Customer Reviews

Psappha: A Novel of Sappho

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

There is not much known about the life of Psappha (apparently a more accurate spelling of Sappho). Bell's book imagines Psappha's life, keeping rather true to the facts that are known. Psappha is exiled from her homeland of Lesbos, and ends up in what's now Sicily. She marries a man, becomes lovers with an African warrior queen (Gyla), and has a daughter. After the death of her beloved husband, Psappha begins teaching and becomes the famous Poetess we now know her to be. She and her entourage travel back to Lesbos to continue the teachings, and Psappha lives her life there with her African queen, and in Gyla's absence, becomes lovers with a fisherman. Bell gives us a heroic, yet tragic end for Psappha and her beloved warrior queen, which feels a bit melodramatic. Bell writes beautifully, and several passages in the novel are rather evocative of life in Psappha's time, and yet this style isn't continuous throughout. Overall, this book is a delightful and heartening story of one woman's journey to happiness.

Some adjectives that do come to mind: melodramatic, torrid, anachronistic, unbelievable. After the rave reviews below, I expected something a whole lot better than what this turned out to be. Frankly, it was hard to finish. According to Encyclopedia Britannica, Sappho as poet "has the power of standing aloof and critically judging her own ecstasies and pains; but her emotions lose nothing of their force by being recollected in comparative tranquillity" -- but don't look for that kind of emotional self-control here. As a lesbian, I'd have been delighted to find a good historical novel about Sappho that didn't try to "straighten her out," but I'm unwilling to opt for one that depicts her as a circa 600 BC lesbian Harlequin romance heroine. The other characters are just as poorly drawn. I'm very disappointed.

Finally! I didn't need to dredge through innuendos, fragments and 'assumed knowledge' about the great poetess! Ms. Bell has given us all a very real and warm Woman to lend deeper meaning to Psappha's history. The historical and social detailing that obviously went into this book are truly helpful to those of us wanting a setting to try and understand the emotional and sensual growing pains of an artist so central to Art history and Womens' history in particular. Thanks to Ms. Bell, we now have it.

I refer to Ms.Bell's "Psappha" as a 'Bible' because it lives on my nightstand. After two readings, I still thumb through it to find favorite paragraphs of insightful beauty. As a writer myself, I am envious her apparent ease with descriptive words, so pleasant in themselves I often re-read whole sections of this book for the sheer pleasure of the visual impact.
This is a terrific book!

This wonderfully descriptive book, about an an influential woman, transports one to the time and place depicted. I felt like I was one of Psappha's best friends, allowed to be included in her life, her hopes, and her dreams. Peggy Ullman Bell brings a legend to life in such a way as to involve the reader in the events, feelings and emotions that played such a huge part in the very beginnings of the Women's movement. A tremendous accomplishment has been achieved; this is a book I'll treasure forever!

Beautifully written in the classical style, this historical novel of the young Sappho is a delight to read. Ms. Bell has been compared to the great Mary Renault, and this comparison is truly accurate. In Psappha, the reader sees, hears, feels the beauty of the Poetess of Lesbos, about whom so little is known. The reader can see the courtyard, see the students, hear the teaching, and sit in quiet awe at the feet of Sappho. A first effort by this author, one can certainly hope for more in the near future. A wonderful book, one to read again and again.
Sandra House, Word House Unlimited.

I'm glad this character was named Psappha, not Sappho. The poet is better known under the latter name, so it's easy to distinguish the one from the other. ** If Psappha was a real person, I wouldn't exactly dislike her -- I'd just want to avoid her because I wouldn't know who I was dealing with from one moment to the next. She's that inconsistent. She's also so involved in her own (melo)drama that I find little in her to sympathize with. For example, the first scene finds her on a ship in the midst of a dangerous storm, running naked out onto deck and getting in the way of the crew's attempts to save the ship. The captain is forced for her safety to lash her to a mast. She spends the rest of the crisis meditating on how she was exiled from Lesbos, and when the ship cracks up and sinks her biggest regret is that her death means she'll never become an immortal poet. Later, when she's dipped up from the drink, she's more worried about being seen naked by the new ship's crew than she is about the other crew lost in the storm. ** Once she arrives in the gynakeon (sort of an ancient Greek version of the harem), it takes days for Psappha to discover the passageway to the roof hidden behind the silk hangings of her chamber -- she's been too busy languishing in self-pity to explore her surroundings. She doesn't discover yet another passageway, from the quarters of Kerkelos, the man who rescued her from the sea, until several days later -- when Kerkelos pops through it like a badly-designed clockwork mouse to propose to her. ** Kerkelos is another inconsistent character. His proposal is hamhanded, arrogant, and very much out-of-keeping with other characters' reports of him as a kind and compassionate man. Then there's Gongyla, the 'African,' who will become Psappha's lover. Her function in the novel seems mainly to be a figure of exoticism. The focus on the blackness of her skin seemd fetishistic. Racist? I found it so. Offensive, at the least. ** After the first few chapters, not even one of the characters felt to me like a real person. So I didn't read further. Good luck to other readers if they do.

I'm not too good at putting things into words....but I can tell you that I enjoyed reading this story as much as I enjoy Anne McCaffery. You make the characters so real...and describe the surroundings so well that I can see it....It's as though I'm right there, right in the middle of what's going on. I can identify with Psappha...and when the story stopped, I felt that I was hanging in mid air...that it was me in the story. That's how well this story is written....
I don't know if that's what people write in reviews, but that's what I felt about it...Wonderful story that I sure hope I can continue reading to the end...

Peggy Ullman Bell's impeccable and devoted research into the life of Sappho brings the reader directly into the presence of this universally renowned poetess and the culture of her times. This novel has been written with tenderness as well as a fiery passion that keeps the reader entranced to the very last word.

Many years ago a book was published named Sappho Was A Right On Woman. I would say this title would say the same about Psappha A Novel Of Sappho, as Psappha, which is actually pronounced suh-PHAH, was and still is, all these centuries later. I loved this book. Psappha came alive for me like never before. Peggy Ullman Bell, the author, made me see Psappha as human, and not a myth and her realness made the story for me. This book is also a love story, and a wonderful one. Psappha and her lover Gongyla made a great couple, and their story, almost more then Psappha's biography, made the book shine ever brighter, and led to the ending of the book, which really is an ending.