The Penelopiad: the Myth of Penelope and Odysseus [Hardcover]

Margaret Atwood (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Canongate Books (1980)
• ASIN: B000N7FFSC
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (56 customer reviews)

More About the Author

MARGARET ATWOOD, whose work has been published in over thirty-five countries, is the author of more than forty books of fiction, poetry, and critical essays. In addition to The Handmaid's Tale, her novels include Cat's Eye, shortlisted for the Booker Prize; Alias Grace, which won the Giller Prize in Canada and the Premio Mondello in Italy; The Blind Assassin, winner of the 2000 Booker Prize; and her most recent, Oryx and Crake, shortlisted for the 2003 Booker Prize. She lives in Toronto with writer Graeme Gibson.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

50 of 57 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, November 1, 2005

By 

Margaret Dybala "too many books, too little time" (Pearland, Texas United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Penelopiad: The Myth of Penelope and Odysseus (Hardcover)

I enjoyed this "back story" of Penelope, the long-suffering wife of Odysseus. As does the author, Atwood, I too have often wondered what the "real" story was. This was a complicated woman, and her day-to-day life of keeping everything together for 20 years cannot have been any easier than that of the men fighting the war. I thought the book clever and touching. The other reviewer's use of the two sides of a coin is exactly correct, also, and very well described. The hanging of the maids was horrific, but accounted for in an interesting manner in the book. Finally, Atwood's writing style is just lovely. All in all, I enjoyed this small book (readable in an hour). I highly recommend it.

19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Awsome, Laugh out Loud., December 19, 2005

By 

Steven R. McEvoy "MCWPP" (Canada) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Penelopiad: The Myth of Penelope and Odysseus (Hardcover)

I am not normally a fan of Margaret Atwood's writings. I often find that she is too dark or has too much edge. Not that it is not good writing, and she is probably currently the most famous of the living Canadian authors, she just isn't usually my thing. I cannot say that for this book.

The Penelopiad is a hilarious romp through a story that most of us know, but told 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.

Atwood has turned this myth on its head and told it from the female perspective. Unfortunately, our heroine is dead and in Hades, retelling her story from across the river Styx. She is telling her whole story but especially the events around Odysseus' long absence during the war against Troy and that unfortunate event with her cousin Helen.

The story is written in the format of a Greek Tragedy but with the humor and temperament of a comedy. Our chorus is the twelve dead maids, hung strung together on a ship's rope by Odysseus. 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.

The twists and turns in this story will make you laugh out loud. A friend of mine who read it stated, `It begs to be read aloud.' And I could not agree more. Pick up the book, get some friends together and read it aloud, over an evening or two together. Much fun will be had with the ghosts of our 13 dead ladies.

17 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thoroughly enjoyable., December 19, 2005

By 

Cipriano "www.bookpuddle.blogspot.com" (Planet Claire) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Penelopiad: The Myth of Penelope and Odysseus (Hardcover)

Other than watching the Simpsons fairly regularly, I know very little about Homer, so, as I picked up this book I felt like... "D'oh! I am not gonna understand this thing!"
I have never read The Odyssey.
But the neat thing is, I found that you do not have to know much about The Odyssey in order to really enjoy this book. The brief Introduction itself furnishes enough background to get you knowledgably immersed before you are finished even the first brief chapter.
Most readers will at least be familiar with the story of the beautiful Helen of Troy (Penelope's cousin) and how she is finally liberated by Brad Pitt. Well, when Penelope's husband Odysseus (reluctantly) leaves Ithaca to join in the fracas involving this Trojan War, he stays away for twenty years.
And Penelope is left behind, to tend to the affairs of state and the state of affairs.
During this time, men are pretty much crawling out of the woodwork to try and win her hand in marriage, everyone presuming that Odysseus is long since dead.
For decades, there is no word from him. Only legends, rumors, contradictory reports as to his whereabouts. It is the ultimate "went out for a pack of smokes and haven't seen him since" story. Penelope has always been lauded as the epitome of unwavering faithfulness, patiently waiting for Odysseus to return to her.
Drawing on material other than Homer's Odyssey, Atwood has chosen to tell the story of this interim period from the perspective of Penelope herself. Along with this first-person story, Atwood has placed alternating sections where Penelope's twelve maids share their story also. These twelve were hanged until dead by Odysseus and Telemachus (father and son) upon the former's return to Ithaca.
From the narration standpoint, it is from start to finish a tale from beyond the grave, as Penelope tells us, in the opening sentence "Now that I'm dead I know everything."

Atwood tells us in the Introduction that there are two questions which are raised (and unanswered) after anyone reads Homer's Odyssey. These are: what led to the hanging of the maids, and what was Penelope really up to?
She says, "The story as told in The Odyssey doesn't hold water: there are too many inconsistencies. I've always been haunted by the hanged maids; and in The Penelopiad, so is Penelope herself."

That is what this little book sets out to do.
To pull back the curtain on an important portion of mythic history.
No one can do it better than Margaret Atwood.

T.y.L.i.I.