduction:
I think that Euripides—considering also what any fifth century BCE man of his socioeconomic status thought of a woman’s place in society on a day to day basis (probably as one might expect)—just liked to make the most provocative choice on stage. And in his opinion, the existence of women and femininity contrasted easily to the brutality of the world of men, so to speak. The stark juxtaposition of Pentheus’s mother succumbing to madness and tearing apart her own son, the once-innocent Electra suggesting to kidnap and threaten Hermione to ensure her and her brother’s survival, even Jocasta slitting her throat over the bodies of her dead sons—these were all prime examples of Euripides conflating the existence of women in society as other, as something that is usually out of sight and mind, and why, in coming to the forefront in the most brutal of ways, it makes the Athenian audience during a Dionysia festival viscerally cringe.
In any case, he used certain themes regarding love and madness and family as vehicles for this particular shock and awe, likely because they were done using recognizable evils, even if unapproachable in real life: these were all extremes of extremes, exploring vulgarities such as filicide, matricide, fratricide, suicide, cannibalism, and the ever-forbidden act of disrespecting a god. There are clear lines of thought that Euripides seemed to like writing about, which extended through the plays complied in this collection. There is the destruction of families by an unavoidable act (Iphigenia at Aulis, Orestes) and also pride itself as the destroyer (Phoenician Women, Bacchae). I can say that Rhesus didn’t resonate with me as much as the others simply because of the absence of these notes; the lack of shock value (or a strong one, for that matter) also felt non-Euripidean, which is probably a view shared by the scholars who estimate the work not to actually be his.
I really enjoyed John Davie’s translation and the thoroughness of Rutherford’s notes. I think the reason it took so long to read this collection (three months!) was because of how much I would flip to the back, read the note, and do some Googling on my own time about whatever it was Rutherford was actually talking about. It’s given me a greater appreciation for historical context when regarding literature, and I definitely would like to read more of Davie’s translations once I get my hands on them.
Here is the segment where I gush on the writing and Davie’s translations alone. On familial betrayal:
I was very touched on the occasions where love prevailed, or at least showed face, despite the circumstances. I appreciated the moments more maybe because of the dire straits Euripides held everyone to at a constant gunpoint. The sibling-to-sibling, friend-to-friend, and parent-to-child conversations were very moving, as doomed as most of them were.
5.0
“My friend became my enemy, but the bond between us remained.”
Like many others new to Ancient Greek classics, I suppose, I was attracted to Euripides specifically because he was known for centering plays on interesting women. In his time, there was speculation of whether he actually abhorred women enough to continuously draw them in a certain light, and was the brunt of many jokes and satyr plays because of his non-traditional depiction of women as thinkers, provocateurs, or straight up batshit (the notorious favorites). I think my only insight to his position on writing women is swept into the points brought up by Richard Rutherford in the general introduction:
Between 480 and 430 BC some 500 tragedies would have been staged; a middle-aged man in his audience might have seen over two hundred. The Athenians, like any audience, enjoyed innovation: indeed, originality and novelty were at a premium in the second half of the fifth century BC, as new ideas and new literary styles made their appearance in Athens. Euripides was in part responding to audience demand […] When Aristotle wrote that Euripides was the most intensely tragic of the poets, he meant that he was the one who most powerfully evoked pity and fear, which Aristotle classically defined as the supremely tragic emotions. […] Ancient descriptions of the theatrical audience make clear that their reaction was not merely cerebral but strongly responsive to the claims made on them emotionally by the characters on stage.
I think that Euripides—considering also what any fifth century BCE man of his socioeconomic status thought of a woman’s place in society on a day to day basis (probably as one might expect)—just liked to make the most provocative choice on stage. And in his opinion, the existence of women and femininity contrasted easily to the brutality of the world of men, so to speak. The stark juxtaposition of Pentheus’s mother succumbing to madness and tearing apart her own son, the once-innocent Electra suggesting to kidnap and threaten Hermione to ensure her and her brother’s survival, even Jocasta slitting her throat over the bodies of her dead sons—these were all prime examples of Euripides conflating the existence of women in society as other, as something that is usually out of sight and mind, and why, in coming to the forefront in the most brutal of ways, it makes the Athenian audience during a Dionysia festival viscerally cringe.
In any case, he used certain themes regarding love and madness and family as vehicles for this particular shock and awe, likely because they were done using recognizable evils, even if unapproachable in real life: these were all extremes of extremes, exploring vulgarities such as filicide, matricide, fratricide, suicide, cannibalism, and the ever-forbidden act of disrespecting a god. There are clear lines of thought that Euripides seemed to like writing about, which extended through the plays complied in this collection. There is the destruction of families by an unavoidable act (Iphigenia at Aulis, Orestes) and also pride itself as the destroyer (Phoenician Women, Bacchae). I can say that Rhesus didn’t resonate with me as much as the others simply because of the absence of these notes; the lack of shock value (or a strong one, for that matter) also felt non-Euripidean, which is probably a view shared by the scholars who estimate the work not to actually be his.
I really enjoyed John Davie’s translation and the thoroughness of Rutherford’s notes. I think the reason it took so long to read this collection (three months!) was because of how much I would flip to the back, read the note, and do some Googling on my own time about whatever it was Rutherford was actually talking about. It’s given me a greater appreciation for historical context when regarding literature, and I definitely would like to read more of Davie’s translations once I get my hands on them.
Here is the segment where I gush on the writing and Davie’s translations alone. On familial betrayal:
POLYNEICES: Where will you take your stance before the gates?
ETEOCLES: Why do you ask me this?
POLYNEICES: I will station myself opposite in order to kill you.
ETEOCLES: I, too, long for this encounter!
(Phoenician Women, lines 621-624)
ORESTES: I am done for, Menelaus. Here comes Tyndareus towards me, and, after what I have done, he more than any other is the man whose eye I dread to meet. For when I was a baby, he was the one who brought me up, showing his love in many things he did, carrying me around in his arms as 'Agamemnon's son', with Leda at his side, and honouring me no less than the Sons of Zeus. O wretched heart and soul of mine, I have made them no honourable return! What veil of darkness can I use to mask my face? What cloud can I spread before me, to escape the old man's piercing eye?
(Orestes, lines 458-468)
DIONYSUS: My mother's sisters – they should have been the last ones to do this – claimed that Dionysus was no son of Zeus. Semele, they said, had been seduced by some mortal and was attributing to Zeus the loss of her virginity – a pretence they ascribed to Cadmus. Because of this lie she had told about her lover, they announced gloatingly, Zeus had killed her. For this reason I have spurred those same sisters to madness and driven them in distraction from their houses.
(Bacchae, lines 26-33)
IPHIGENIA: […] But the man who has fathered me in my misery is gone, Mother, o Mother; he has left me alone and forsaken! Oh what a wretch am I! How cursed, cursed was the day I set eyes on that monster, Helen! My blood is being spilled, I perish at my father’s hands – unholy the deed, unholy the doer!
(Iphigenia at Aulis, lines 1310-13115)
I was very touched on the occasions where love prevailed, or at least showed face, despite the circumstances. I appreciated the moments more maybe because of the dire straits Euripides held everyone to at a constant gunpoint. The sibling-to-sibling, friend-to-friend, and parent-to-child conversations were very moving, as doomed as most of them were.
ANTIGONE: […] If only I could fly, a wind-swept cloud, through the air to my brother, and fling my arms at last around his beloved neck, the wretched exile!
(Phoenician Women, lines 162-164)
OEDIPUS: Where do I place my old foot? Where carry my stick, child?
ANTIGONE: Here, here walk with me, here, here, place your foot, with the strength of a dream.
(Phoenician Women, lines 1719-1721)
PYLADES: But I will care for you.
ORESTES: It is unpleasant for someone to touch a sick man.
PYLADES: Not when it is my hands that are laid on you.
[…]
ORESTES: Lead on, the pilot of my steps…
PYLADES: This service of care is one my heart gives freely.
(Orestes, lines 792-800)
ELECTRA: My dearest! O my beloved brother, how I delight in the name of your sister! We are one soul!
ORESTES: Oh, your words melt me! I want to answer your love with a loving embrace of my own. Why should I any longer feel shame at this, wretch that I am?
(Orestes, lines 1046-1050)
CHORUS-LEADER: Motherhood is a formidable thing, and it casts a powerful spell. All mothers possess this trait in common: they will endure any labour for their children’s sake.
(Iphigenia at Aulis, lines 916-918)
Personally, I almost equally enjoyed all the plays, but if I had to rank from most to least favorite from this collection alone: Orestes (shocked about how much I loved this one), Iphigenia at Aulis (I read everything out of order and began with this first), The Bacchae (seminal as the kind of crazy Euripidean writing that made me fall in love with his work), Phoenician Women (absolutely loved this one too, I might have to read Seven Against Thebes now), and finally Rhesus (remember in Spy Kids 3, where Elijah Wood played “The Guy” and died one minute later?).
Personally, I almost equally enjoyed all the plays, but if I had to rank from most to least favorite from this collection alone: Orestes (shocked about how much I loved this one), Iphigenia at Aulis (I read everything out of order and began with this first), The Bacchae (seminal as the kind of crazy Euripidean writing that made me fall in love with his work), Phoenician Women (absolutely loved this one too, I might have to read Seven Against Thebes now), and finally Rhesus (remember in Spy Kids 3, where Elijah Wood played “The Guy” and died one minute later?).
This Year's Class Picture by Dan Simmons, David Palumbo
I wasn’t sure what to expect out of this one but even with somewhat knowing how this would end, I still basically shed a tear at the last few paragraphs. The enduring love this teacher has for her kids—who she even acknowledges might stem from a break in sanity—is something recognizable outside of an apocalyptic fiction, into real life. Though Ms. Geiss’s efforts here can be argued as self-motivated to an extent, serving others without expecting much in return or despite the hardships makes for such a moving piece. Something that extends outside of the story of a rifle-wielding elementary teacher and her zombified fourth graders. It’s about hope.
4.0
“Todd was staring right at the camera and smiling—showing only gums, it was true—but smiling.”
I wasn’t sure what to expect out of this one but even with somewhat knowing how this would end, I still basically shed a tear at the last few paragraphs. The enduring love this teacher has for her kids—who she even acknowledges might stem from a break in sanity—is something recognizable outside of an apocalyptic fiction, into real life. Though Ms. Geiss’s efforts here can be argued as self-motivated to an extent, serving others without expecting much in return or despite the hardships makes for such a moving piece. Something that extends outside of the story of a rifle-wielding elementary teacher and her zombified fourth graders. It’s about hope.
It Lasts Forever and Then It's Over by Anne de Marcken
When hunger is grief is loss is sadness is yearning is love. Is motherhood… Like our narrator says, when the world ends, it does so quietly. Everything about this post-apocalyptic world is quiet and a caricature of itself somehow. What are these zombies if they’re not really dead people? Since dead people are actually dead? Why do zombies want to eat when they have no desire to live, because they are not alive?
I love the small vignettes we see of this world’s living population. There isn’t much that separates their listlessness and wandering from the zombies themselves, though they like to think otherwise. I loved the interactions between the narrator and the old lady, who visited her crucified zombie daughter and keeps her grandson in a cabin. I think companionship is human, and that doesn’t change in death. Because in death we are still human. I think we have to be.
I’m blown away by de Marcken’s prose. Everything is abstract, but somehow I understand the underlying intent there, or at least what I’m supposed to be feeling.
hopeful
medium-paced
5.0
“I say, ‘I think our hunger is what we have instead of what we’ve lost.’”
When hunger is grief is loss is sadness is yearning is love. Is motherhood… Like our narrator says, when the world ends, it does so quietly. Everything about this post-apocalyptic world is quiet and a caricature of itself somehow. What are these zombies if they’re not really dead people? Since dead people are actually dead? Why do zombies want to eat when they have no desire to live, because they are not alive?
I love the small vignettes we see of this world’s living population. There isn’t much that separates their listlessness and wandering from the zombies themselves, though they like to think otherwise. I loved the interactions between the narrator and the old lady, who visited her crucified zombie daughter and keeps her grandson in a cabin. I think companionship is human, and that doesn’t change in death. Because in death we are still human. I think we have to be.
I’m blown away by de Marcken’s prose. Everything is abstract, but somehow I understand the underlying intent there, or at least what I’m supposed to be feeling.
I drop [the crow] in the hole.
I picture it hurtling through an old pneumatic tube system and launching into clear sky.
I picture it opening like parachute.
I picture it flying away.
[…]
Naked. One-armed. Crowless.
Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte
Rejection is punishing. The first three stories of this book is relentless, and each time I thought I got out just in time, I fell into another hole. Tulathimutte is the most fearless author on the planet. Can actually now say that the first full novel I’ve read in 2025 had me read a (probably) 10,000 word fictional email full of step-by-step instructions for sexual depravity.
There are some slivers and strings of ideas and concepts here and there that I feel could have been windows into their own worlds, but we stay hard in the lane of rejection, disruption, and unrelatability. I came away with different emotions each story and found myself compelled every time, except during the actual reading I felt very much like I hated everything. Only the second after finishing the book did I think, Okay, finally. I survived.
Kind of a side note: the hypocrisy of “Bee” (Main Character) and their subsequent denial of self along with the conceptual Asian American existence was extremely Asian American of them, in a way, and not acknowledging that made me keel over. Having that entire co-op debrief about niche inner workings of diasporic Asians or even SEAsians—the rivalry, the back and forth pursuit of “relatability”, addressing socio-economic undertones always left out of these culture identity discussions—as just one drop in this entire, terrible, jaw-dropping collection of fiction did more for me than any prose work about missing the homeland’s mangos. Well, I’m not being disingenuous, I love those too.
Speaking of Main Character, the brief period in the latter half where it was like I was reading through a blaring alarm—I didn’t want to understand every word that was passing by, but I did. This, as well as ending it all with Rejection, actually conjured a hand to rise out of the pages and choke me. And it shook me a little. And slapped my face for good measure. Thanks for the experience.
This last one’s funny only to me:
medium-paced
5.0
“[…] if everything I did was so evil, how is it that up until now not a single person ever told me No?”
Rejection is punishing. The first three stories of this book is relentless, and each time I thought I got out just in time, I fell into another hole. Tulathimutte is the most fearless author on the planet. Can actually now say that the first full novel I’ve read in 2025 had me read a (probably) 10,000 word fictional email full of step-by-step instructions for sexual depravity.
There are some slivers and strings of ideas and concepts here and there that I feel could have been windows into their own worlds, but we stay hard in the lane of rejection, disruption, and unrelatability. I came away with different emotions each story and found myself compelled every time, except during the actual reading I felt very much like I hated everything. Only the second after finishing the book did I think, Okay, finally. I survived.
Kind of a side note: the hypocrisy of “Bee” (Main Character) and their subsequent denial of self along with the conceptual Asian American existence was extremely Asian American of them, in a way, and not acknowledging that made me keel over. Having that entire co-op debrief about niche inner workings of diasporic Asians or even SEAsians—the rivalry, the back and forth pursuit of “relatability”, addressing socio-economic undertones always left out of these culture identity discussions—as just one drop in this entire, terrible, jaw-dropping collection of fiction did more for me than any prose work about missing the homeland’s mangos. Well, I’m not being disingenuous, I love those too.
Speaking of Main Character, the brief period in the latter half where it was like I was reading through a blaring alarm—I didn’t want to understand every word that was passing by, but I did. This, as well as ending it all with Rejection, actually conjured a hand to rise out of the pages and choke me. And it shook me a little. And slapped my face for good measure. Thanks for the experience.
The Crazian-that perfectionist of mental illness, a creature of strenuous extremes, formed from a life of languishing betwixt. […] But the secret is that there are no Normal Asians, just Crazians who have yet to pop.
Her anger cremates away all her affection for him, but not the obsession, leaving her a scorched skeleton of wrath.
Podcast subscriptions are a numerical measure of loneliness, she thinks.
How shame soaks, stains, leaves a skidmark on everything and, when it has nothing to stick to, spreads until it does. Embarrassment is contained by incidents, gets funny and small over time; shame runs gangrene through the entire past, makes the future impossible.
This last one’s funny only to me:
[…] working in a well-paid creative profession (landscape design)
A Cup of Salt Tears by Isabel Yap
A short story about love and grief. And kappas. Some very small minor details I wasn’t quite sure what to think of, but it was pretty interesting. Writing is pretty.
3.0
“Kindness is always worth saving.”
A short story about love and grief. And kappas. Some very small minor details I wasn’t quite sure what to think of, but it was pretty interesting. Writing is pretty.
Mr Salary by Sally Rooney
A short reflection on grief and change and careful boundaries. It’s presented in an earlier Rooney style that is still also charming and raw.
3.5
“These cells may look fairly normal, but they are not.”
A short reflection on grief and change and careful boundaries. It’s presented in an earlier Rooney style that is still also charming and raw.
Normal People by Sally Rooney
dark
sad
tense
medium-paced
5.0
“He brought her goodness like a gift and now it belongs to her.”
Sally Rooney writes very beautifully. It’s rich and tangible, affecting me with every atmospheric shift. Everything is dense and heavy when she wants it to be. All of it was successful to me. Marianne and Connell are very difficult people who are capable of making me extremely sad. I had to stop a few times to take a breath, especially in the final half of the book. But in a way, their ability to endure and gradually want better for themselves makes for a healing reading experience, even if it’s never perfect. I’d like to read more of Rooney’s work; I am now converted.
Sally Rooney writes very beautifully. It’s rich and tangible, affecting me with every atmospheric shift. Everything is dense and heavy when she wants it to be. All of it was successful to me. Marianne and Connell are very difficult people who are capable of making me extremely sad. I had to stop a few times to take a breath, especially in the final half of the book. But in a way, their ability to endure and gradually want better for themselves makes for a healing reading experience, even if it’s never perfect. I’d like to read more of Rooney’s work; I am now converted.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Suicidal thoughts
The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories by Angela Carter
dark
emotional
tense
slow-paced
3.75
Pedantic, moony, run-on sentences galore!!! I am glad I finished this just on time within the span of autumn. I take “fairy tale with a twist” stories with a tiny itty bitty grain of salt, but Carter is kind of the blueprint here. I think I just enjoy how well she crafts atmosphere (which is arguably easy to do when you write walls of description as she does). Except there were times where I had to pause in my suspension of belief and sigh at how abstract the prose got for certain stories—not because it was bad, but because I just totally lost what was happening narratively when it got that whimsical. A few of them were just sort of there and I had no real opinion, other than appreciating her construction of words. I guess. Still, it was always entertaining because most stories were hard to predict.
My top three:
“The Lady of the House of Love” (if I was rating this short story alone, 5 stars)
“The Bloody Chamber”
“The Courtship of Mr Lyon”
Special mentions to “The Company of Wolves” (same as the movie) and “Wolf-Alice”. Carter really didn’t care much for anything but wolves by the end, it seems. I liked Puss-in-Boots on principal, but to be honest with you I can’t even begin to describe the plot of it. Or remember.
———
My top three:
“The Lady of the House of Love” (if I was rating this short story alone, 5 stars)
“The Bloody Chamber”
“The Courtship of Mr Lyon”
Special mentions to “The Company of Wolves” (same as the movie) and “Wolf-Alice”. Carter really didn’t care much for anything but wolves by the end, it seems. I liked Puss-in-Boots on principal, but to be honest with you I can’t even begin to describe the plot of it. Or remember.
———
The Lady of the House of Love by Angela Carter
“Be he alive or be dead
I’ll grind his bones to make my bread.”
I’ll grind his bones to make my bread.”
I just wanted to log this in as a separate entry from Carter’s The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories, because this was the standout for me. Five stars. Before getting to this point in Bloody Chamber, Carter really does warm you up to her fanciful and overrunning sentences to prime you for The Lady of the House of Love. It is about Nosferatu’s daughter who lives alone with an attendant in a dark and gloomy castle, when an innocent country boy is lured into her grounds for feeding. He is, however, unaffected on a whole by her glamours or beauty. I find this part of the story most charming, specifically when the Lady begins to loosen her hold, and perhaps finds herself on the other end of what she usually upends onto men. This is a beautiful vampiric love story, however short a night together, and however unrequited. It is very sweet.
[…] she is like a doll, he thought, a ventriloquist's doll, or, more, like a great, ingenious piece of clockwork. For she seemed inadequately powered by some slow energy of which she was not in control; as if she had been wound up years ago, when she was born, and now the mechanism was inexorably running down and would leave her lifeless. This idea that she might be an automaton, made of white velvet and black fur, that could not move of its own accord, never quite deserted him; indeed, it deeply moved his heart.
[…] if he presented himself to her naked face, he would dazzle her like the sun she is forbidden to look at because it would shrivel her up at once, poor night bird, poor butcher bird.
Vous serez ma proie.
You have such a fine throat, m'sieu, like a column of marble. When you came through the door retaining about you all the golden light of the summer's day of which I know nothing, nothing, the card called 'Les Amoureux' had just emerged from the tumbling chaos of imagery before me; it seemed to me you had stepped off the card into my darkness and, for a moment, I thought, perhaps, you might irradiate it.
I am condemned to solitude and dark; I do not mean to hurt you.
I will be very gentle.
She herself is a haunted house. She does not possess herself; her ancestors sometimes come and peer out of the windows of her eyes and that is very frightening. She has the mysterious solitude of ambiguous states; she hovers in a no-man's land between life and death, sleeping and waking, behind the hedge of spiked flowers, Nosferatu's sanguinary rose-bud. The beastly forebears on the walls condemn her to a perpetual repetition of their passions.
Vermis I - Lost Dungeons & Forbidden Woods by Plastiboo, Michele Nitri, Marco Cirillo Pedri
dark
tense
4.5
“Our way to the end is what truly matters? Or does the value of a journey depend on the destination?”
Extremely engrossing world-building. Each description and story gripped me, and no moment felt wasted. I was lost in this world for a while… Just me and the well.
Extremely engrossing world-building. Each description and story gripped me, and no moment felt wasted. I was lost in this world for a while… Just me and the well.
A Touch of Jen by Beth Morgan
dark
lighthearted
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
3.5
“‘I mean, I hope to God, Remy, that getting with Jen will make you less lonely, but real enlightenment would probably be union with everyone else, too.’”
A wild one from the start, and absolutely psychedelic by the end. I think the whole premise is a little like if the Babadook represented being a douchebag narcissist instead of depression. Remy being such an irredeemable protagonist and have such hypocritical and circular goals really made every decision logical in a way, because of how illogical they became. I enjoyed Alicia as a character and really did feel sorry for her. I didn’t quite wholesale understand anything about The Apple Bush linguistics and I think that might almost be the purpose of it, but otherwise this book was trainwreck-y enough that I didn’t really have to spend time with analysis because I was too busy riding the ride. “Going with the flow,” as Remy and Horus said LOL. The last part of this book really brought out very specifically weird emotions in me, and I think that’s good enough to say that I kind of enjoyed it.
A wild one from the start, and absolutely psychedelic by the end. I think the whole premise is a little like if the Babadook represented being a douchebag narcissist instead of depression. Remy being such an irredeemable protagonist and have such hypocritical and circular goals really made every decision logical in a way, because of how illogical they became. I enjoyed Alicia as a character and really did feel sorry for her. I didn’t quite wholesale understand anything about The Apple Bush linguistics and I think that might almost be the purpose of it, but otherwise this book was trainwreck-y enough that I didn’t really have to spend time with analysis because I was too busy riding the ride. “Going with the flow,” as Remy and Horus said LOL. The last part of this book really brought out very specifically weird emotions in me, and I think that’s good enough to say that I kind of enjoyed it.