C I RC E
R E I N V E N T S
H E RS E L F
Review by S O L A N G E J A Z A Y E R I
I
have not picked up a mythological saga since college and, admittedly, GrecoRoman mythology is not my genre of choice. But there was so much buzz and anticipation around Madeline Miller’s second novel, Circe, that I felt compelled to join the line of readers who made this novel an instant number one bestseller on the New York Times list. And for a good reason—from beginning to end, Miller’s words (narrated through Circe’s voice) levitate the senses and imagination into the world of the gods. This novel, gaining momentum as a new cult classic, is more than a clever recrafting of
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Homer’s witch of Aiaia. Circe is a complex character study that reads like poetry. In Madeline Miller’s words: “One of the things that drew me to Circe is how she makes her own power—not out of her past, but out of her hopes for the future. As a nymph, she will have no control over her destiny; she will end up as a pawn or as prey to a greater god, or both. She finds that intolerable, so she literally invents her own power. She is the first witch in Western literature, and witchcraft is the opposite of divine power—witchcraft is born, instead, of skill, knowledge, and hard work.
