#the penlopiad

[enlitment]

10 & 15 for the book ask 💞

Thank you for the ask! ^^

10. Do you have a guilty fav?

Oh boy do I!

Rousseau's Confessions definitely fits that category to a t. I might as well come clean and admit how much I actually enjoyed reading at least the first few books (while also finding myself frustrated with JJ to the point of madness ofc - many, many times).

I would of course never go full Brissot, but I can't rule out a potential re-read in the future...

Apart from that, I also have a lot of complicated feelings about Chuck Palahniuk's books (probably most famous for Fight Club). No other author seem to oscillate between brilliant and absolutely atrocious as much as he does.

15. recommend and review a book:

It's been a while since I've read it, but I really liked Margaret Atwood's The Penelopiad!

I know the book market is currently overflowing with Greek myths retellings, but this one is one of the original ones and - at least for me - one of the good ones.

I felt like Atwood didn't sanitise Penelope's character but rather made her a complex, quite morally grey heroine. I enjoyed seeing the events of the Odyssey from her perspective more than say, that of Miller's Circe. The way she felt bitterly jealous of Helen, the few sweet moments which fleshed out her relationship with Odysseus, her interactions with Telemachus... Atwood's Penelope just somehow felt more like a human being.

I also loved how she made Penelope's 12 maids into a Greek chorus, utilised a lot of different genres throughout the book (including a 21st century academic lecture), and reinterpreted one often overlooked passage of The Odyssey in a fascinating new way. No spoilers, but just for that alone, it's worth a read!