Greek Myths: A New Retelling, with drawings by Chris Ofili

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As cleverly as her protagonists (Athena, Alcithoë, Arachne, Andromache, Helen, Circe and Penelope) weave their tapestries, so she threads her stories. It was so nice to encounter a retelling of Greek mythology where the female characters/goddesses were the ones who were "spinning the yarn" and "pulling all the strings" in oratory for once. And who we know grieves for the children she birthed from Paris and the life she knew before him, with him, and now in her years now with her husband Menelaus, ready to drink to forget. If you want a feminist (revisionist) retelling where the main female protagonist is actually interesting and/ or gets a redemption arc, THIS IS REALLY NOT THAT BOOK.

But, the way in which it is told sort of left me feeling unable to connect with the people and story. Looking down from Olympus, Aphrodite smiled to herself, then shrugged, and started to comb out her long, shining hair. Other chapters also incorporate The Odyssey, The Homeric Hymns, Euripides, Sophocles, etc, but these are all interwoven and retold amazingly. Each chapter is dedicated to a woman using weaving to tell their own story and stories that they’ve heard.

Recounting Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the Trojan War of in The Iliad, The Odyssey, Homer’s Hymns, and so much more, I thoroughly enjoyed having a woman’s perspective on these stories. What I did expect from this book was a slightly more academic retelling of the myths and I did expect there to be a more feminist perspective on the stories, especially when you look at the table of contents and the chapters are all named after women in the mythology.

The importance of visualisation to the enjoyment of this book, a beautiful artefact in itself, is subtly indicated by prompts to the mind’s eye in the form of Chris Ofili’s exquisite line drawings on the dustjacket and at the opening of each chapter, and by the colour scheme. Whilst I can see why some might like the writing, for me it kind of read like a textbook at times due to just how much information and different stories the author was trying to cover. I especially loved the portrayal of Medea (my favourite, guys she has dragons AND magic) and Helen, who is given a far more sympathetic treatment than most other versions.The vast portions of their lives women spent weaving are ubiquitously reflected in ancient mythology. She had no idea what he was saying, but every newly awakened instinct in her body was telling her to get away from him. Absolutely not, not even as a first-time reader of the myths, since the author manages something that I didn’t ever think it was possible: she makes Greek mythology terribly boring and unengaging. The premise of the book is that each chapter is one woman, who is within the myths, weaving a tapestry telling the stories of those who went before her, each chapter finishing with the myth of the weaver herself.

This book was so good in that it retells most (of not all available) Greek myths through the eyes of the women, working the loom, to tell these stories. In Charlotte Higgins's thrilling new interpretation of these ancient stories, their tales combine to form a dazzling, sweeping epic of storytelling.Arachne who shows us the true ugliness of the gods, and in the end still loses to Athena (who honestly sucks). A the death of their king and his daughter the Corinthians started rioting; they were a mob, terrifying in their cries for vengeance. Penelope weaves a design ‘as intricate as her own involved, withheld mind’ … Detail from Penelope and the Suitors by John William Waterhouse.

Although her chief model is Ovid’s phantasmagoric mythological compendium in his Metamorphoses, her voice is quite different – more tender and pensive – and she uses her considerable scholarly skills to mine many other ancient sources, rescuing some little-known stories from obscurity. In other occasions, while explaining one myth, the author will suddenly jump to another, give it one paragraph, and the go back to the first one in the same sentence, making it quite difficult to full concentrate on what’s going on.

And there's too particular ones that use this system so well, because they make it more organic and less stiff - Circe's chapter fits itself into the scenes of Odysseus in her island, and then Arachne's has it taking place during the competition with Athena, and has the two tapestries, each with a theme to itself!