Sunday, October 21, 2012

The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood

A book that came to me through BookMooch.com (still on my book diet and doing well!) and it's a rather small book (198 pages) so obviously my brain went into "must read now" mode.

If you've read The Odyssey by Homer or if, like me, you know the myth behind it (with the help of The Simpsons), then this is a good little book to enhance it. This is the story of Odysseus but told from Penelope's point of view. Penelope is long dead and telling her story from Hades, in order to set some things straight.

We learn about why the 12 maids that were killed should not have been, how Helen started the War, how Penelope endured all the Suitors that descended on her castle when Odysseus failed to return from the Trojan War, etc.

The book is interspersed with "songs" and poems but I have to say I skipped those. The storytelling from Penelope was what I was after and it was very entertaining.


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