On the Shelf – 10/8

Expert Digital Support at the Library

Once again, Library@Nite at the Downieville Library will offer people the opportunity to meet with an expert who will help them with their digital technology questions and issues. At the monthly evening opening of the library on Monday, October 12 (6:00 to 8:00 PM), Monica Beachell will be present to offer you her assistance. You can bring your own digital device(s) and can log onto the internet using the library’s account. Oh, and we will be doing regular library stuff, as well.

Book Reviews

In last week’s column, I listed books that are new to the library. Two of those are books by Madeline Miller — and there is a library connection to her efforts as an author. Her mother was a librarian, and started reading Homer’s The Iliad to her daughter at five years of age. Madeline then started learning Latin at age 11. Growing up in New York City, she spent a lot of time at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where one of her favorites was a marble statue of a wounded Amazon warrior. Miller attended Brown University in Rhode Island, where she received both Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in classics. She began her first novel, The Song of Achilles, during her final bachelor’s year at the university, after co-directing a production of Shakespeare’s “Troilus and Cressida”.

The Song of Achilles was published in 2011 (eleven years after Miller’s bachelor’s degree). It tells the story of the Trojan War — up until the death of Achilles. Miller tells the story through the narration of Patroclus, Achilles’ good friend — and, possibly, lover. It has long been discussed among classicists as to what, exactly, was the relationship between the two men. Miller chooses the side of the discussion that argues that the two were lovers — and it is that relationship which carries the story forward.

Patroclus was the son of King Menoetius of Opus. After Patroclus accidentally kills another youth, he is exiled to Phthia, where he meets Achilles, only son of King Peleus and the sea nymph Thetis. Raised and trained together, the two youth develop feelings for one another. When Helen, wife of Sparta’s king, Menelaus, is either kidnapped by or runs away with Prince Paris of Troy, Menelaus’ brother, King Agamemnon of Mycenae, calls upon the kings of all the Greek nations to join him in his military campaign against Troy. Achilles eventually is obligated to join the war, leading the contingent from Phthia (also known as the Myrmidions) — and including Patroclus.

Miller dives into the ancient stories surrounding the war, Achilles’ place in it, his relationship with Patroclus, and the continual battling not only between the Greeks and Trojans, but also among the Greeks, themselves. She draws all the story threads together into a construction of love, pathos, vengeance, and fate. In doing so, she brings new life to the old story — breathing freshness into something that we may have thought we already knew in its completeness.

Miller’s second book is Circe. Published in 2018, it is set during the Greek Heroic Age. She narrates the story from the perspective of the witch and goddess, Circe — who may be most familiar to many of us through her interaction with Odysseus in Homer’s The Odyssey. Circe is the divine daughter of the Titan Helios (god of the sun) and the Oceanid Perse, making Circe both a nymph and goddess, as well. In Miller’s reimagining of the old stories, Circe is considered unattractive and powerless, neglected by her father and bullied by the rest of her family. Following a tragic incident with another nymph, Circe is eternally exiled by Zeus to the island of Aiaia, where she hones her witchcraft over several centuries.

While on the island, she interacts with the god Hermes, the goddess Athena, the mortal Daedalus, the hero Jason and his wife Medea, and, most famously, the Greek hero Odysseus. Over time, her island is also visited by groups of sailors desperate for shelter and, who, upon discovering that Circe lives there alone, attempt to abuse her and her situation. Finally, she uses her witchcraft to transform all men into pigs, sparing only a handful of crewmen who behave with pious respect — men such as Odysseus.

Miller’s book is a wonderful addition to the seemingly small place that Circe plays in the much larger stories of other people. She opens us up to a Circe who is much more than just the “witch”, as she is normally known. It is a depiction that is, at once, both challenging and alluring.

In her writing, Miller has relied on impeccable source materials, including: Homer’s The Iliad and The Odyssey; Virgil’s The Aeneid; Aeschylus’s “Oresteia”; Sophocles’ “Ajax”; Ovid’s “Metamorphoses”; Apollonius of Rhodes’ “Argonautica”; Tennyson’s “Ulysses”; and, Shakespeare’s “Troilus and Cressida”.