Book Review: Cleopatra: A Life

Title: Cleopatra: A Life
Author: Stacy Schiff
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Publication Year: 2010
Read: March 2017
Where It Came From:Library e-Audiobook
Genre: Non-fiction-biography
Rating: 4 Strands of Pearls

I can't think of the last time a non-fiction book made me cry. Well, I'm sure there are actually lots of tear-jerking and upsetting non-fiction books out there, so let me amend that: I can't think of the last time a non-fiction book about the ancient world, with principal characters more myth than human to modern eyes, made me cry. I first tried to read this book in 2013 (thanks, Goodreads, for allowing me to compulsively keep track of my reading habits!), but I just couldn't get into it. Earlier this month I felt inspired to try again, this time with the audio version, and that did the trick (thanks as always to Susan, who turned me on to the merits of nonfiction in audiobook form). It held my ("rapt" might be an appropriate word here) attention as I listened to it while getting ready in the mornings and on my commute for the last couple weeks. I started listening on International Women's Day, which while not specifically planned, turned out to be apt.

A few thoughts. This book laid open some gaping, heretofore unknown failures in my education. Number one, and one that fits into the category of gape-mouthed shock and mind-blowing world-shifting (ask me about Marie Antoinette and the "let them eat cake" thing or coconut milk vs. coconut water someday if you're interested in more from this same odd subgenre for me)--Cleopatra VII (who was actually VI, but that's not the shocker here), was not actually Egyptian! She, and her entire Ptolemaic dynasty, was of Macedonian Greek descent. They ruled over Egypt and its people, but they and their city of Alexandria were a product of Hellenistic culture (though certainly with some merging and mingling with culturally Egyptian things). Is this common knowledge?? I have spent my entire life (with the exception of a note I remember from a Royal Diaries book I read in junior high mentioning that Cleopatra could have possibly been blonde) under the impression that Cleopatra was ethnically and culturally Egyptian in the way that Ramses and Nefertiti and all those other pharaohs that fascinated me as a child were.

Number two, the more this book went on, the more I realized how little I actually knew of the Caesar/Cleopatra/Marc Antony story. Culturally, it's something probably most everyone is aware of in some way, but I didn't realize how amorphous a blob my understanding of it was, punctuated by random markers (often erroneous, I now know) like "asp" and "love triangle" and "rolled up in a carpet." My weird, literature- and pop culture-influenced understanding of the tale involved a screwed-up timeline, confused relationships, unclear motives, and gaping holes. This book helped straighten out, clarify, and fill in, but only to a certain extent. The broad strokes are there, details too, to an extent, but a great many details are still lost.

And that is in no way the fault of the book. As an adage we all know, used near to the point of cliché, history is written by the victors. And the victors in this case were Octavian, Rome, and a culture supremely uncomfortable with powerful women. The book discusses the fact that there are no contemporaneous accounts of Cleopatra, nothing that remains of her own voice, so we are left to piece together a picture of her based on the accounts of the men telling her story after the fact, and to examine their bias for hints as to how their version of events may be skewed. It’s hard for anyone to get a picture of Cleopatra as she actually was, as throughout history and the many versions of her story, it is easier for the writers (the patriarchy?) to attribute her success to beauty rather than intelligence, to feminine wiles rather than cleverness, to subterfuge rather than strategy, to reduce her power to exoticism and sex. As the author notes in the book, when men do it, it's called strategizing, but when women do it, it's called scheming. It's frustrating, like looking at her through the surface of a pond, able to make out the general shape, but with the details obscured by the shifting surface. In the end, we're left with a picture of Cleopatra as an imperfect, fallible human, but certainly an intelligent, driven, and strong woman, making a stand for her country, her people, and herself, in a masculine world.

I put off finishing this book for a day or two, because I was overcome with that feeling when you know the original story well enough (even considering my aforementioned flawed and incomplete knowledge of said original story) to know that the shit is about to irreparably hit the fan. In the end my tears weren't as much for the tragic end to the Antony/Cleopatra relationship (moving without being overly sentimental here), as they were for the underdogs who had lost, and the woman who had clashed with all Roman expectations of females, and tried to prevent the sun from setting on her land, people, and dynasty. I am left with a hunger for details and questions that can never be answered about these people and their time, and so for the ravages of passing centuries and of those who write the histories, I had some tears, too.

Add this one to the "required feminist reading" list.

*As ever, wherever our copies of the books we read come from, our reviews remain uninfluenced by the source of said copies, or by anyone else, for that matter.

Book Review: Curses and Smoke

Title: Curses and Smoke: A Novel of Pompeii
Author: Vicky Alvear Shecter
Publisher: Arthur A. Levine Books
Publication Date: May 27th, 2014
Read: April 2014
Where It Came From: eARC from publisher via NetGalley*
Genre: YA-historical
Rating: 3 Foreshadowing Earthquakes

The Quick and Dirty:

Lucia is the daughter of a gladiator training school owner in Pompeii, and not looking forward to her impending arranged marriage. When her childhood friend, a slave boy named Tag, returns from Rome after training to be a healer, the two reconnect and begin dreaming of a life beyond their current confines. But then there’s all the strange things occurring around Pompeii recently—earthquakes, dead fish in the bay, poisoned springs… Lucia ponders what it could all mean while imagining a life with Tag out from under her father’s thumb, but will they be able to escape life in the shadow of Vesuvius? I didn’t find the characters particularly compelling and the writing was in the middle—not awful, but not super good. Still, it kept me turning pages and as the inevitable drew near there were some unexpected twists that (at last!) got an emotional response out of me.

The Wordy Version:

Guys. This book…I don’t even know what to say. For a book that I was feeling so solidly meh about throughout the entire reading to have that sort of effect on me at the very end… I wasn’t expecting tragedy! Which might sound dumb for a book about Pompeii, but…well, we’ll come back to that later.

Lucia is the only child of a middle-class gladiator training school owner, and she wants more from life than marriage to an old, lecherous man in Rome for her father’s gain. She’s interested in science and nature, and has been noticing strange things happening around the city of late (naturally, no one pays any attention to her when she brings them up). She’s pretty in the middle as far as characters go—she’s not objectionable, but she’s not terribly interesting either. Our other protagonist, Tag, was sent away to Rome to train as a healer for a few years to eventually follow in his father’s footsteps at the training school, but upon his return to Pompeii he dreams instead of becoming a gladiator and winning his freedom. Again, not objectionable, but not a character I felt overly attached to. I did really like his Etruscan heritage, though—the fact that he was descended from a formerly powerful family from the time the Etruscans ruled the area added a new slant and extra fire to his rage at being a slave.

So of course the two fall in love, FORBIDDEN love, and have to keep it secret from everyone around them. The daughter of a training school owner cannot love a slave, especially when she is already promised to a creepy old man! For some reason, Tag and Lucia both came across as younger than their 16 years for much of the book (at least until they start making out in the woods and Lucia debates love vs. lust with her married friend). Other characters are added to the mix—Lucia’s father, mostly portrayed as monstrous; Castor, a young slave boy who takes a shine to Tag; Quintus, a louche patrician dilettante who plays at gladiator training and develops an interest in Lucia; Lucia’s friend Cornelia, sassy and pregnant; and Cornelia’s husband, who sounds like a pretty awesome guy until we actually meet him. Cornelia is one of the more interesting characters, as she has some life and verve to her (although the fact that the word “waddle” is used to describe her every movement got a little irritating. Yes, alright, she’s hugely pregnant! We get it already!). My FAVORITE character, though, was Lucia’s dog Minos. So cute. I even wrote in my notes as I was reading that the most emotional reaction the book got out of me was when someone hit the dog. But…that was before I got to the end.

Already Missing 2013: Susan's Top 10

At Alyssa’s urging, I am spending some time today to order my list of favorite books from the reading I did last year. Back at the beginning of December, Alyssa and I were both playing around with our favorite books lists, and I had a slight advantage going in because I had been assiduously keeping track of my least favorite books of the year (and out of a sense of guilt for the immeasurable fun of rating my ARGH reads, I had started a list of favorite books as well). But it turned out that my guilt was disproportionate! I had 11 books on my Worst-Reads list (and one of them was a little exaggerated to make it there), and a full 18 on my Best-Reads list. Eighteen!! To choose only ten seemed unfair to the other eight that had been scrawled on my scrap of paper. As I looked at the paper, I realized I hadn’t even remembered to put some other well-enjoyed books I’d read this year on it. It really was a better year for my reading than the existence of a “Worst Books of 2013 Reading” list suggests.

Yet, Alyssa and a seeming majority of the book blogosphere seem to have been able to accomplish this feat of winnowing books down to a top-ten list, so it is obviously not impossible. And with that spirit, I shall set about making my list. Because I am having particular trouble deciding on the top-top spots, I am going to deviate from Alyssa’s formatting and do my list count-down style.

S’s Best Books of 2013

10. Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline

Kicking it off at #10 is Alyssa’s recommended Ready Player One. I, having some distrust of fiction audiobooks, picked up a paperback in February after hearing something that sounded like The Westing Game. So, recommended by Alyssa and bearing at least casual similarity to a beloved work of children’s literature? It was an easy choice to read, but had a lot to live up to based on that. AND IT DID!! I loved it! I like only a handful of things about 80s pop culture, and because I truly despise 80s fashion, I don’t even bother to watch classic Brat Pack movies. Yet the book completely worked for me, and based on the number of times it stops to explain every 80s reference it makes, it should work for anyone.

This is one of those books that is so secure in what it’s doing that it takes a little time afterwards to figure out why it worked so well. The narrative voice of Wade, a teen competing in a virtual reality scavenger hunt of 80s pop culture, is completely compelling, combining authority about his videogame skills and insecurity about his personal relationships. To an extent the book is dystopian, but in a much more realistic way than the popular depictions of overreaching government programs. Here, poverty in the United States has caused an increase in crime, spurring many to retreat to a cyber-reality so they don’t need to go outside, and discouraging them from believing that political elections provide any means of breaking the cycle of poverty and crime. So solid main character, solid setting . . . AND the scavenger hunt, mental puzzle cleverness promised by Westing Game comparison.

And this is only the beginning of my year’s top-ten.

9. Paper Towns, by John Green

Paper Towns is similar to Ready Player One in that it is also narrated by a smart teenage boy. But while Wade was focused on solving the steps of a game (albeit a game with immense monetary value), Paper Towns’ Quentin is navigating the much more complicated world of teenage identity, and trying to solve the mystery of his dream girl neighbor, who has taken him on a crazy night’s adventure before running away from home in the last weeks before high school graduation.

The book is a suspenseful page-turner, but John Green does a clever job layering the book by interpreting Whitman poetry and having characters respond to key symbols differently. What makes it truly deserving of a spot here is that our book club conversation had a LOT to talk about after finishing the book.

8. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, translated by Simon Armitage

I read “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” in my Survey of Early English Literature, and I liked it well enough at the time. But after reading Alyssa’s review of the audiobook of Simon Armitage’s translation, I decided to visit it again. I am so glad I did!

If you missed it last spring, now is actually the BEST time to pick up a copy because the small epic poem takes place in winter. The cold landscape evoked in Gawain’s travels, contrasted with the warmth of sitting in a castle resting during the holidays, feels particularly close to me after a day spent shoveling and then nestled with a book. Thematically the poem is also close to us right now because it is about realizing your shortcomings and strengths, and resolving to be a better person as the new year begins.

And, as Alyssa has said, the language (particularly when listened to on the audiobook) is beautiful.

7. Code Name Verity, by Elizabeth Wein

Another wonderful read that our book club had this year. Code Name Verity does so many things exceptionally well that I could spend a lot of space repeating what Alyssa and I already said about it in October. I think what I love the most about it in retrospect is how much Elizabeth Wein successfully manipulates my sense of hope throughout the story. There are some stories that you assume will not end happily: Shakespeare warns us right away that Romeo and Juliet are going to kill themselves, Jodi Piccoult and Nicholas Sparks have built publishing empires on tissue boxes emptied on their books. There are some stories that you know will end happily: genre romances, anything by P.G. Wodehouse. And then there is Code Name Verity, which opens in medias res with the announcement that one main character is dead and the other is being held prisoner. But did you SEE THE DEATH HAPPEN? it tempts you to ask. Where is the rescue mission? It’s very disorienting not to know whether the plotline is heading towards a happy or tragic resolution, and it takes a ton of skill for Wein to make parts of the book very funny even while the tension is high.

6. The Summer Prince, by Alaya Dawn Johnson

I read The Summer Prince back in April, and my first impression was that the concept was brilliant and the writing artful. In the months since then, my admiration for this book has not waned, and instead has become stronger. I think it’s so well done that it vied for my top spots on this list. The only thing holding me back is that when I went to write just why it was so worthy of the second place spot, most of what I was saying wasn’t about my emotional response. Nevertheless this is my pick for the 2014 Printz Award.

5. The Swerve, by Stephen Greenblatt

Ecce! Coming in at #5 is my only nonfiction work on the final list. It’s the fascinating story of the transmission of Lucretius’s De Rerum Natura from ancient days to the early modern age. I listened to this one in March while snowshoeing behind my old university buildings, so part of my reaction could be nostalgia for college learning and friends, but just thinking about the story of the book is enough to make me quiver a little now.

Lucretius is arguably the only genius of Latin literature, and his lengthy poem about the nature of things is one of the only remaining texts we have of Epicurean philosophy, which (among other things) proposes that living wisely for the absence of pain is the greatest end. Even though I know I should have read this poem (nay, translated it) by now, I never have because philosophy tends to confuse or bore me. Or when I wake up after a quick nap from being bored, I am confused about where I am in the text.

But Greenblatt’s premise is spine-tingling: he claims that the rediscovery of Lucretius’s writing is what sparked the humanism of the Renaissance, and that the event of the rediscovery was far from assured. Unlike the works of Homer, which existed in many Medieval libraries across Europe, De Rerum Natura was found in only one manuscript. Greenblatt tells the story of its Renaissance discoverer, as well as the story of the disappearance of Epicurean philosophy in the late Roman Empire, in such a way that I caught my breath a few times, and felt tears at others.

Read it. Listen to it. Tromp through some snowy woods on a sunny day, taste something delicious, and brush your finger along some dusty old books on your bookshelf as you contemplate what life means, and how your idea of that is related to the survival of one manuscript copied and recopied by monks for a thousand years.

4. Fangirl, by Rainbow Rowell

The way that Alyssa cried over Code Name Verity, I blubbered over Fangirl. It seems a little weird to write them both in the same sentence (and to compare the tears that flowed over each) because they are very different books. But I LOVE Cath as a character, and I adore Rainbow Rowell for validating the world of fanfiction even as Cath’s struggles are mostly to find that the world outside of her fandom is a good place to live. Whereas Eleanor & Park focuses on a romance in the 80s terminally complicated by Eleanor’s danger in her home, Fangirl is about the very modern world of Internet fandoms, and its romance is endangered by Cath’s anxieties. I think that Cath’s story may have the broader appeal, and that Rowell’s writing style fits Cath better, so I am hoping that everyone tries this one in the coming year. Particularly if you have trouble with transitions in life.

3. The Scorpio Races, by Maggie Stiefvater

Three entries on my general loved-it list this year are Maggie Stiefvater books. After not particularly loving the Shiver trilogy (maybe because I’m not a big fan of wolves in snow?), I wasn’t sure I wanted to read the new Raven Cycle. Then I read a few pages, which turned into the whole book, which then turned into quick consumption of The Scorpio Races, and a hunt for The Dream Thieves at the BEA. Suffice to say, I loved EACH of these Stiefvater books, but out of a sense of diversity I am only picking one of them for this list. The Scorpio Races takes far less plot explanation than the Raven Cycle, so it is my choice. Also, it is tightly written as a stand-alone novel. Puck and Sean are sensitive and brave. The Stiefvateran conflict between rich and poor is handled well. And the idea of racing by the sea on carnivorous giant horses is breathtaking.

2. A Tale for the Time Being, by Ruth Ozeki

If you follow us on Twitter you may remember my angst in reading this in bed back at the October/November cusp, summed up by a quote from the book: “their monstrous barbarity shines a new light on my own small suffering.” Based on my horrified tweeting you’d think that this Booker finalist was a book to be avoided, but I think my immeasurable pain for Nao, a young Japanese teenager, and her long-dead young uncle is an indication that Ruth Ozeki crafted a very strong book. My stomach turned, my palms got sweaty, and I read pages of philosophy with total interest. The ending surprised me and provoked more caps-lock on Twitter. Do yourself and me a favor by reading this and letting yourself get carried away by Nao’s confident and intimate diary of coming to peace with being uprooted to lower-middle class life in Japan from upper-middle class life in California. And then thank Ozeki for breaking up Nao’s story with the rest of the book’s focus on adults who give you some space to calm down before entering the sadistic world of secondary school, office culture, or barracks again.

1. The Song of Achilles, by Madeline Miller

As everyone is probably sick of hearing by now, I loved this book. It’s already appeared as my favorite book of the summer, and its depiction of the gods is still in my head. Unlike Homer's Thetis, whom I picture shrouded and hunched with grief, Miller's Thetis is a frightening force of nature and destruction. "Her mouth was a gash of red, like the torn-open stomach of a sacrifice, bloody and oracular. Behind it her teeth shone sharp and white as bone." "[Her] voice hissed like water poured coals." And then I keep thinking about the book, and I remember that a message of the book is that the force of the gods is not as terrifying as the emptiness of death and being forgotten. Ahhhhhh I love this book!

Sophoclean Snickers and Posh Poetry: Antigone

Over the summer we were browsing the titles available on NetGalley when we saw a collection of poems and art inspired by the Antigone by Sophocles. This appealed to us both: Alyssa studied a translation of the tragedy in high school, and Susan is a card-carrying classics nerd. Regardless of our enthusiasm we both let about a month pass without actually reading it because we both wanted to look at the Sophocles to have a good understanding of the story before we started the modern work.

We decided to read the first 200 lines together, and by the time we looked at the clock it was hours later and we had finished Sophocles (translated by Ian Johnston, who has generously made all his accurate and fluid translations available free online) and also Marie Slaight’s Antigone Poems. Some classics are healthy for your soul, and other classics are freaking awesome in general. The Antigone is in the latter camp. It has the Deep Thoughts and Tragic Ending you expect from a top-notch Greek drama, and then it has humor that you wouldn’t expect to see in tragedies.

If you already can quote the Antigone in English and Greek, feel free to skip ahead to “The Antigone Poems.” If you’ve never felt inspired to read the play (or if your memory of it is a little rusty), here’s our summary. We cut out 90% of the morality debate because if you care enough about that part of the play, you can read it yourself.

The fun begins right away with BITCHY TEENAGE GIRLS. It’s like Sophocles had his finger on the pulse of YA lit 2500 years before it became a thing. We were surprised to find, at the beginning of one of the most famous tragedies of Western tradition, that the first 100 lines are just two sisters snarking at each other. Granted, their sniping is over whether they should give their dead treasonous brother some funeral rites, or whether they should obey the law of the ruler that traitors should be left for dogs to eat. It sounds really heavy when you list what their fight is about, but let’s look at a little of the passive aggressive bitchiness instead:

ISMENE
What? You’re going to bury Polyneices,
when that’s been made a crime for all in Thebes?

ANTIGONE
Yes. I’ll do my duty to my brother—
and yours as well, if you’re not prepared to.
I won’t be caught betraying him.

ISMENE
You’re too rash.
Has Creon not expressly banned that act?

ANTIGONE
Yes. But he’s no right to keep me from what’s mine.

ISMENE
O dear. Think, Antigone.
I’ll ask those underground for pardon—
since I’m being compelled, I will obey
those in control. That’s what I’m forced to do.
It makes no sense to try to do too much.

ANTIGONE
I wouldn’t urge you to. No. Not even
if you were keen to act. Doing this with you
would bring me no joy. So be what you want.
I’ll still bury him. It would be fine to die
while doing that. I’ll lie there with him,
with a man I love, pure and innocent,
for all my crime. My honours for the dead
must last much longer than for those up here.
I’ll lie down there forever. As for you,
well, if you wish, you can show contempt
for those laws the gods all hold in honour.

ISMENE
I’m not disrespecting them. But I can’t act
against the state. That’s not in my nature.

ANTIGONE
Let that be your excuse. I’m going now
to make a burial mound for my dear brother.

We’re pretty sure that the correct way to read almost all of Antigone’s possessive adjectives is with a prominent italic-font sneer. “My honors for the dead must last much longer than for those up here.” Burn. Ismene is not enough of a mean girl to get in too many zingers in response, but she lets Antigone know that she is “incapable of carrying out” her mission, which “makes no sense.”

Antigone leaves in a huff, telling Ismene to go to hell (although in her loyalty and piety she is the one prepared to go there herself).

Because it’s a Greek drama, the chorus tromps in to explain the actual context for the play (Oedipus’ sons just had a civil war the previous day and killed each other; their uncle Creon is now the insecure ruler of Thebes). They use a lot of beautiful poetry to get their point across.

Creon, the stubborn new king, is proclaiming his decision to dishonor the corpses of the civil war losers and punish anyone who dares to say a prayer over them, when an inept guard trudges in to tell us that someone has --gasp-- done some funeral ritual for the dead traitor bro. The guard is a proto-Polonius out of Hamlet. He explains three different ways that he didn’t run to give Creon the news (“don’t shoot the messenger” isn’t standard practice in Thebes, it seems), gives a CSI report on the crime scene (“no sign of digging,” “no trace of a wild animal,” etc.), and then hangs around long enough to check that he’s irritating Creon just by speaking (“I offend your ears”). The guard is comedic gold by the end of his scene; we double checked that we were reading a tragedy as we spat out our tea in laughter.

The guard, who would never have been able to solve the case through his own skill, gets a lucky break when Antigone returns to the scene of the crime to mourn some more, and he brings her before Creon for questioning. Creon must be one of actors’ favorite roles because it’s completely unclear how Creon initially feels about Antigone’s crime. Reading it yesterday, we got the impression that he gives her a few chances to talk her way out of the proclaimed death penalty, and that it isn’t until she is a sanctimonious rebel that he decides to follow through on the punishment.

Creon and Antigone have a spirited debate, in which he jumps to the conclusion that any sign of wavering on his part will be an inversion of nature, and that listening to Antigone will emasculate him. Because being a woman is contagious. The only possible explanation for Creon’s apparent intense hatred of women, despite the obvious love he bears his wife that we will witness in a later scene, must be that he is experiencing temporary insanity due to lack of sleep since OH YEAH THERE WAS A CIVIL WAR YESTERDAY. Go take a nap, Creon, before trying to make any life-altering decisions!

Anyway, after Antigone unleashes some Little Red Hen style scoffing off of Ismene’s attempt to die with her, everyone from Creon’s son (and Antigone’s fiancé) Haemon to the legendary blind prophet Tiresias to the entire old men chorus tells Creon that his plan to seal Antigone in a cave to choose her own death is unsound, politically and morally. Antigone’s already been sealed in, bitterly lamenting that she has no friends with her as she dies (and conveniently forgetting that she rejected her sister’s attempt to fill that very role), by the time Creon realizes that, yes, freeing her would be a good idea.

A messenger tells Creon’s wife the rest of the story: as Creon was ambling up to the tomb to free Antigone, he and his men saw traitor bro’s body getting eaten by animals. They stopped to do a real funeral, and then made their way to Antigone’s tomb from which was emanating the voice of Haemon. Haemon, crazy with grief over finding Antigone hanged, attempted to kill his father and then turned his sword on himself. Creon’s wife silently goes back into the palace.

When Creon returns, holding his son’s body and blaming himself for the tragic death, he’s greeted with the news that his wife has committed suicide earlier. Creon prays to die, and the chorus tells him that he’s going to have to carry on and be wiser about piety.

Which brings us to the (very) slim volume of poetry being published next year . . .

The Antigone Poems

Title: The Antigone Poems
Author: Poetry by Marie Slaight, Art by Terrence Tasker
Publisher:Altaire Productions and Publications
Publication Date: January 15th, 2014
Read: September 2013
Where It Came From: eARC from publisher via NetGalley*
Genre: Poetry
Rating: 3.5 Lines of Sophocles

Hit it publisher/poet (the poet is the founder of the publishing company):

Passionate, brutal, and infused with extraordinary lyricism, The Antigone Poems provides a special expedition into the depths of the ancient Sophocles tragedy. The work’s obsessive, ritualistic and ultimately mysterious force brings into sharp focus the heroic, tragic figure at the center of the primordial compact between gods and humans. The work, a collaboration between poet, Marie Slaight and artist, Terrence Tasker, was created in the 1970’s, while the artist were living in Montreal and Toronto. [sic]

If it were not for the title of the book and that blurb, there would be no way to figure out that the poems and art had anything to do with Antigone. This is basically how our conversation about the poems went:

Susan: So when in the Antigone story are these poems taking place?
Alyssa: I don’t think it’s supposed to be that literal.
Susan: But it’s in chapters! Doesn’t that mean there’s an order?
Alyssa: I think the book needs more explanation.
Susan: Yeah.
Alyssa: All I’m getting from these poems is sex.
Susan: Who is having sex in the Antigone, anyway?
Alyssa: I’m not sure it has to be so literal. But maybe Haemon and Antigone, before the events of the play? Wait! Maybe there’s something on the page I just read.
Susan: Yeah, I think I see some glimmers too.
Alyssa: But what is it with the sun?
Susan: Maybe she’s getting sealed into the tomb?
Alyssa: I really don’t think it’s supposed to be that literal.

And so on. We were confused and it took a bit of work to speculate about what's in the poems.

This isn’t to say the poetry isn’t beautiful. Slaight’s writing is excellent, and sets up moments of surprise through unusual diction. Most pages have only a few lines of free verse, with a conclusion that isn’t as simple as it appears at first.

We live our lives
The instant between life and death.
To touch death always,
That is the sun.

This poem seems lovely at first read. Basic, and with a line between death and life that is all too near. But as part of an Antigone collection, it gathers more meaning. To touch the sun is a Greco-Roman way of striving past human limits, and invariably results in a human dying. When Phaethon tries to drive the chariot of the sun, he can’t keep from harming the earth by his erratic path; Icarus flies too close to the sun and falls to earth as the wax in his wings melts; and Odysseus’ crew is killed for eating Helios’ herd. We can layer this idea with that of the Antigone itself, chiefly that the Thebians are overreaching by ignoring the rites of the gods. Slaight, in her poem, is not so literal as to make that connection, but rather twists the mythological idea: no longer is it touching the sun that is death, but the sun is touching death. One interpretation could be that the gods, unlike humans, have no choice about the boundaries between the mortals and divine. They simply uphold the standard.

The final pages are the clearest, and complicate the poet’s claim that the collection is meant to focus on the relationship between human and god:

And why.

I wanted everything.

To live all lives, all deaths, encompass all women.

To smash every confine.

And what have I done.

I don’t know.

I have written a few words

Created a few images

Influenced a few lives.

I live at the corner of St. Lawrence and Pine.

I have three children.

The final charcoal image shifts from classic drama masks and timeless sketches of nudes, to a modern-dressed person, with softer lines and a warmth to her face. Her shirt collar is uneven, one side proudly up and the other flat on her clavicle. This is no heroine of classical tragedy, but rather a woman who is grappling with life in its more mortal sense. Not to be a name whispered throughout the city, not to change the world with one action. But to be a person, whose accomplishments are on a smaller scale, and perhaps less transgressive than those of heroic myths.

The Antigone Poems is a very short collection, capable of being reread several times with one cup of tea. Though its poems vary in accessibility, the book’s interplay of image and poetry is consistently polished and intriguing. Its connection to Sophocles and the human compact with the gods seems tenuous, however, and that is disappointing since the book is advertising itself as a response to Sophoclean themes. We cannot dislike poetry that has moments of exquisite beauty, but it seems disingenuous to claim that we understood enough of it to truly love it.

*As ever, much as we are grateful for the copy, our review is uninfluenced by its source.

READ THIS: The Song of Achilles, by Madeline Miller

Title: The Song of Achilles
Author: Madeline Miller
Publisher: Ecco (Harper Collins)
Publication Year: 2012
Read: June-July 2013
Genre: Historical Fiction
Where It Came From: Bought it at a train station
Rating: FIVE STARS (out of five)

The Quick and Dirty:

I LOVE IT - I LOVE IT - I LOVE IT

A fun and also thought-provoking retelling of the legend of Achilles, as narrated by his loving companion, Patroclus.

The Wordy Version:

I wish I had the eloquence to say READ THIS in a way more befitting Madeline Miller’s own writing. The Song of Achilles is so well crafted that I stopped reading it five weeks ago so I wouldn’t have to make it to the end. I couldn’t prolong the book forever, though, and finished yesterday in a rush of emotions that had me marveling at how I could be so happy at moments of shared love, and simultaneously grieve for characters just based on their fates.

Essentially, Miller reworked Homer so she could tell another Homeric story about the price of glory and what should constitute the kleos or reputation/glory of a hero. Putting it into one sentence makes it sound like it’s an easy feat, but it has to be one of the most difficult to achieve. Homer has been read and revered for over 2500 years, his scope both extraordinary and intimate. Homer tells of countless gruesome deaths on the battlefield, impersonal in the repetition, yet tender in the details. Were Homer just listing battle fatalities, he would be writing something good, but Homer frames the battles in a poignant narrative of Achilles coming to grips with his own mortality. As story arcs go, this is as meaningful and timeless a tale as you can ever hope to read or hear. And Homeric perfection rests in the balance of the protagonist’s journey with the rest of the world, seen in secondary arcs and epic similes.

It’s in the scope of Miller’s work that she evokes Homer more than in particular language or characters. Characters central in Homer are only peripheral in Miller, and battles that are hundred of lines of poetry are reduced to an almost sheepish summary. Miller’s Achilles is so powerful that he cannot enjoy individual duels, and he sees glory as an abstract concept instead of a pile of bodies and plunder. But just because Miller shifts the narrative doesn’t mean she is ignoring the definition of greatness in Homer. (Just as Homer is not ignoring the definition of greatness when he crafts an Achilles who actively rejects the symbols of status for most of the epic.) Instead, Miller is asserting that human love is eternal and enviable to the gods.

It’s a huge departure from the Homeric text. Miller’s brilliance is that she reaches that conclusion with minimal adjustments to her source myths. The most jarring change for me is that order of Iliad XXIV and XXIII is reversed (I have a feeling that if you didn’t spend months studying XXIV, you won’t even notice this). Initially I was thrown by the reversal, but when I look at the book at a whole, it makes sense. This Achilles does not find resolution in his dinner with Priam because Priam’s message is not the one that Miller’s Achilles will accept. The denouement of the story naturally changes as Achilles’ understanding of life becomes less important than Patroclus’ acceptance of its limitations and appreciations of its rewards.

A change like that would be disastrous in a lesser book. Madeline Miller’s style is so lovely, her portrayal of Patroclus and Achilles as a couple so refreshing, and her interpretation of Iliad IX’s Embassy to Achilles so thoughtful that I feel like cheering, “This is what it means to think about Homer! This could be the way to think about heroism in life!”

Read in Progress: An Ephesian Story

Title: Ephesiaca, or, Anthia and Habrocomes
Author: Xenophon of Ephesus
Publication Year: Mid-2nd century CE
Genre: Classic, as in old (not classic, as in everyone should have read it in high school)

The other day I was rummaging through some bins for stationary when I found, to my delight, my copy of the Ephesiaca (Book 1) by the Xenophon most people don’t encounter in their reading. You may be scoffing, “As opposed to the other Xenophon I don’t know?” And that’s okay, because unless you’re really into classics, history or philosophy, you don’t particularly have a reason to know of the Xenophon who wrote about Socrates (yup, Plato is not the be-all and end-all of Socratic wisdom) and concluded the History of the Peloponnesian War (you’re forgiven if you thought only Thucydides touched that subject too).

But Xenophon of Ephesos is not that guy. Xenophon of Ephesos is like the Danielle Steele of Greek writers, as opposed to say James Madison. This Xenophon is so lightweight that Wikipedia only has a stub about him, but the Ephesiaca has a lengthy plot summary on a separate page.

And here is where the fun starts, because the Ephesiaca is one of the oldest surviving novels, and it’s an adventure/romance. Pirates, true love, robbers, forced marriage, deathlike sleep, torture…can we say, proto-Princess Bride?

I should probably wait until I’ve read more to post about this, but I’m having too much fun so far. Here’s what’s going on in the first page:

Some youth Habrocomes is a popular guy, good at sporty things, with a rocking body and noble soul. I’m not totally convinced I’m translating the soul thing correctly because a sentence later we find out that he’s conceited. People will tell him that they’ve found some beautiful boy or shapely virgin, and he’ll look and laugh, saying that he doesn’t see anything great. (I couldn’t help hearing Colin Firth’s Darcy: “I saw little beauty and no breeding” and “She a beauty? I should as soon call her mother a wit.”)

Habrocomes is so convinced that he’s hot stuff, he’s been mocking shrines and statues of Eros (Cupid) under the belief that he’ll never fall in love with anyone.

This is clearly foolish on Habrocomes' part. And where I left off, “Eros rages at these things: for the god loves to win and is merciless to the conceited. He searched for something to use against the young man, yes for even to the god, Habrocomes seemed hard to beat.” Ha, Habrocomes, you are going down!

I can’t tell if it’s because I was just reading Wodehouse, but I love that Eros is kind of in awe of Habrocomes to the point that he can’t immediately find an opening to teach him a lesson. It seems like the sort of reaction that Bertie Wooster or Lord Elmsworth would have—but in an age of unironic togas. Sweet stuff.

Anyway, you know you want to read this one with me!

(Bonus points if you do it in the Greek! :-P)