Circe
by Madeline Miller
Circe is one of those books where you either hate or love. For me, it was love. I’ve always had a deep interest and connection with greek mythology. In fact, growing up, I read all that I could about the journies of Hermes or Zeus’ temper.
Circe, well, talks about the history of Circe. It’s beautifully written like a painting where each individual brush seems ordinary, even boring, but taken together, they form an incredibly vivid painting of Circe’s life. The book pieces together mentions about Circe from various epics and weaves them all into an massive narrative that truly explains Circe’s life and motivations.
The book transforms Circe from being an one-dimensional demi-god to a multi-dimensional figure that feels, learns, and acts. In other words, a human. I found myself thinking about the life of gods after reading. I had always thought of gods that had every pleasure possible without “work” and never really examined what their life of abundance would lead to. Apathy.
It’s hard to think of Greek mythology and gods in the same way after reading this book.
8/10
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