Customer Reviews

The Penelopiad (Isis General Fiction)

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Many readers find that Atwood's writings have too much edge or are just too dark and raw. The same cannot be said about this new feature. Yes, Atwood is the Queen in the Canadian Publishing Industry, and yes she is a good writer, but her stories for many are just not entertaining. I myself am not normally a fan of Margaret Atwood's writings. Yet this book will rock your socks. It is funny, satirical, and a laugh-out-loud tale.

This is a story that most of us know, the story of Odysseus and Penelope. Yet unlike most tellings of this tale, it is told from Penelope's perspective and she has a great vantage point on the whole `Helen' affair. However our story is told from outside of time. There is an old saying that "dead men don't tell tales" and that may be true, but in this inventive retelling, a dead woman and her chorus of dead girls do just that.

Turning this myth on its head by telling it through women's eyes, Atwood has given us a unique view. Maybe she will challenge us to look at our world and our situations through different lenses from time to time.

How do a dead woman and her twelve maids tell a story with a great deal of jest and a smattering of dark humor? How else could a tale be told by 13 dead women from across the river Styx? Penelope gives us some biographical information about herself seldom included in this tale, and it helps us to understand some of her decisions, and her mistakes. Yet the main focus remains Odysseus' long absence during the war against Troy, and his brutal behavior upon his return.

The story is written as a morality play, or in the format of a Greek Tragedy, however it is done with the humor and temperament of Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream. Our twelve dead maids are our chorus and whenever they appear, laughter will follow; but our laughter is at twelve young women who were hung-tied together, and died, and now in death, still tied together, seek justice upon Odysseus for what he did to them. They appear from time to time, in song, dance, or mock plays and trials, to re-enact events from their lives to punctuate Penelope's story, and thus their own plight in it.

The farce and fun in the way this story is told will make you laugh out loud. Much fun will be had with the ghosts of our 13 dead ladies, if you give this book a try.

In Homer's "Odyssey," why were twelve of Queen Penelope's handmaidens hanged along with Penelope's unsuccessful suitors? In "The Penelopiad," Margaret Atwood endeavors to answer this unsettling question by allowing Penelope herself to relate the tale from beyond the River Styx, with the twelve hanged maidens acting as chorus in alternating chapters. In Atwood's retelling, the answer has a great deal to do with the violent, patriarchal structure of Greek society, along with the character of Penelope's husband Odysseus, the ultimate con man disguised as hero. "I knew he was tricky and a liar, I just didn't think he would play his tricks and try out his lies on me," Penelope says of him. As for Penelope herself, she struggles to keep herself, her son Telemachus and her kingdom of Ithaca intact during her husband's twenty-year absence. This effort includes making covert allies where and when she can, and blinding herself to a great deal. "I wanted happy endings in those days, and happy endings are best achieved by keeping the right doors locked and going to sleep during the rampages," she says. The maidens, meanwhile, relate through poetry, sea chantey, courtroom sketch and anthropological lecture their side of the tale, and their undying outrage at having been scapegoated and judicially murdered. Throughout this short book, Atwood demonstrates her renowned mastery of both prose and poetic style, her tart and sometimes biting wit, and--above all--her zealous sympathy for the victims of history, who are just as tragic today as they were in Homer's time.

Oh, Margaret Atwood, I love your work, but this was just...inexplicable. I was eagerly anticipating a feminist, or at least Atwood-esque revisionist, retelling of the Odyssey. There were brief glimpses of that in "The Penelopiad," but the promise was unfulfilled. The book--novella, really--felt very incomplete, and not simply because of its length. Atwood normally does an excellent job developing her characters, but here I had no idea who Penelope was by the end of the book. She barely skimmed the surface of the myth, and augmented the skimpy narrative with filler of Penelope's contemporary reflections from the underworld and choral interludes. The chorus is another idea that could have worked, had the story been more cohesive. Instead, just filler. In fact, at multiple moments I had a nagging suspicion that Atwood was playing some kind of literary prank. Is she laughing at the readers trying to figure her out? The conventions of mythology? Should I be laughing with her? Is this clever parody, or is she going senile? Hard to tell. After finishing the book, though, I couldn't help feeling like the joke was on me. I think this is the first of her novels I've actually disliked.

Disappointing. My hope was for a retelling of The Odyssey that would give a richer, more intriguing and unique viewpoint of Penelope and her maids over the twenty-year span of Odysseus' absence. What it instead ends up being is a boring recounting of Penelope crying, filling up the time doing nothing, or being sarcastic about life now that she inhabits the Underworld. She speaks in far too modern a tone, and sounds much more like a feminist mouthpiece than anything else. The book also assumes knowledge of the Odyssey--granted, it is a retelling of sorts, but should be enjoyable without me puzzling over certain names or events. And Penelope herself is, in a word, boring. The redeeming factor of the book lie in the interludes, songs and poems and small scenes featuring Penelope's maids acting as a Greek chorus. They are beautiful, clever, and occasionally terribly moving or even funny. They provide the only relief throughout an otherwise dragging story.

Many readers find that Atwood's writings have too much edge or are just too dark and raw. The same cannot be said about this new feature. Yes, Atwood is the Queen in the Canadian Publishing Industry, and yes she is a good writer, but her stories for many are just not entertaining. I myself am not normally a fan of Margaret Atwood's writings. Yet this book will rock your socks. It is funny, satirical, and a laugh-out-loud tale.

This is a story that most of us know, the story of Odysseus and Penelope. Yet unlike most tellings of this tale, it is told from Penelope's perspective and she has a great vantage point on the whole `Helen' affair. However our story is told from outside of time. There is an old saying that "dead men don't tell tales" and that may be true, but in this inventive retelling, a dead woman and her chorus of dead girls do just that.

Turning this myth on its head by telling it through women's eyes, Atwood has given us a unique view. Maybe she will challenge us to look at our world and our situations through different lenses from time to time.

How do a dead woman and her twelve maids tell a story with a great deal of jest and a smattering of dark humor? How else could a tale be told by 13 dead women from across the river Styx? Penelope gives us some biographical information about herself seldom included in this tale, and it helps us to understand some of her decisions, and her mistakes. Yet the main focus remains Odysseus' long absence during the war against Troy, and his brutal behavior upon his return.

The story is written as a morality play, or in the format of a Greek Tragedy, however it is done with the humor and temperament of Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream. Our twelve dead maids are our chorus and whenever they appear, laughter will follow; but our laughter is at twelve young women who were hung-tied together, and died, and now in death, still tied together, seek justice upon Odysseus for what he did to them. They appear from time to time, in song, dance, or mock plays and trials, to re-enact events from their lives to punctuate Penelope's story, and thus their own plight in it.

The farce and fun in the way this story is told will make you laugh out loud. Much fun will be had with the ghosts of our 13 dead ladies, if you give this book a try.

In a retelling of recognizable classical myth, Atwood tells the story of Penelope, the patient wife of Odysseus, and her twelve maids, who Odysseus hanged on his return to Ithica. Alternating between Penelope's narrative, the musings and conclusions of a intelligent but jaded woman from her afterlife, and the chorus of the maids as they sing, chant, and perform plays, Penelopiad tells the story in multiple ways while still maintaining a coherent narrative. It questions and redefines how much Penelope knew, and tackles the issue of guilt--both Penelope's and Odysseus's--in the matter of the maid's deaths. For all of these contrasting and complex issues, the text is short, straightforward, and swiftly readable. However, it is not particularly satisfying: the book's theories and the way that they are laid against each other are all very interesting, but with so many ideas in so little length, none are addressed in detail or fully realized. An original, thoughtful text and a much-needed feminine retelling, but somewhat lacking--too short and too simple. Moderately recommended.

As is customary with Atwood, this text is a fresh, irreverent, often frank look at female issues; the difference here is that the subject is the well known and often told story of Odysseus. However, no matter how much he defines it, Odysseus does not overshadow his wife's story. Rather, the story of Penelope and the issue of the maids are given the book's full attention. It is not a simple story: in the alternating chapters given to Penelope and to the maids, they tells different, often contradictory stories. Penelope's story runs the body narrative, although even she recognizes that there is no one single truth--or, if there is, it is impossible to identify with certainty. The maids provide alternate interpretations and counterpoints that complicate the subject and illustrate their own role, innocence, and suffering. The result is a honestly complex text that accepts nothing at face value and refuses to simplify the situation or to accept traditional, easy interpretations.

Despite the mass of points and counterpoints, of contradicting ideas, the book remains short, straightforward, and readable. In her afterlife, Penelope sums up her own life very swiftly, and does so with a jaded dry wit that makes her honest and keeps her from wallowing in the details. The maid's chorus, often appearing in short play or in rhyme, is also short and swift, presenting concepts and emotions but not taking the time to delve deep into them before moving on to the next. The result is a text that is short, highly accessible, and swiftly readable--it takes one sitting, perhaps two. In many ways, this is the book's strength: it retains all it's good qualities without becoming heavy, lengthy, or turning from a piece of art into a history text. In other ways, however, this is the book's greatest failing: the ideas are presented so swiftly and so baldly that there is no time to engage any of them in depth. As such, they lie flat and remain unexplored, and the reader is left surprisingly empty for all of the complex content: it is something like sampling the first bite of every dish at a buffet but being allowed to load none onto one's plate. There is so much potential, but none is truly investigated, understood, or enjoyed.

The Penelopiad is relevant, creative, and accessible. The subject is familiar, and so it's female/feminist retelling is meaningful to a wide audience. Atwood complicates the issue, bringing new questions and doubts to light that will inspire thought in the reader--the ideal for almost any book, but especially one of this sort. Although the characters lived thousands of years ago, their story remains relevant and, through the unconventional narratives, accessible to contemporary readers. As such, I recommend this book: it is a worthwhile and interesting read that communicates much while still remaining highly accessible. However, I only recommend it moderately, as the book's swiftness and lack of depth left me feeling empty and disappointed. This book is good, and worth the read, but it still pales in comparison to Atwood's other novels.

Coming from almost anyone else, this mediocrity might have merited 3 stars. But coming from Margaret Atwood, who is capable of far better, it was that much more disappointing. Penelope simply tells, in a not-very-engaging voice, the same story we all know, with a few slight twists that really don't end up making that much difference. There's very little showing and almost no dialog. The "big" twist turns out to be not that shocking or ironic after all, and the interspersed poetry by the maids (none of whom emerge with personalities of their own) is simply irritating doggerel. The final tacked-on court transcript and pseudo-academic treatise on the symbolism of the Penelope myth both read like the space-filler they are. It feels like at least 3 different projects are smashed together in a very uneven product. The Penelopiad itself could have been a pretty good short story, if not dragged out to novella length.

Oh, and Helen of Troy is a vain, arrogant shrew. Again. How inventive.

As a lover of the Odyssey, and when I saw the title, I had to jump on this book. I was impatient to read Penelope's point of view, and intrigued by the 12 Maidens' story line.
Well, it wasn't epic. It wasn't epic in the length, in the way it was written or in the meaning of the story.
Penelope is tern and whiny, and her part of the story doesn't add much to what we know from the Odyssey. I felt it even took away some of the attraction of the character. Penelope's patience and cunning, and even her nobility are stripped away from her through her jaleousy, pettiness and insecurities. So instead of a strong woman worthy of a hero, you get an annoying insecure child who can't stand up to her husband, her cousin, her son, the pretendants, her mother-in-law, or even the nurse and the servants. The author could have written "and then, I did a lot of waiting and a lot of weeping" instead of so many pages. The book should have been either shorter, or much longer.
Then there is the matter of the 12 maidens. Well, we don't know much about them after reading this book. It is as if the author was asking the question, which is an interesting one, and then left it at that for us to dig a bit further.
Odysseus himself doesn't come out his best, as if every character of the story is levelled from the bottom. The author should know better than trying to figure out a human equivalent to each of Odysseus' adventures. What she calls "the nobler version" of his lies and which she translates as brothels and drinking heavily in taverns for 20 years. Myths are here to teach us things, they are supposed to be high morality tales. Maybe the author failed to grasp these ideas.
I am not against a funny story or a clever parody, but should the story and characters be altered so much that they become unrecognizable except for their names? And what about the 12 maidens in all that?
There were some good parts (some poems, mainly the "chorus" part of the book were sometimes good). Otherwise, I feel very disappointed and am left with only one need: go back to the source and read again the Odyssey, by Homer.
Ho - and so you know: the Beautiful Helen is a b... and Telemachus a rebellious teenager who want his inheritance as soon as possible with no respect for his mother.

The story of the famous Odysseus and his ten year battle at Troy to help rescue the absconding/kidnapped Helen and his ten year voyage home is told by a man, Homer, in his Iliad and Odyssey; so who in the world would expect to get the true facts about his faithful wife Penelope. The entire world knows that during his twenty-year absence Odysseus' wife Penelope kept herself from her many suitors, men who were besieging her palace to marry her so that they could get their hands on her wealth, not her, men who Odysseus killed together with his wife's twelve maids by hanging. But Homer, apparently uninterested in female matters, gives us no clue why Penelope was so faithful or why Odysseus felt the need to kill the twelve maids. Now along comes Margaret Atwood and reveals all in a hilarious fashion.

We learn what a liar Odysseus was, that his chest was barrel shape but his legs were abnormally short, that Penelope was not that beautiful, but the two of them were pretty smart, at least they thought so. We learn that Helen had a need to flirt. If no human was present she would flirt with an animal or a bed post or a tree, for she was the most beautiful woman in the world, or so she believed. In fact she told this to so many people so many times that they believed it as well.

We learn whether Odysseus really battled supernatural monsters, was loved by a goddess who turned his men into pigs, whether the sea god Poseidon actually had it in for our hero; did he really visit the land of the dead. Were these simply artful depictions of visits to various bars, whorehouses, and similar establishments? These are facts that intelligent readers want to know. All of this is told to us by Penelope herself, after she is dead, while she is down below; and surely she would not lie, not any more. She also reveals what happens to people after death, again something most people want to know, and she knows because she is there, so what better witness could we ask for.

We learn as well whether Penelope really remained faithful for twenty years, from age 15 to 35, how she was at fault for Odysseus killing her twelve maidens, whether they were raped, seduced, or were just looking for fun, about the trial of Odysseus for the murder of the maidens, and how they hounded him as he tried to escape them by becoming alive again, time after time, in disguises.

2 and 1/2 Stars.

'The Penelopiad' is a sharp and clever novella, infused with Atwood's usual wit and charm. But beware: this is merely Atwood-lite.

Let me first start by saying that I am a huge fan of 'The Odyssey', it's one of the earliest books I've read and, as such, will forever occupy a small corner of my heart. So when I found out that one of my favorite authors, Margaret Atwood, would be putting her own personal twist on Homer's classic tale I became ecstatic. But I think anticipation for the book created a bit of over-expectation on my part.

The book primarily focuses on the tragedy of Penelope's twelve maids. Here in lies the problem for me, the character of Penelope is fairly well developed while the twelve maids seem one-dimensional. Their death is a major emotional arch in the story but since the maids are so underdeveloped it's hard to find empathy for them by the time the tragedy comes about. I get it and I think it could have worked if Atwood gave us more time between Penelope and the maids, or even just the maids by themselves. On the other side of the coin, I think using the maids as a chorus was clever and worked, for the most part.

Recommended to fans of 'The Odyssey'