Madeline Miller was born in Boston and attended Brown University, where she earned her BA and MA in classics. She lives in suburban Philadelphia with her husband and two children. Her first novel, The Song of Achilles, was awarded the Orange Prize for Fiction and has been translated into twenty-five languages.
In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe is a strange child—not powerful like her father, nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power—the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves. Threatened, Zeus banishes Circe to a deserted island, where she hones her occult craft and crosses paths with many of the most famous figures in all of mythology, including the Minotaur; Daedalus and his doomed son, Icarus; the murderous Medea; and, of course, wily Odysseus. But there is danger too, for a woman who stands alone, and Circe unwittingly draws the wrath of both men and gods, ultimately finding herself pitted against one of the most terrifying and vengeful of the Olympians. To protect what she holds dear, Circe must summon her strength and choose, once and for all, whether she belongs with the gods she is born from or the mortals she has come to love.
Probably for many of us, Circe was an unknown figure before the reading of this book. She pops up in some places, and has a reputation that might not always be kind. Such is the life of being a Greek mythological figure. Madeline Miller takes this idea and turns it on its head with her amazing storytelling and character development skills. Circe becomes the woman whose story we crave just within the opening pages. She is an awkward daughter, unloved and loving, curious and haunted. As her story advances and Circe discovers her powers, she becomes less awkward and a little bit more herself, uncovering her own truths and the truths of others slowly. By the end of the novel, she is her own woman with her own past and griefs and triumphs. Watching her character development across time is astonishing; it is hard to remember by the end of the novel that, when she started, she was unloved at court by even her own mother. And yet all of those things are what made her who she is. No longer is Circe this unknown woman in Greek mythology; Miller has given Circe a voice, a story, motives and griefs, and made her a figure we can connect with even while she remains the subject of epic poems and stories.
Narration in this novel is everything. It is what allows Circe to become this famed figure, and what gives Circe this epic-like feel. Miller expertly uses the first person to give Circe the power to tell her own story. This choice is what allows readers to fall into Circe's story and into her head; it is why we can relate to her so much, despite the distance of godhood and time. The story itself is a page-turner, and I honestly could not put it down as Circe faced her own inner demons and the monsters around her. Miller is a natural storyteller, and weaves character development and page-turning plot points seamlessly together. There are no slow moments in the text. The story pulled me back in easily, and once I started reading I knew it would be difficult to stop. Ann Patchett said it best: "Circe is an epic spanning thousands of years that's also a keep-you-up-all-night page-turner." The thousands of years passed in the blink of an eye, and Miller's expert writing is a credit to Circe's story.
The fantastic thing about Circe's story is that, in some ways, the usual methods of plot were not applicable. The point of telling Circe's story was to tell it in the epic fashion it deserved, not to fit it to conventions like plot and climax. This was Circe's story: the story of her birth, childhood, island years and more. Her life was defined by her choices, her interactions with other mythological figures, and her internal struggles. This was the story of her life, and had Miller tried to fit it to modern day conventions of storytelling, we would have missed a lot of Circe's internal struggles and triumphs. I believe this is why Circe has such an emotional appeal; it is so unapologetically its own story, and it takes time to explore feelings that other novels can't fit in because of modern day conventions. Of course, the internal struggles of gods and mythological figures demand a different path of storytelling, and Miller takes that path with no regrets. The story, like I said, it unapologetically its own.
The way Circe passes through time is one of my favorite parts of the novel. Circe spans thousands of years, and Circe's character development is clear, especially when comparing Circe from the beginning of the book to Circe at the end. Yet, as we're reading, it feels like almost no time has passed at all. This paradox is compelling, and part of the reason that Circe passes by in the blink of an eye. Circe is developing her character over events that take thousands of years, and yet she seems like a woman subject to the same passage of time the mortals she loves is. This may be because the text bounces around a bit across time, and because Circe becomes a mother and is subject to the same passage of time as her son. Either way, the way that Miller manipulates time to tell Circe's story is fascinating, and what makes Circe such a compelling read.
Madeline Miller is also the author of The Song of Achilles, which was awarded the Orange Prize for Fiction and now has the reputation as a modern classic. For more of Madeline Miller and her books, you can find it all here.
*This review can also be found on my Goodreads page*
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