Circe

by Madeline Miller

Perdita Weeks (Narrator)

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2019
THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
THE NEW YORK TIMES NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER

SELECTED AS BOOK OF THE YEAR BY BUZZFEED, THE DAILY TELEGRAPH, GUARDIAN, I PAPER, IRISH TIMES, REFINERY29, SCOTSMAN, SUNDAY TELEGRAPH, TIME MAGAZINE, TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT, AND WASHINGTON POST

From the Orange Prize-winning, internationally bestselling author of The Song of Achilles comes the powerful story of the mythological witch Circe, inspired by Homer's Odyssey

Chosen as must-read book of 2018 by the Guardian, i, Mail on Sunday, Sunday Express and Stylist

In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe has neither the look nor the voice of divinity, and is scorned and rejected by her kin. Increasingly isolated, she turns to mortals for companionship, leading her to discover a power forbidden to the gods: witchcraft.

When love drives Circe to cast a dark spell, wrathful Zeus banishes her to the remote island of Aiaia. There she learns to harness her occult craft, drawing strength from nature. But she will not always be alone; many are destined to pass through Circe's place of exile, entwining their fates with hers. The messenger god, Hermes. The craftsman, Daedalus. A ship bearing a golden fleece. And wily Odysseus, on his epic voyage home.

There is danger for a solitary woman in this world, and Circe's independence draws the wrath of men and gods alike. To protect what she holds dear, Circe must decide whether she belongs with the deities she is born from, or the mortals she has come to love.

Breathing life into the ancient world, Madeline Miller weaves an intoxicating tale of gods and heroes, magic and monsters, survival and transformation.

• ISBN10: 0316556343
• ISBN13: 9780316556347
• Publish Date: 10 April 2018 (first published 1 April 2018)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Little Brown and Company
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 400
• Language: English

Reviews

[Leigha]

Circe from The Odyssey gets her own story showing her rise into an empowering and powerful women in this adult fantasy.

Circe is one of those stories I wish I had read at a different time in my life. I usually love a Greek/Roman mythology retelling, especially when an author finds a new way to intertwine the stories together. However, a couple of things kept me from truly enjoying the novel:

- I got a new job! I struggled to keep my attention on this novel as I transitioned from my old position into my new position.

- I have a vague recollection of mythology. The life blood of this novel is the various myths incorporated into it. I recognized many elements of them, but the details were a blur. Details matter to me – I should have brushed up on the myths as they unfolded instead of waiting until I finished the novel.

- The audiobook didn’t hook me into the story. When the story starts, the narrator almost put me to sleep – her voice was too lyrical and soothing. By the end of the novel, her voice carried a lot more inflection. I think the narrator, by her voice, was showing how Circe grows to be more confident and passionate the more she becomes empowered. Any other time, I might have enjoyed the progression. But since I was already struggling to keep my attention on it, the voice change didn’t satisfy me.

I can see why many people read and loved Circe. It’s worth the read, but make sure you are in a better frame of mind than I when you start it.

tl;dr My new job, my murky knowledge of Greek mythology, and the audiobook narrator kept me from enjoying the novel to its potential.

[jesstheaudiobookworm]

4.75★⎮My fascination with Greek mythology is something that I haven't visited in many years, yet I still jumped at the opportunity to hear Circe.

I didn't immediately recall the figure of Circe from my high school studies. Luckily, that didn't impact my experience with this audiobook at all. After Odysseus enters the story, I did remember Circe as the somewhat of an antagonist in The Odyssey. As an eighth grader, I was very much pro-Penelope while reading The Odyssey. Since Circe is presented as one of Odysseus's obstacles in returning to his wife and son, she certainly wasn't a sympathetic figure. However, Madeline Miller changes all that.

Circe is our protagonist here, so we are meant to root for her. Miller makes that increasingly easy as the story progresses. Circe is known throughout history as the goddess of sorcery, but Miller portrays her in a more recognizable light, introducing the label of "witch" to mythology. In fact, if you didn't know you were listening to the story of the goddess of sorcery, Circe could have been one of many wood witches in modern literature. That is not to say that this story was "run-of-the-mill", but that Miller puts a new spin on the story of Circe by combining two recognizable themes: Witchcraft and Divinity.

Circe is both a goddess and a witch. We recognize her as a "nature witch" or "woods witch". Circe's abilities may come from her divinity, but she uses fruits of the earth to channel them. She uses herbs and plants to create elixirs and potions. She communes with wildlife. These things tie her to the earth. Towards the end of the novel, Telemachus quotes his father Odysseus by saying that he had never known a goddess who reveled in her divinity less than Circe. Calling a goddess "down-to-earth" seems ironic, but that is exactly what Circe strives to be and it makes her all the more relatable.

But it was Miller's writing that most brought Circe to life. The story contains one point-of-view, that of Circe. By keeping the story as single point-of-view, it places us in the shoes of Circe, making it easier to connect with her. This was a story that could have easily become a tangled mess. The amount of names and relations bandied about could make your head spin. That was always the most frustrating part of studying Greek mythology. Miller's simplistic, yet beautiful, writing style eases this frustration. The story emits a sort of existentialism. From beginning to end, we cross centuries in time and see generations born and die, all through the same character's eyes. It was a unique experience, for sure. Miller did an excellent job of providing us an immortal's point-of-view, while at the same time presenting Circe with mortal problems (i.e. having a mortal son who can so easily be harmed).

From recent research inspired by the story, I know that Miller omitted certain key aspects of Circe's life, particularly towards the end. I find this interesting because it seems like she took such care to be true to Circe's story before that. It may be that tales of the end of Odysseus's life vary, but in the account I read, Circe plays a large role in the end of Odysseus' and Telemachus' lives. This deviation may be because Miller decided to downplay Circe's abilities as a necromancer. I'm very interested in further looking into the varying accounts of the key players lives.

Circe is a story that I will ponder for years to come. Having just finished it, I can't help but feel that I haven't yet experienced its full impact. The writing was exquisite; the pacing, perfection. I'm now eager to begin The Song of Achilles from the same author. Achilles is a figure I've always felt was over exposed, but I'm now curious to see what Madeline Miller can do with him.

Narration review: Perdita Weeks may possess one of the most chillingly beautiful voices I've ever heard. During this performance, I forgot that I was listening to an audiobook narrated by Perdita Weeks. Weeks became Circe and Circe was divulging the details of her life to me. Weeks slipped into the body of the character like slipping on a glove and told the story with Circe's voice. I can't recall a more perfect casting than Perdita Weeks as Circe. While listening to the audiobook, I could almost see Circe as well as hear her. The beauty in Weeks' voice stunned me almost as much as that of Miller's writing. The two combined to provide me with an memorably explicit listening experience. ♣︎

[Mercy]

3.5/5

[adamfortuna]

After seeing Circe as the Goodread readers choice for best fantasy book of 2018, I knew I would need to check it out. The story itself follows Circe, a Greek goddess, nymph, and daughter of Helios. The prose is also striking. Each scene feels epic in nature somehow – partially from prose, but also because they're populated with familiar characters - Charybdis, Odysseus, Daedalus and too many others to name.

If you have an interest in Greek Mythology you will enjoy Circe immensely. Madeline Miller knows here classics and weaves a tale of many different gods and men together into something completely new and original while staying true to the characters. It's a retelling of the same history, but from a new point of view – shedding light on areas often passed over. If you're interested in Greek Mythology, you will likely love this one as much as I did.

[pamela]

Despite the fact that Madeline Miller’s Circe took me quite a long time to read, I find it difficult to find fault.  Every time I picked it up I was utterly engrossed.  I’d sit for hours at a time, finishing large chunks of it in each sitting.  But if life got too busy, or hectic, I found it difficult to motivate myself to pick it up again.  It’s beautiful, and not a particularly difficult read, but the subject matter and the construction of the prose do require a certain level of immersion to be fully appreciated.

Circe is first and foremost a book about a woman.  A very human woman with very human failings who, despite being a goddess, was completely and utterly relatable.  She is neither good nor evil, just horribly flawed (and aren’t we all?). There are moments in Circe’s life that every reader will find familiar.  Her powers gave her the ability to react to situations in ways that I could only dream.  All her actions have consequences.  Some she feels remorse over, others she doesn’t.  She is a woman trying to find her way in a world in which she has no place.  Honestly, Circe was everything.  She speaks with the voice of all women, at the same time highlighting how voiceless we have been in so much fiction and mythology across the ages.  She acts with the righteous anger I know we have all felt, and is irritated by and betrays other women, just as I know we all do.  But what struck me most is how she dealt with the removal of her agency and made it her own.  She rose above, creating her own truth.  Despite the men in her life exerting control, she was, ultimately, the mistress of her own fate, for good or ill.

Humbling women seems to me a chief pastime of poets. As if there can be no story unless we crawl and weep.

Circe covered quite a lot of time (goddesses aren’t precisely short-lived), and I was impressed by how Miller wrote the passage of time perfectly.  The pacing is spot on, dwelling on certain snapshots of Greek mythology, but only in how the pertained to Circe herself.  Empires rose and fell, gods battled, and heroes perished in the background of this novel. The reader only experiences it through Circe, and for the most part, she wasn’t particularly bothered by it.  This wasn’t an epic tale of battle and adventure.  It was a human story about one woman and how she experienced the myths that surrounded her.

Miller’s writing is flowing and beautiful.  It’s emotive, fluid, but somehow devoid of any excess.  Every word has meaning and is carefully chosen to convey a mood.  It was breathtaking.  This novel is her canvas, and Madeline Miller is a painter, intricately depicting the details of the mythology that she weaves with care and devotion.  Despite the mystical, fantastical setting, replete with sea monsters and transfiguration, every word rings true.  The world she spins feels real and tangible, a place where anything is possible.  Magic didn’t glitter, it was hard labour.  Heroes weren’t perfect, each was flawed.  Nothing was a stereotype.  Everything had depth, and the whole novel resolved with possibility, not with finality.

Only that: we are here. This is what it means to swim in the tide, to walk the earth and feel it touch your feet. This is what it means to be alive.

My one criticism of Circe would be that it did require more than a working knowledge of Greek mythology.  Because the novel had to cover so much time and so many characters, it will be difficult to engage with if you aren’t already familiar with a lot of them.  The only character development for secondary characters was through Circe’s experience.  We just got her perception and understanding of them at the moment in which she met or thought of them.  This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but one I can see being troublesome for some readers less versed, or with little interest in the subject matter.

All in all, Circe was one of the most astounding novels I’ve ever read.  I wish I could go back and start it at a time when I could just sit down and read, enjoying the experience in a single sitting.  It was a world that immersed me when I could commit to long stretches of reading, and it was a shame that my time with Circe was so scattered.  This book is a must.  It’s a beautiful, enjoyable, and dare I say important novel. 

[sarahjay]

I adored this. Listen to it on audiobook, it's perfect.

[jamiereadthis]

Ten stars if I could. I’ve said that I like imperfect books more than perfect books, but I should revise that claim. This is A Perfect Book.

[emruth13]

I need more Greek myths from Madeline Miller! This book was SO GOOD! I just loved it so much!

[luddite]

The original Greek myths, as they're told, are heavily male-centric, and the women in them fit one of these broad categories: damsel in distress, supplicant that intercedes for the hero, wily temptress, or unreasonable/irrational immortal. This re-telling shuns all of that, and does a wonderful job at that. It casts light on a fringe but really fascinating character in Circe, highlighting several stories that aren't include in mainstream canon. And does a good job addressing questions of power, in more ways than one.

Apart from the layer of retelling, there isn't much in this book as a standalone. The prose is lovely though. Miller does a really good job depicting Circe's stream of consciousness.

[Ashley]

It was a very good story, but the writing style was a little dull for me. It often felt like an emotionless journal that just described events, like:

"Today this happened. This guy came and we sat and ate. Then we went outside. Then this. Then that. Then that."

I'm pretty sure this style was intentional but it wasn't always the most exciting.

Still a very good book though.