#read circe and came away underwhelmed overall and esp bored by her circe

[linddzz]

hello, here for your opinion on odysseus! have you read madeline miller’s “circe”? if so, what did you think of odysseus?

Ooooohhhhhhhh you're nudging at a pandoras box asking me my opinions of Madeline Miller 🙃

To answer while holding the full ranting instinct back on a leash (partially bc I legit don't have much time for much typing rn AND I know lots of people like MM and idk I generally don't enjoy making people feel like they shouldn't like a thing, but I also love being salty and this is my constant internal struggle):

With a lot of her characterizations I feel like M.M. either goes too hard making them sympathetic (Circe and Patrocles being the top contenders who come to mind) or she swings too hard the other way. Odysseus is like....fine? He's not outright terrible? But he does fall into her "they are either sympathetic (cougboringcough) beauties with maayybe a couple Tragic Flaws (that are barely flaws, goD why couldn't she just let Circe have full agency and purposely curse Scylla why can't maybe Penelope be as much of a scheming suspicious fucker as her husband GOD these "feminist retelling" authors are too cowardly to touch Medea-nonono the rant is leashed I'm staying on target!) or they are horrible awful people." But she's made so many comments that make me baffled about her academic background in classics (why would you say all the gods are sociopaths Madeline??? that is an actual ancient cultures religion you're trashing??? do you not get how gods are used narratively in stories is not the same as they're worshipped esp in a religion without strict canon??? You know how we all understand that Paradise Lost isnt Christian canon what the F-Not ranting not ranting I'm good!!) lmao. She seems to fall into the common take I see where modern Anglo morality is projected on the characters divorced of the time/culture/narrative they are set in, and then go "omg how did people think this was a hero?"

Anyway I just don't see how people can look at Odysseus being a scheming ratfuck compulsive liar (who is also a great warrior in violent times bc it...was a warrior society who told his story) and go "um he's terrible why would anyone like him as he is originally????" while MCU Loki was so popular they kept bringing him back from the dead to continue being A Scheming Little Bastard.

(EDIT: uh tldr is I read Circe. The entire experience was me going "oooo it's about to get good" and then realizing that Circe is just boring the whole time. Came out the other end with more feelings about how M.M. writes women than Odysseus, but her Odysseus is part of a trend of doing a lot of black and white morality shenanigans)