Time Flies again (micro reviews 1, 2, & 3 for 2024)

 

How can it be February already?

The adage about time speeding up as you get older is definitely true and while January did feel like it had about a 1000 days it also rushed past in a flash and I just haven't had time to blog. 

Its not that I've not been reading, January was quite a productive month book wise but many of the books are very advance copies that I can't talk about yet and to be honest after a crazy busy work month the last thing I wanted to do afterwards was open the laptop and spend more time in front of a screen.

Anyhow here's a quick review of 3 books that have stuck in my mind since reading them...

Christ on a Bike by Orla Owen (Bluemoose Books)

I'd seen lots of chat about this one on social media for a while and was really pleased when my library copy came in the day after publication - the blurb was very intriguing too:

Cerys receives an unexpected inheritance but there are rules attached. Three simple rules that must be followed.

As she settles into her new life, she begins to feel trapped: the past is ever-present. She convinces herself that the villagers are watching her and, desperate to control her own future, she tries to break free...

The tension in this grew and grew with every chapter and I found myself snatching every opportunity to read this book available - I'm loathe to say too much about it as I think the blurb tells you as much as you need to know...

Atalanta by Jennifer Saint (Headline Publishing Group)

I'm very pleased that the trend for retelling myths and legends is continuing, and that they are often putting the women back in to the story front a centre. I'd heard of Atalanta but didn't know much about her story, even after reading Mark Knowle's Argo and Rosie Hewlett's Medea in the past couple of years - both novels which cover some of Atalanta's story.

I am also hopeful (thanks to some of my secret advance reading projects) that this trend for retelling myths will branch out into other cultures beyond the Greek/Roman world.

Clara Reads Proust by Stephanie Carlier/Tr. Polly Mackintosh (Gallic Books) & The Iliad - translated by Emily Wilson (W.W. Norton)

Clara isn't  out for another few weeks and my advance copy was provided by Gallic Books, but while I very much enjoyed the story and the writing/translation what struck me about this book was the timing...

The book is about Clara as she starts reading the novels of Proust for the first time and how while she was aware of them the details were all new. At the start of January I joined an online reading group to read The Iliad and very much like Clara I was familiar with a lot of the story but only the highlights. The synchronicity of the novel and my life definitely added to my appreciation of Clara!  

Micro Review 2 (2023)

 

Caroline: Little House, Revisited by Sarah Miller (HarperLuxe)

I've been a fan of the Little House on the Prairie books for pretty much as long as I've been a reader. Little House on the Prairie was one of my earliest purchases from the school book club leaflets and I still have that same edition almost 40 years on.

I was also a fan of the newer children's books that were written in the 1990s and explored the childhood lives of Laura Ingalls Wilder's ancestors, including her mother, Caroline.

I can't remember where I saw mention of this new story about Ma (Caroline) but it was my first book purchase of 2023 and I'm pleased to add it to my collection even if I'm not quite sure what to make of it nor who it is aimed at.

This book reworks the end of Little House in the Big Woods and all of Little House on the Prairie to tell these stories from an adult's point of view. For the most part the book does rehabilitate Ma from the passive character she appears in the originals and it is interesting to have an adult view of the nightmare journey the family undertook. 

But...to rework the book as an adult tale the story has just been enhanced by adding references to Ma's pregnancy, the birth of Carrie and then marital relations between Pa and Ma. Without these the book would be fine for the original audience!

The fine line between keeping the spirit of the original and updating some of the more xenophobic views was done sensitively, and the afterword explains clearly how the decisions as to how this worked was informative. I also liked the way that as far as possible Miller managed to keep to Ingalls Wilder's timeline whilst including more of the actual happenings,

The story was fine and I quite enjoyed it but I'm not sure it added anything to the Little House story.

Micro Review 60

 

Argo by Mark Knowles (Head of Zeus)

It is no secret that I love Greece and all of the stories, myths and legends attached to the country. It also no secret how much I enjoy retellings and reinterpretations of these tales for modern readers and so discovering a new version of the Jason and the Argonauts tale got me very excited, and even the whopping 600+ page count didn't deter me.

Sadly this one didn't quite live up to expectation and to mix my legends it felt far more like one of Hercules' labours to finish rather than an edge of the seat tale of epic adventures.

I'm not sure why, the chapters were short and punchy and the over all tale is fascinating. However I wasn't a great fan of the writing style and to get to the end of the novel to find that it didn't cover the whole adventure was the final straw. A definitive translation of the original epic comes in at only 375 pages *including* commentaries and an introduction!

This led me to think about modern versions of the Greek legends and their authors. Many of these new volumes have been by women - Natalie Haynes, Madeline Miller, Pat Barker and Margaret Atwood  to name a few, and I've enjoyed or loved nearly all of these. However Stephen Fry's retellings left me cold, as did Colm Toibin's.

This has made me think about why this could be: 

Not all of them are told by the female characters so it isn't all about giving voice to the unheard characters from the sources. 

They certainly don't shy away from the brutality of the originals so it isn't all about being squeamish either. 

Toibin is an award winning writer while a lot of the female authors are debut novelists so it isn't a straightforward case of experience. 

It isn't even an unconscious bias against male writers in general as I've read and enjoyed translations of the originals and these are by men and the editions I have are translated by men... 

If anyone has any other ideas as to why I'm struggling with the retellings from (modern) male authors - or suggestions of other retellings I could try I'd be grateful to receive them but for now I shall be eagerly awaiting Stone Blind, a new version of the Medusa tale from Natalie Haynes which is due later this year! 

Micro Review 25

 

Ariadne by Jennifer Saint (Wildfire Books)

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I've long loved tales from Ancient Greece, I think that my love stems right back to early primary school where we first looked at this history and especially to my Usborne Guide to Ancient Greece. I was lucky in that family holidays took us to Greece, and it is a place Mr Norfolkbookworm and I continue to visit (when we are allowed to) and also where we got married.

Retellings of the Greek myths from new view points have become really popular in the past decade and I very much like this new genre. 

In Ariadne Saint retells all of the tales connected to this Cretan princess but from her view point, and that of her sister Phaedra, not from the more traditional male narrated format.

I knew most of the stories that link together to form Ariadne's life but for some reason I hadn't joined them together to make a continuous arc, so to read the tales all linked together was really enjoyable. The tables weren't turned to the extent that Ariadne and her sister became flawless, and the male characters didn't all become cardboard cutout baddies - everyone had shades to their lives. The writing was such that I really did have a movie playing in my mind as I read the book, and I could feel the Greek heat as I turned the pages.

The portrayal of the Greek Gods in this version of the myths was fascinating to read, their jealousy and pettiness made them seem far more human than godlike and as a result even more terrifying in some ways. It also made me reassess my mental image of Dionysus - he really doesn't bear much resemblance to the Disney version from Fantasia in this novel!

It took me a couple of goes to get into the book initially, but that was definitely down to my mood and not the book. This debut novel is a great addition to similar works from Madeline Miller, Pat Barker and Natalie Haynes and I am looking forward to reading more from all 4 authors!

Many thanks to Net Galley for the advance copy, even if I didn't read it until publication day!

Micro Review 14

 

Pandora's Jar by Natalie Haynes (Pan Macmillan)

Regular readers will have hopefully picked up on my love of mythology and Haynes' writing style and will thus be unsurprised that I though this book simply wonderful.

Pandora's Jar is a non fiction book taking a critical look at many of the females in classical literature and then their portrayal in art and literature through the centuries since. Fans of Haynes' previous work will not be surprised to find that the original tales were often very different to the tales we know today.

That Pandora had a jar not a box is just the start of this look at the original stories and their subsequent retellings and the reasons for the alterations. The classic Harryhausen film Jason and the Argonauts would have been quite different if the original source material had been used too...

Looking into the retelling, simplifying and reworking of 'classics' fascinates me - to the extent that I wrote my MA dissertation on the topic. This book reminded me of the research I found so enthralling whilst also making me laughing out loud (and snorting in disgust) at the points Haynes, in her inimitable way, makes.

Another book that I know I will dip in and out of in the future.

A long time ago

Heffers Classic Festival, Cambridge, November 2012.

While theatre and Shakespeare appear to be my new favourite things my love of Greece and Italy and of the stories from antiquity are still high on my agenda

Retellings of Greek and Roman myths and legends are books that I am always drawn to. Just this year it became clear that I wasn't the only one as Madeline Miller won the Orange Prize for Fiction with her retelling of the story of Achilles, Patroculus and the Iliad. I've blogged before about my love of the Roman Mysteries by Caroline Lawrence too.

It isn't just the stories that I like, the histories and architecture also captivate.  Seeing that there was going to be a dedicated to the classics nearby I booked tickets as soon as they were available.

The day was well organised and scheduled, with several sessions though out the day all featuring 3 or 4 speakers. Limiting the talks to 15-25 minutes was good in many ways - if the topic didn't appeal you knew it was only short, and also you got to hear loads of ideas. BUT every so often I really wanted to listen to all the ideas the speaker had!

What I liked most about the day (apart from the chance to chat to one of my favourite authors!) was that the talks were pitched perfectly - they were neither too simple and thus patronising nor were they so academic that I was lost at any point.

My book list has grown incredibly, and I now want to travel extensively through the Greek and Roman world. I don't think I'll try to learn Latin though!

Roll on the 2013 festival.