From Madeline Miller’s Circe:
“I did not see the worst of him. Even at his best he was not an easy man. But he was a friend to me in a time when I needed one.”
“It is strange to think of a goddess needing friends.”
”All creatures that are not mad need them.”
“I think he got the better bargain.”
”I did turn his men to pigs.”
… “All these gods, all these mortals who aided him. Men talk of his wiles. His true talent was in how well he could take from others.”
“There are many who would be glad for such a gift,” I said.
“I am not one.”
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I just find it fascinating how Miller chooses to methodically pick apart the myth of Odysseus as the book progresses. When you meet him, about halfway through her novel, you’re sort of awestruck and curious. He’s out for the rest of the book, after he departs, but we get all sorts of drawn out accounts of him from Telemachus and Penelope and others — things totally original to Miller’s imagination. And it’s interesting how she chooses to gradually ramp up his skewering to the point where becomes a tragic villain. To me, this is a more interesting sort of “Character Rursus” to accomplish — the successful undermining of a mythic hero. And she does it by focusing on the unglamorous and unknown segments of his life rather than flip the famous moments on their head.