Hello and welcome to another episode of Is Just Fantasy, where every week two nerds
get together to rate, read and review a fantasy novel.
I'm your host, Geordie Bailey.
And I'm the man who was punished by the gods to do this podcast, at the end of time, Duncan
Nicoll.
Duncan, it's good to be back.
It might not have been so long for our listeners, but it feels like quite a long time for me.
I know, we've had a real good break.
We've both been away on holiday.
Oh, but we're back in the room.
Geordie, how was your time away?
You went hiking.
I did.
I had a very nice time.
I went off hiking in Sweden.
I started off by a visit to Stockholm, where I saw a Bruce Springsteen concert, which was...
I had fun.
I always have fun at Bruce Springsteen's concerts.
I think that was my fourth time going to see him.
But I will tell you this, Duncan.
I learned something about Swedes.
Swedes do not get up and dance at concerts.
Sorry.
They don't.
I was quite flummoxed by this because there were people who all around me who just sat
down throughout the whole performance.
They had their arms crossed.
They stared straight ahead.
And occasionally, occasionally, someone would stand up and wave their hands in the air and
other people would sort of do it in a ripple.
And then they would sit straight back down and cross their arms again.
It was a bit unnerving.
Wait, so it's been to concerts.
At the front, there's normally standing.
There was still that.
Oh, yeah.
They're going crazy.
The people at the back in the seats are like, no, no, no, no.
It's a clear divide.
You make your decision when you buy your ticket.
That's right.
I paid for this seat.
I'm going to sit in it.
Do you want to?
I, to this day, can't get over the fact that when you go and see a band, the standing tickets
are more expensive.
This makes no sense to me.
I'm getting less.
If you go to the Globe, they're the cheapest seats.
A precedent was set by Shakespeare.
I was just about to say at the Globe.
You want to be a groundling.
No, when I go to the Globe, mate, I always get a seat.
I've actually never stood.
I'm like, no, no, no.
I'm at the top in the shade.
I don't know, man.
I've never been a groundling either, but I have had bad experiences of seating in the
Globe.
I had to spend all of Richard the First, not Richard the First.
Is there even a Shakespeare play about him?
Richard the Third, leaning ever so slightly to the side to look past a wooden column,
a column which my mum was sat directly behind like she was Jenny Nicholson on the Star Cruiser.
Trying to wait to see if Duncan gets that joke.
No.
Okay, we'll come back to that.
But yes, I went to Sweden, and after I went to this concert, I went off on my hike.
I was hiking for a week up the Hyggekusteläden, the high coast way, and it was great.
It was supposed to be a seven day trek.
I actually ended up doing it in six.
It's a very beautiful coastal trek, quite far north in Sweden.
I never ever saw the sun set.
I normally went to bed pretty early because I got tired, so I settled down in my tent
and it would be fully light.
And then you'd wake up in the morning at five o'clock and it was fully daytime.
I only saw the sun rise once on my last night where I was just too uncomfortable.
I kept waking up.
I said, fine, whatever, I'll get started early.
So I got up at 3am and I started my hike.
So I managed to see the cunt.
So then at 3am I managed to see the sun come up.
But on that last day, I normally did about 25 kilometres a day.
But on the last day, I kind of reached my end point where I wanted to be for day six
by 12 o'clock.
And a lot of things sort of happened around that time.
One, I was feeling really good and full of energy and like, yeah, I could keep going.
The other thing that happened was I was just straight up out of water, like period.
It was a hot day.
It was very dry.
I couldn't just camp there because the only water to drink was the Baltic Sea.
And I'm told that's a bad idea.
Good survival instinct, mate.
Thank you.
That's me.
I'm a wilderness man now.
I know these things.
So I just said, I'm going to keep walking.
I'm just going to keep walking, at least until I find a water source.
It'll just make tomorrow, my last day, way easier.
It's already going to be a short day.
And then about like 30 kilometres into my trek, I'm stopping.
I find a stream to fill up my bottle.
Oh, I thought that when you said a water source, in my head, like in the English countryside,
that's like, oh yeah, you found a pub and you go in, you're like, can you fill up my
bottle for me at the bar?
No, yeah, you found a little stream up in the mountains.
And then I called my parents and I told them, yeah, I'm feeling pretty good today.
I think I might even try and press towards the end.
My dad said, oh, good idea if you're feeling up to it.
In fact, we'll look into what hotel rooms might be available for you at the end.
I thought, that's a great idea.
Now I have something to look forward to.
I keep walking.
15 minutes later, I get a text from my mum and she says, okay, we've booked you a hotel
room.
Well, that's not what we agreed.
You said you'd look into them and see if they're really available.
And now there is one that's not just available, but it's paid for and it's waiting for me,
which means I have to make it.
Oh, the pressure's on.
Every day I walked between 20 and 25 kilometres, on that last day I walked 47 kilometres and
had to climb over three burgs to get to the end.
What time did you get into that hotel room?
To be honest, not that late, but again, I started at 3am, so I got in at like half past
5.
So 3am to 5am, it's like 14 hours of hiking with some breaks.
That is full on Flesh of the Ring style stuff, mate.
Jesus.
I did have so much more sympathy for Sam and his poor little hobbit feet.
He didn't even have shoes on.
He was climbing through Mordor, that's not fair.
But also, I don't feel bad because they stopped at Rivendell for like three months.
Like come on.
Wait, no, they, yeah, they do.
Can you imagine if they had it like all the other events like the Battle of Pelnor Fields?
Like all those people who die at Minas Tirith could have not.
They just don't think about it.
Don't think about it.
No, they didn't deserve a little break.
Yes.
So that's an incredible.
So if they didn't, they wouldn't have Legolas and Gimli and Boromir.
I guess.
Anyway, I had a great time in Sweden.
The Swedes were very friendly.
On my second day on the trek, it was raining all day long and it was heavy rain.
So as I was limping towards my final destination, climbing up a hill looking very miserable,
a very nice Swedish man called Jervin came out of his house and insisted I stay in his
guest house.
Now, you see, what's so lovely about this story, and obviously I know it ends well because
you're back with us.
If that happened to me in the UK, one, it wouldn't.
And two, my instant reaction would be, no, I'm good.
And then get the hell further up that path.
What do you mean you'd be nice to me?
No, you can't show me charity.
That doesn't add up.
Much like in ancient Greece, I relied on the hospitality of my host to never betray me
or turn me into a pig.
But Duncan, before we get into that, how have your holidays been?
What have you been up to?
This and that.
I'm a man who's seen a lot of DIY, a lot of beautiful gardening.
I laid turf the first time, Geordie.
Have you ever laid turf before?
Very nice.
Have I laid turf before?
Yes.
Only as a euphemism.
Well, apparently the best way to do it is with a bread knife.
And then you have to be very unfriendly to the environment and water it twice a day.
In fact, when I did go away on my holiday, I went to a festival.
I had to ask my mum, could you come around my house and water my lawn for me?
It made me feel very weird.
But it's settled now, is it?
It's taken root.
It's definitely done very well.
A few little dry patches.
Don't worry, I did leaf notes, have words for my mother.
She's like, excuse me.
I have to do all of it.
Doesn't count otherwise.
But no, that turned out brilliant.
Well, I'm actually going to talk to Geordie before we get into this actual book of this
episode named after.
Geordie, after our Thrawn trilogy, people who listen to that might be like, guys, get
off Star Wars, we're done.
But I fell back into the wormholes.
I just need to dive on it one more time.
Geordie, like my favorite YouTuber, Sarcastic Productions, did an episode talking about
Revenge of the Sith.
I'm a fan-ish in a weird way.
We read the novel.
I never asked you this, Geordie.
Are you happy that I got you to Revenge of the Sith first, or do you think I should have
just gone straight in with Air of the Empire as Star Wars is going?
I think they're both decent choices for starting points.
But I have no regrets about you picking that one, although I think they're not as good
as the Thrawn trilogy.
Question is, I don't know whether, considering it was such early days in the podcast, I probably
wouldn't have chosen to read the second one.
I feel like I would have been like, I don't want to get bogged down so early in our podcast
history.
We need to do...
What did you do after that?
I think it was Good Omens.
Yeah.
So I'm glad you didn't introduce me to it back then, because we probably wouldn't have
given it so much of our airtime.
Well, not to give it too much more, but Geordie, so I listened to this YouTube video from Sarcastic
Productions, and they brought up fan edits again.
I just want to talk about this.
I found them to the wormhole of Star Wars fan edits, and Geordie, there's one of them
that I just want to tell you about, because it's so cool.
It's talked about in that episode by Sarcastic Productions, and what it is, it's a fan edit...
Just to jump in, it's overly sarcastic productions, just in case people haven't heard of them.
Much more successful content creators than us, and you want to check them out.
They do make very good videos on history and media tropes.
Again, if you're listening to us, you've probably heard of them.
In this episode, they talk about a Star Wars fan edit called Black Mantle, and it is amazing.
Geordie, imagine this.
Revenge of the Sith in black and white.
Okay.
A bit basic, but let me add to that.
Revenge of the Sith in black and white, but edited together with scenes from Phantom Menace
and Attack of the Clones, put in as flashbacks.
So it's like the whole prequel trilogy functions as one two and a half hour feature.
Alright, sure.
The one Star Wars fan edit I've ever seen was an edit to Attack of the Clones, and literally
all they did was they took the final scene of Qui-Gon being killed by Darth Maul, and
Darth Maul being killed by Obi-Wan, and they just stapled it to the front of Attack of
the Clones.
Because then the point being, that's literally all you need from the first movie.
That's all that matters is Obi-Wan, the Sith have returned, and Qui-Gon gives the injunction
to Obi-Wan, train the boy.
And while those things are great, if you're watching that fan edit, guess what?
You've already suffered through the Phantom Menace.
That's how it happens.
Unless you have a really good friend who's going to bring you in, but in a really weird
way.
But anyway, so back to Black Mantle, so it does that.
Okay, but here's the real kicker.
They use the Japanese dub, and then rewrite the subtitles.
So many dialogue fixes.
That's evil genius, oh my god.
So when you watch it, it's actually like watching it new.
So I've watched other fan edits of the Pequal trilogy, and often they're just cut down versions.
They've taken off some of the less, how do I say it, engaging scenes.
They've redone the music here and there to give it a different vibe.
But they just said, if you're watching the same movie again, you have moments where you
go, oh, that's what's different to how I remembered it.
But ultimately the same thing.
This makes it a completely different viewing experience.
They rephrase it.
This legitimately sounds really interesting.
They rephrase it so that Padme and Anakin, that's not a secret.
You know, Obi-Wan's literally like, go and see your wife, have a lovely time.
They do it so that what Anakin's looking for, what gets his attention is that he can see
the future.
It's his premonitions that make the Jedi take an interest in him.
And what he's going to Palpatine for is Palpatine's like, have you heard of Plagueis the Wise?
He too could see the future, but he learned how to change his visions.
They're not set in stone.
Lots of changes like that and more.
And what made it so great is I actually felt like I was watching something new.
Also, obviously if you do speak Japanese, it's going to completely throw you off because
they've just used the normal dub and then re-written the sub.
So you'll be there like, that's not what they said.
They just said the normal line.
But other than that, really great way of reworking and feeling new, genuinely feeling fresh again.
So highly recommend it.
It was great.
Also, because Japan has such a robust animation industry that requires a lot of voice acting,
they have a huge suite of incredibly talented voice actors.
So even if you've occasionally seen stuff like the Japanese dub of Thor Ragnarok or
The Boys, you know, oh my god, these guys do incredible dub work.
It sounds so vivid and dramatic and you know, like it's an anime.
The dude who does Hayden Christensen, I don't know his name, but he does amazing.
The intensity.
He is not phoning it in.
He is giving it 110%.
Fantastic.
But enough of that sly waltz.
I had to just do it one more time.
Geordie, we're here to talk about a really amazing book.
I want you to use the word prestigious, not only because it's won so many awards, actual
like literature awards, but it's the sequel to the book that in many ways won our award
for the like the best, most highest ranked book on this podcast in a bit of a complex
fashion.
Go listen to our top 50 to hear about it.
But the sequel to Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller.
We're talking today about Circe.
Sequel, prequel, midquel, around about all.
More like the continuing saga, isn't it?
Chronicles.
Now, this book is very strange.
I guess we're just starting our review now because I do.
Is there something else you want to say Duncan?
Or can I start?
Geordie, are you about to give your thoughts on it?
I think I should just add a little a little forewarning.
I have actually read this book before.
I did mention that previously.
So I actually read this book before Song of Achilles.
This is my reread for me.
But it's the first time rereading it since reading Song of Achilles.
So I'll hand it over to you, Geordie, give your first thoughts and then I'll fill people in
on what this book is about.
Yes.
So this book is the as I said, like it's it surrounds Song of Achilles.
Song of Achilles is a very minute, narrow story, even though it takes place over the
span of 10 years, which is a long time, even in the canon of of all of all of literature.
Like 10 years is like pretty standard for like some of the Dickens novels.
But also some of his novels take place over, you know, an afternoon.
This one takes place over a substantially longer period of time, potentially all of
human history, pretty much like from Mycenaean Greece to like the end, the entire heroic
age of Greece.
I really not what I expected, not what I expected at all, because I knew that it was about Circe
and I knew it was going to be about her relationship with Odysseus.
And that is an important part of this book, which is why I picked it for our Troy Book
of the Year, because apparently we do one every year.
We're going to do David Gemmell's one at some point.
But that is turns out quite a small part of a great story of Circe, because really, this
book is not strictly about Circe.
It is the orbital platform which Madeline Miller flies around so she can do all of the
greatest hits of Greek mythology and its canon.
Yes, that is one way to put it.
I do feel like it is still quite a narrative.
This is Circe's story, but Circe's story, and I'm going to be clear, Geordie, I'm not
super familiar with the closest thing to the Greek canon, Homer's works.
I don't really know where a lot of this stacks up compared to that sort of established lore.
It's a mix and match.
Even though I'm a huge fan of Greek mythology and it's been an obsession of mine since I
was a boy, I really didn't know much about Circe.
I knew that she lived beyond just the Odyssey.
I knew she was related to Medea somehow, but that's all I knew.
To be honest, I'm not sure how much of this book is sort of made up.
I believe I read in the start of this book, it comes with a...
I listened to the audiobook of Kirke.
Sorry, stop.
What's that pronunciation?
And Kirke.
Circe.
Kirke.
It's pronounced Kirke.
It's an ancient Greek name.
They didn't have a s sound, or C is pronounced with a k.
The audiobook narrator didn't agree with me, but audiobook narrators are wrong about pronunciation
all the time.
If you've ever listened to the audiobook for The Crystal Shard, and indeed the first three
books in the trilogy of Drizzt or whatever it's called, that dude couldn't pronounce
the word lived.
He couldn't pronounce the word lived.
Lie-ved.
No! Lie-ved.
Like, he lived.
He pronounced it lie-ved.
I know!
That's not an obscure word!
I was making it so Geordie that if you were to do it wrong you would say livid, because
at least that's another word.
I know!
He was always pronouncing it like it was the word live, like it's live on television.
And he lie-ved.
Wow.
Yes.
And once the good people of Brynshander lie-ved within Icewind Dale.
God almighty.
Anyway, um, anyway, I'm right, she's wrong, it's Kirke.
I will be pronouncing it Kirke for the rest of this episode, just to show solidarity with
everyone else who's wrong out there apparently.
But yes, I didn't know much about Circe or her connection to other parts of the great
mythos.
I'm sure most of it is made up.
I know from the appendix at the start that it says the story of Glaucus is taken from
Ovid's Metamorphosis, and I somewhat doubt that Circe is actually a part of that story.
I think she's sort of just stapled, I said Circe, dammit.
I somehow doubt that Circe was actually a part of that story.
I feel like she was, she was made into an important witness.
And I think that's very fair.
I obviously, I think the majority of people who read this bit were coming from my standpoint
of knowing nothing.
So I do think it's perfectly fair to twist this and write on it and expand on it, give
it your own take.
This is someone's own take.
So I don't, like, if it does divulge, that means nothing to me.
Like it's not a knock.
And in the same way that Song of Achilles and Signs of the Girls, very stray from the
canon, you know, she sticks to it in ways where you can tell she's making a point to
say I am paying attention to canon, I am referencing it here and being very deliberate about this.
Like a dude falls off the roof in this book and it feels a bit out there.
But I checked the front of the book and it says this dude fell off the roof in the Odyssey.
And I'm like, okay, I forgot about that bit.
So I think that's going to give us the explanation.
Allow me just to that kind of open summary.
Circe is the witch from the Odyssey.
She lives on an island that Odysseus lands upon.
There is magic, there are people being turned into pigs, and ultimately Odysseus is his
normal charming, smart self.
And he resolves the issue.
No spoilers just yet.
But this book, you're right, it focuses purely on Circe and it goes right back to her beginnings
as a child of the Titan Helios and Perses.
Perseus?
Perses.
Duncan, for this book, I'm never, ever going to make fun of you for struggling to pronounce
these, because these are, it is full of characters who are from Greek mythology, but are not
main players whatsoever.
And I'm looking at the pronunciation guide and it is doing me no help.
The number of names which are extremely similar to each other, we've got Protens and Perseus
and Perse and Pasiphaë.
They're all members of the same family, by the way.
Perse, Perseus and Pasiphaë.
Oh, this is going to hurt.
Geordie, I had this on very recently.
I was listening to the You’re Dead to Me podcast by the BBC, it's a great history podcast.
I learnt something, I learnt a pronunciation thing and it actually blew my mind, because
not only was I wrong, but all of my teachers at schools apparently were wrong.
So can I just ask you, what's the name of the theorem about the length of the hypotenuse
of a right angular triangle?
Pythagoras Theorem.
Pith-a-gore-us.
Blew my mind.
Very good.
I told this to my Greek colleague, he went, obviously, you stupid Englishman.
Right.
Yeah, just like Van-Koch or Chinggis Khan, we forget all about the actual pronunciation
of these historical names.
But she is the daughter of these two beings, she is not the most loved daughter and she
has a very hard childhood in this time.
Aside from the start, we get our most coherent theme throughout the book, which is everyone
is mean to Circe all the time.
It's actually difficult for me a little bit, at points, to read through this.
I found this very challenging because I felt the meanness in this, I don't know if it's
unlike, I'm trying to get a song on Kili, that's probably unfair, but so much of it
seems completely out of almost nowhere.
It's like, why are you being horrible to her?
She's done nothing extra, she is no extra, she is just as she is.
And everyone, even if it's not like, out of the horrific, it's almost like the thing that
being most mean to this person about is that she's not as mean as they are.
Yeah, it's a book full of Regina Georges.
I'm going to actually say Duncan that this theme throughout the book of everyone is just
mean to Circe all the time, and they all suck.
It just really didn't actually resonate with me as much as I thought it was supposed to.
So this is obviously a deeply sad book, like down to its very bones, there's very little
joy to be had.
And that sort of overbearing, continuous sense of misery, it sort of just like rolled over
me like pebbles.
I described this to my girlfriend the other day when I was leading up to recording this
episode, I said, the thing about Song of Achilles is that sad, bad stuff happens throughout
the book, but what it's really about is a big wind up punch.
The book tells you from the start, it's going to go wrong.
It shows you a clenched fist and says, you're going to be sad.
And then it spends the whole book being like, whoa, oh, it's coming.
Why would I attack Hector?
He's done nothing to me.
You ready for it?
It's coming.
And you spend 400 pages wincing, feeling like, oh, I'm going to get punched.
I'm going to get punched.
And then you do get punched and there's nothing you can do about it.
And it's horrible.
This book is like constantly being jabbed or poked the whole time.
And it's not as effective as the wind up punch.
I absolutely love that metaphor.
Completely do rarely do the explanations, but you're right.
You said doing total jab.
If you want to use that metaphor, this is like the character Circe is on the street
and every random person that walks past just gives you a quick slap in the face.
And as soon as you're going, ow, before you even finish, what was that for?
The next person comes along and just slaps you again.
And then again.
And that's right.
Until eventually you're just in the- Exactly.
You'll get into a feet of work position eventually.
And that's what happens here.
Circe is a god, but she gets involved with magic she shouldn't have.
And she is banished for eternity to a island to live in isolation.
And people rock up, people from the Odyssey and other greatness and they show up.
And most of the time she tries to be nice and they're mean to her and it goes a bit
wrong and then they leave.
And this format goes on a bit until we get to the end and things are mildly happier-ish.
Okay, that's a good summary.
That's good.
That's a pretty good summary, Duncan.
Geordie, can I tell you my thoughts on this?
I know you kind of just said yours.
Circe, everyone, I have such high thoughts.
I've read this before, Song of Achilles.
And when I read Song of Achilles, my main thought was, damn, that blew Circe out of
the water for me.
Circe is a well-written book.
It's a well-researched book.
It sure is, no doubt.
With really actually well-developed characters.
But as I think Geordie alluded to for himself, same for me, just the emotional connection
was just not as strong as I had in Song of Achilles.
And I'm not quite sure, I think we just explained it a little bit, why that might have been
the point.
But it just didn't click.
I didn't feel, I didn't empathise or sympathise to the same level as Song of Achilles.
That said, I do want to make this very clear.
Song of Achilles, we put on one of the highest totems that we have on this podcast.
This is one of the absolute finest.
Yes, it's tied for the best book that we've read on the entire podcast so far.
So that's pretty, you know, if I'm saying it wasn't as good as that, there's still
a long way between there and that.
This is definitely not bad.
In fact, I don't know about you Geordie, but the other Troy book we've read, Seeker of
the Gales, I would still put this slightly ahead of that book.
Maybe not by an awful lot, but I still would.
Yeah, probably.
I think I would.
The thing about this book, Duncan, is that what it shares in common with Song of Achilles
is that Madeleine Miller is a beautiful writer.
It's so poetic.
There's just some description, particularly on the island, where things are being nice
and it's about the flowers and the blue sea and the sun above.
It's gorgeous.
The painting of these scenes is absolutely lovely.
It makes you kind of, despite how horrible the world is, want to step onto that beautiful,
idyllic Greek island, often done in contrast to the wicked events that are occurring.
Absolutely.
There's something really interesting about the theme of that book, which is that this
is a book about isolation.
First and foremost, that's what it's about.
It's about isolation, but it's not really about loneliness.
That plays into it at certain points.
But really, it's a story about the pleasures that come with being alone.
That's something which I can definitely connect with.
I'm someone who... I need space away from people sometimes.
I just came back from a solo hiking trip.
I don't have anyone else in my life who's interested in going with me on a 150 kilometer
trek across Sweden.
That time to myself, even though there were many, many times when I was out, I was like,
I miss people.
I wish they were here.
The time spent by myself acting under my own power, relying only upon myself, is extremely
rewarding and peaceful.
And I was just going to find out, obviously, I'm a very different human being.
I went to a festival.
I was surrounded by human beings.
But I also... What I really like about this book is that you talk about isolation.
Yes, it's the physical isolation of the island, but there's the isolation early on in the
book where she's at her father's court.
So how I'm going to describe it, he lives in this court.
And she's still isolated, but isolated, surrounded by people.
And what I think is so beautiful is like...
She's ostracized in that group.
She's othered while surrounded by people.
So when she's separated from them, there's actual tangible distance.
That isolation, it becomes real.
And instead of being clamoring isolation, where you are shut up by the silence of noise,
where your voice has no impact and no one will hear you, when you are literally alone
and no one can hear you, except for yourself, what can Circe do?
But she can sing to herself.
And I love the fact that she comes into her own power then.
This is story, and I would say that's the running out of... This book is quite episodic.
And I do want to explore each of the episodes individually as we go, because some of them
I absolutely love.
But as a sort of overall, this book is her character development.
From wanting to be included in the crowd, to being physically ostracized from it, to
being physically isolated from it, but then coming into her own power and going, actually,
I'm happy where I stand.
I do miss people and a level of interaction, and she just enjoy when she does interact,
but she knows that she can survive and manage on her own, and she does.
Yeah, there's something about this book, which I, at a certain point, I almost wanted to
call it cottagecore power fantasy.
And it's about, she becomes a witch.
She starts learning how to use herbs and doing magic through classic witchcraft stuff.
Like brewing and mixing up different plants and that.
And what I found really interesting about it is that there's a very deliberate emphasis
on the fact that her power comes from traditionally feminine arts.
This is very deliberately saying stuff which men are not interested in, and they don't
find value in, is the thing that makes her stronger than various gods.
And there's something about that, particularly in the way we talk about she's a witch.
I referenced earlier the court.
This story, although it is so deeply rooted in obviously the Greek mythos, is a story
that I feel like could be very easily retold in a medieval setting, with a more classic
medieval witch, ostracized and people come to the cottage.
But that story of self-empowerment and working outside of society can be taken again and
again and again.
Obviously, I think the whole of Greek myths can be praised for that, that you can retell
these stories in different settings than they still fundamentally work.
Yeah, Daedalus and Icarus, who are important characters in this book, are so monumentally
iconic that people who have absolutely no interest in Greek mythology not only know
the story like the back of their hands, but they also incorporate it into all sorts of
other stories.
Like the theme of the word Icarus, it has a meaning onto itself now.
It barely even attached itself to a story.
Yeah, and I think the phrase, flying too close to the sun, is almost just part of normal
lingo.
We all know what you're messing up there.
Let's break down the different episodes.
I think they really come down to, aside from the very beginning of a story where it's a
childhood, that is a part of a story, but it's not really worth focusing on too much
because we've already covered the main theme, which is that people are jerks.
I think that you have to focus on the, I've already forgotten his name, Glaucus, the Glaucus
story and the Scylla story, which is connected to that, that leads to her isolation.
You have her being by herself and the introduction of Hermes, so I guess that's another section.
There's the Minotaur, there's Medea, there's the sailors, there's Odysseus, and then that's
basically part three is just post-Odysseus part of the story.
Quite right, and kind of moving towards the conclusion.
The Glaucus and Scylla, I think this is a real kickoff event.
This is what gets Circe out into the world.
As you said, Geordie, it wasn't apparently part of her original myth.
This is pulling another story, another source, and incorporating Circe into it, but fundamentally
this story of a human fisherman who meets Circe, doesn't know she's a god, loves her,
but Circe's sad, she can't be with him forever.
What can she do?
She'll use the deep magics and she'll make him a god.
Well, she doesn't know she has these powers, this is sort of how she discovers that she
has them.
She makes a wish come true and she turns him into a god, a god of the sea, an Ariad.
And what does the arsehole do?
He leaves her for someone else.
Yes, he does the classic second act of a rock and roll movie.
He's made it big, he's forgotten where he comes from.
Now I suppose what's quite interesting here, just want to pick on the theme here, Circe
gets really angry at this and she takes out, I don't think she takes out Freddie on him,
she takes out the person that he leaves her for, Scylla.
He's interested in Scylla, a nymph from Helios' court.
And she takes her friends on Scylla by transforming her into an iconic monster from the Greek
myth.
I believe this is part of Jason's story from like the Clashing Rocks.
What's it called again?
It's The Odyssey.
Is it from The Odyssey?
It is from The Odyssey.
I've watched too much of Jason and the Argonauts.
I don't think it's from there.
I don't think they feature in Jason and the Argonauts, that might be just in the movie
version.
What is actually, is it called?
Is it called Scylla?
Scylla and Charybdis?
Yes, Scylla is the dog-headed serpent monster in the high cliff and Charybdis is like this
evil, evil whirlpool that sucks in ships, which isn't actually named in this book.
She's not called Charybdis, it's just a regular whirlpool.
So what Duncan is referring to is the Simpligates, I think it's pronounced from Jason and the
Argonauts.
I hadn't realised that he was asking me what it was called.
So yeah, Simpligates, the clashing rocks, which are these two cliffs that just smash
into each other and squish any ships that happen to come through.
Interesting but, sorry, I've just remembered, I'm thinking of Percy Jackson and the Sea
of Monsters.
Okay, well now we're getting somewhere.
That's my education in Greek myths.
Yes, and what I really like about this is that Circe is, obviously this is an event
that gets her banished from the court for doing this horrific thing and talking about
it because she touched the deep magic, but she's shown us to be wrong about this.
She should have taken it out on Scylla and also Gloucose, despite the fact that obviously
he's a bit of an arse.
Gloucose, yep, good old looking after the diabetics there.
Despite the fact that we as a reader, Simpligates and Circe, and you're like, you arse.
There's also this, there is a bit of a layer here, where you're like, well he didn't ask
her to make him immortal, and also just because someone makes you immortal doesn't mean you
owe them eternity.
He also doesn't know.
Yes.
He doesn't know that she made him immortal.
She hides that from him.
They believe she tells him that it was just his fate, that he was destined to become a
god, and everyone else agrees, yes it was destiny, it must be it, because there's no
way for a mortal to become a god, except for all the times that it happens.
I swear Zeus just has like a magic pot of nectar.
He's just like, here have a jug of that.
The classic thing is that they're like, yeah well turn him into a god, we will, we will.
Turn him into stars, turn him into a constellation, we don't want to add any more gods.
So you know, he's like, well you haven't actually done something wrong, and also the
fact that she doesn't express her emotions at all and she just takes him out violently
on, again, a bit of an arse, but ultimately a sort of an innocent party, it's clearly
displayed as wrong and I think it really gets you on this interesting footwear where you're
like, Circe has done something wrong, Circe is not necessarily a good person, she's not
as bad as a lot of the other people.
Yes, she's lashed out in anger and transformed someone into what she thinks they are.
So she believes at first that her powers of transformation, again at the beginning she
doesn't think that they are her powers, she thinks they're the powers of some magical
plants.
She thinks what they do is they reveal the true form of something.
So she believes that Glaucus, you know, deep down he is noble enough to be a god, so when
he lays down in these flowers, he becomes a god, and that proves her theory correct.
And so she believes that when she scatters these same flowers upon Scylla's river or
stream or what have you, it turns her into this hideous monster, well that just reveals
that deep down she was a monster.
But no, that's not what it does, it reveals only her perception of what they are, she
transforms people into what she believes they are deep down, which is of course going to
be very relevant when it comes to sailors later in the story.
It is indeed, and I think it's nice not to have Circe as just a pure good side.
Obviously that one in jail with her most famous studding in the Odyssey, and I also think
it's quite nice where I don't, or at least I think at this point in the novel, I don't
look at this as, oh, this is just the horrible world getting to her.
Like there's a bit in her which still has a bit of a mean streak that still lashes out,
and that's something that she has to overcome.
She's transformed someone against her will just like all the other Greek gods, you know,
deep down she's done the exact same thing that she condemns a lot of them for.
And that's really good, that gives her a place to work from and not be 100% misunderstood
or 100% this is a good person, it's the world that's corrupting them, because I think I
wouldn't have found that nearly as engaging.
So I'm very happy that this sort of decision was made, and I know if this wasn't part of
her story, I think it's really great to attach it to her in this book, because it kind of
sets us up on this arc for her to have while she's on the island.
Yes, exactly, and once she is on the island, as we've said, you know, there's this really
beautiful part where she is basically completely by herself, and it becomes about this character,
you know, learning to live by herself, and she comes to her own power through explorations
in witchcraft, and then a very interesting change is made to the story, which is that
Hermes is introduced as her main confidant.
Yes he is, and Hermes is an interesting character, obviously I'm most familiar with him in this
characterisation in the Percy Jackson books.
Yes, of course.
So it's really nice to see him here, he's introduced as her confidant, I basically felt
this in my book, like, and possibly quite rightfully, never really trusted Hermes, it
just felt like...
That's prudent and wise Duncan.
So she's just like, you are just like all the others, I'm confident you are, you might
not be showing it, but I am very confident you are not a nice guy deep deep deep deep
deep down, or maybe you are, but it is very deep.
Hermes is such a classic character because he's an archetypical trickster character,
and if you've read your, oh god I wish I could remember his name, it's my first year of study
at university, but there was this fella, I might look him up whilst I'm editing this.
I was referring to Lewis Hyde's work, Trickster Makes This World, Myth, Mischief and Art.
But he said of characters like Hermes and Mercury and Loki and the hare in certain Indian
American mythologies, that they are the characters who make the world more interesting, they
break the rules, and in doing so they invent the world anew.
So Hermes has always been this really iconic and persevering character, he shows up so
often in modern iconography, far more than even Zeus.
He sticks with people because he's interesting and he's fascinating and he's adaptable as
a character, someone we want to see explored because he is puckish and roguish, and he
has maybe a dark edge to him.
He's the god who protects travellers and doctors, but he's also the god of thieves.
And I think those kind of characteristics then lead into his often being characterised
with a lot of charisma.
Which is appropriate for the story.
Exactly, and also I feel like because he's not the guy on top, you feel like he doesn't
have this much of a daily function, it's fun to see, he can move into different modes and
he clearly has more different personalities that come forth.
But obviously back to where he is in Circe, you say a confidant, a little bit more than
just a confidant, Geordie?
Yes, so he's also her lover.
Their relationship is really interesting and strange because like you Duncan, she enjoys
Hermes' company.
For one thing, he's the only person visiting her, period, because he's the messenger.
But also, you can't trust him at all.
She knows that, I said, I used the word confidant because I was leading into this, but actually
he's not a confidant at all.
Because everything he tells her, he spreads around, he's a total gossip.
She knows that he leaves him and he spins the worst possible image of her across Mount
Olympus and the realms of the Titans.
She just doesn't care.
She puts it behind her.
She needs his company.
She enjoys his company.
She enjoys having sex with him.
So she puts up with it.
I mean, to be fair, this isn't actually one of the low points in the story.
We're talking about consistent slaps in the face.
This is probably one of the milder hits that she has.
Yeah, for sure.
I barely even registered this one.
But Geordie, this is a very short-lived.
This is, like I said, this is one of the more of the episodes.
Yes, but I will say that what it did set up for me, and I like this, this is the first
proper, this is a wind-up punch.
I wouldn't say it lands that hard, but when Hermes is introduced as her one person she
can reliably talk to and that she can not trust, but she can have nearby, that's someone
she can rely upon to talk to and to hear her, knowing that it's Hermes who's going
to betray her to Odysseus, that's the first wind-up punch in this book.
I'm like, okay, right.
Way ahead of time, you've set up for a disaster to happen.
She is going to be betrayed.
Ultimately, that punch just doesn't land because at that point in the story she's been
betrayed so many times, but I guess she just doesn't care anymore.
She's just like, oh, I was betrayed.
Well, so it goes.
So you don't get the full impact.
Very much how I felt.
It's one of those things, talking about wind-up, you're like, okay, we're going to hit you
with this later, and then you proceed to get such a battering, you're already on the ground,
and then they just come up and give you a little kick.
Doesn't have the oomph.
I really did like that.
One of my bits where I really think I stepped up into, not that I wasn't liking the book,
but my liking of this book went up a notch at this next stage, and that's when Daedalus
steps in.
Yes, I definitely enjoyed Daedalus as a presence.
Again, there's a reason why people are so hooked on the story of Icarus.
People are fascinated by this character, and Daedalus stands out a lot in the canon of
the Greek myths, just like Odysseus, because he's a hero who's clever.
He's not strong and brave.
He's not exactly a hero either, but he stands out very significantly.
Exactly, and for those who don't know a little bit about Daedalus, I love how this
book puts across one of the things that he does, and we all know he does this.
It's in the myths, it's in the stories, but when you have actual characters speaking out,
this section, oh, Geordie, stomach-turning, because Daedalus has been sent by Circe's
sister, the Queen of Crete, wife to King Minos, or Minos, and I will try and pronounce her
name.
Circe's sister, Queen of Crete, is Pasiphaë.
I've got it here in front of me as a Pasiphaë.
Pasiphaë, lovely.
Pasiphaë, the one who birthed the Minotaur, and Geordie, when they describe the fact that
Daedalus, the great inventor, made her a cow costume.
Yep.
Oh, this was stomach-turning.
Bestiality, no.
Listen, man, Greek myths are just not for you, because that is like, I don't know, the fourth
biggest instance of it.
In the myth, I think it was Ovid's version of the myth of Arachne, Arachne paints a bunch
of different times where Zeus has raped women in the forms of animals, and one of them is
in the form of a grape.
Sorry?
Yeah.
Listen, my year 11 ancient history class really tried to puzzle that one out.
We never got an answer.
Just hands in the air, sir, sir, how?
Yes, we were all doing that.
Also, definitely the earliest pickle-rig joke.
I'm sorry, that's terrible.
Disgusting.
Right.
Yeah, this is a really stomach-turning scene.
I love the birthing of the Minotaur that Pacifica gives birth to Circe's daughter as a midwife.
Yeah, that was fucked up.
Holy Prometheus by Ridley Scott, not Prometheus who's also in this book, Batman.
That was so gross.
I think this is a really great scene, though, because you're talking about fulfilling sort
of traditional women's roles in society.
Circe's the midwife.
Yeah, yeah.
Hardcore midwifery.
Very hardcore.
No, this is berserk level midwifery.
But despite the fact that she bears a flesh-eating monster that kills people right off the bat
and takes several fingers.
The Minotaur.
I really like the fact that she does do the midwifery job.
She hates her sister.
She's birthing a demon, but she's like, okay, I'm going to get this baby out of you.
I'm going to make sure you don't die.
I'm going to make sure it doesn't die.
This will not be easy.
I think it's sad that they think the baby Minotaur is ugly, because I've seen some drawings
of baby Minotaurs and they look pretty adorable.
Think about it.
Think about a little calf on a toddler's body.
Isn't that adorable?
Yeah, I think it kind of is, too.
I'm like, yeah, calves are cute.
Babies are cute.
Yeah.
Bingo bango.
I think that baby should be loved and cherished and not immediately put into a sack.
I agree with you, Geordie.
Also, though, I've never understood, like, the Minotaur is like this flesh eating monster.
And I'm like, but aren't bulls herbivores?
Not all of them are herbivores in Greek mythology.
Remind me to tell you about Diomedes' horses.
Okay.
Another day.
I'm scared.
So we have this really strong scene for her and I love it.
I also really like the fact that Daedalus in this scene...
Geordie, when I first read this book, I'll be honest with you.
I'd half forgotten who Daedalus was.
I was like, yeah, chill, chill, chill, chill, chill.
And then there's a scene later where little kid Icarus comes running in and I go, oh,
I remember now who you are.
Oh, you got wind up punched.
I guess that one's more of a rabbit punch.
You got sneak attacked.
Really effective.
And I'll say, like, you take these mythological characters, but once you connect them, I'm
thinking I think connecting with Daedalus over Icarus, you're like, oh, no, I know the
pain you're going to go through.
And what I also thought was really interesting in this story is actually that, you know,
the story of Daedalus and Icarus, we kind of jump over.
It's a bit of a time skip for Circe.
She goes back to our island after burying the Minotaur.
Yes.
And she saw just his about it later.
And I thought...
Yes, I wanted to bring it up, but you had just brought up Daedalus and I didn't want
to interrupt.
But actually, Hermes' role in the story is really specific, which is that he's the exposition
guy.
So this story covers centuries past, well, millennia passing, but the part of her being
on the island covers centuries.
And they go through a bunch of different ancient Greek heroes.
And Hermes is the guy who's going to fill in the gaps after those characters are dead
and gone and they've left the island and Circe can't possibly learn about them.
And her, like, going to visit the Minotaur on Crete is like a very special exception
where she's led off her island.
For the rest of the story, for the most part, until the very end, she never leaves.
But what I love about this is that I think it helps keep the story really laser focused
on Circe.
Like, we're not going to go off and have any interactions or see things from Daedalus'
perspective.
Although I would love to read it in Madame Minot's voice.
Like, she's an excellent author.
Yes, exactly.
That's exactly what I thought when we got to the Medea section of the book.
I was worried to begin with that when Circe...
Unfortunately, Duncan, I've been hoodwinked because I've been saying Circe for weeks
and weeks and weeks and leading up to this.
But now I'm talking about you and I'm going on autopilot.
I have, I have succumbed to peer pressure.
When Circe is talking to Medea about the horrible adventures she's been on, slicing
up her little brother, I was really thinking like, oh man, does this mean we're not going
to get Madeline Miller's version of Medea because I legitimately think it would be perfect
for her.
It's a dark, sad story where it really changes depending on whose character you see it from.
The story of Jason and Medea told from Jason's perspective and Medea is pure evil and a psycho.
But if you do it from Medea's perspective and from an ancient Greek perspective, she's
actually kind of the only one who's following the rules.
Again, not overly familiar with what you're referring to.
I think I know someone definitely murders someone else's kids and they do end up divorced.
Jason and Medea have two daughters together?
Uh, this is incorrect.
I was thinking of how Medea has two daughters kill their father in order to better Jason's
chances of winning a throw.
Because she's great.
They actually have like a bunch of children depending on the story between two and fourteen.
Oh, but Medea also kills two of them.
Which might be what I was thinking of.
And they are neglected when Jason marries a more proper bride.
Like even though he's married still to Medea, they have not gotten divorced and Hera is
furious about this and Hera is Jason's patron god.
So Medea has his children murdered and like destroys his entire life and she leaves and
she escapes and she like is never actually harmed.
Like she doesn't get punished by the gods because she's been the one who's been following
the rules even though she like murders her own brother.
It's all okay.
It's all kosher.
And then Jason has like the most depressing end for all Greek heroes, which is saying
something which is that he returns to the Argonaut.
You know, his boat.
No, sorry, the Argonaut.
He turns to the Argo.
He is an Argonaut and he says, “everyone has deserted me.
All of my sailing friends have gone home.
I've lost all the treasures that I sought.
It was all for nothing.
I lost both my wives.
You're my only friend.”
And then the mast head of the Argo breaks off, falls down, cracks him on the head and
he dies.
Oh, that's sad.
That's not heroic.
That is not noble.
Oh, yeah, that dude's sad.
And he's just straight up not a good hero.
I'm sorry.
I know you love Jason and the Argonauts, the movie.
And I don't think I don't know how your version of that story ends by very much doubt.
It's like, no, quite famously, I say quite famous, probably not actually, probably quite
obscure by all accounts.
That film ends on a, or there be a sequel.
It literally ends on the happiest point of the story where they set sail with the fleece
in one hand, Medea on his arm, and it's like, let's go home and then just roll credits.
So literally the exact second before everything goes wrong.
Completely.
It's just the heroic bits.
And they even cut out the murder of Medea's brother.
Just like, it's just like the Northern Lights movie, The Golden Compass.
Yes, yes, exactly like that.
Jason and the Argonauts is a fantastic movie, effects by Ray Harryhausen.
I was obsessed as a nerdy teenager with stop motion animation.
It didn't go anywhere, but it was a weird obsession.
I had a few.
Right.
So yeah, I would love to see a story from Medea's side, but this isn't it.
I like the fact that we see laser focus on Circe because one, I think it super reflects
her immortality.
The fact that these other stories, as you've accounted, sometimes centuries later, and
she's just got to go, oh, humans.
Am I right?
Yeah, she predicts that she's born before human beings exist.
So I think that's really well done.
You mentioned Medea.
That does bring us to the next sort of episode.
They kind of have interaction.
They stop off.
She has a really nice chat with Medea.
I think Circe recognized Medea as a, I don't know, a witch.
Yeah.
I was about to say like a sister.
A human witch.
Yeah.
Someone that I think they have a connection.
They're like, okay, we're both witches.
We're both trying to get what we want.
And I really like the fact that at this stage, now you've told me that information, Circe
kind of has this conversation with Medea, which is like, you can't trust him.
You can't trust anyone.
They're all going to betray you in the end.
And Medea's like, no, Jason loves me.
Thank you for telling me where that goes.
Yeah.
I think Hermes does give you a Cliff Notes version where he says, “and she went back to
her dad and I guess she wasn't in trouble or whatever.”
But yeah.
So that story, it serves as this moment of Circe trying to act.
She's a sort of Cassandra figure in a lot of this book because no one will ever listen
to her.
Not even Odysseus will really listen to her when she comes to give him advice.
And they will all end up paying for it.
And that's again, part of the dramatic irony.
Even when she's in her own power.
Even when she's by herself, she can't be disrespected by everyone all over again.
She's still neglected.
She's still forgotten because she has wisdom to give hard earned knowledge and no one wants
it.
No one wants to listen to her.
They're the hard truth, Geordie.
Come on, let's listen to some nice easy lies.
You don't want to know that people are going to stop loving us and leave us.
You're right.
We don't want to hear that.
Nope.
But it doesn't mean it's not true.
I think.
And you know what?
I think this sounds really awful.
I don't want to say this.
I think there are going to be different readers who may empathise with that in particular
a lot more.
Sure.
I think it's definitely something where I was reading this and maybe this comparing
it off as someone with Achilles was like, oh, this is really interesting.
This isn't something that I personally can fully step into, but I think this has been
portrayed really well.
And I think as someone who maybe has felt this more in their life or feels that way
at the moment, like this book could be a cathartic read to kind of see those emotions play out
in a character and experience their whole story.
I think it's now worth getting into what I feel is now I couldn't I wasn't tracking this
properly, but I reckon it's basically the second half of the book.
And that is like the period of the book that leads directly up to the Odyssey.
It covers her relationship with Odysseus and then the aftermath of the Odyssey.
Do you think there's about 50%?
I think so.
It's only 50% maybe page count.
I don't know if it was 50% in like happening.
I think things do slow down a lot because we're really playing out over much.
Yes, they do.
Literally they slow down because millennia happened in the first half and then 20 years
in the second.
Yeah, about that.
Kids got to get older.
They got to meet.
It does perturb me that we've spoken for an hour about the half of the book, which is not
about what we want to talk about.
And we normally do 80 minute episodes.
So maybe maybe I got to cut out some of our talk about the Minotaur.
But I guess it depends how much you want to talk about the stuff with Odysseus.
I get before we do that, though, we have to talk about content warnings.
Hooray.
Yes.
And it's really interesting to say that I want to talk about this is a very challenging
bit of the book.
Before Odysseus formally steps in, we have the sexual assault of Circe by a group of
male sailors.
In particular, I think it's their captain.
I say sexual assault rape.
And it is a very hard thing to read.
I think it was done very well.
Yeah, it was it was awful.
It was a horrible, horrible scene.
I think Bannon Miller does a very good job.
And I think compared to other fiction that we've ever read in terms of keeping this both
focused on the victim.
Yes, focused on the victim.
Things are have a visceral feeling, but I don't think they're too explicitly graphic.
And yeah, I focus heavily on not only obviously the emotional trauma of the event, but very
much the latter half of this book is then, you know, exploring the character and from
the fallout of it and how this impacts her.
So yes, because what you need to get from you need to get from sympathetic Circe never
did anything wrong.
Not really, except for that one time she made a monster out of out of Scylla.
And now you need to turn her into why is she turning everyone who visits her islands into
pigs in the Odyssey?
Because in the Odyssey, Circe is one of the many villains that Odysseus face on her journey.
You have cyclopses, you have other giants that eat people, you have lotus eaters.
And now you've got a new one.
You've got an evil witch who he has to outfox.
And in a feminist retelling of that story, how do you reframe it?
And the answer, it almost just rolls off the tongue.
Like the fact that Circe turns men into pigs is so directly in line with like standard
like blasé feminist language from the mid 20th century saying men are pigs as a sort
of, you know, a blasé throwaway way to express frustrations at the cruelty and and and the
crassness of men.
It just it the stars align.
It's so obvious.
And links right back to the start of the novel.
Circe's magic, she can transform people into what she thinks of their true selves.
But it's really how she views them.
She thinks they're pigs.
She turns them into pigs.
And she kills them.
She doesn't just she doesn't just, you know, turn them into pigs.
She's explicitly now I don't think she's literally eating them, but I do think she's
feeding them to her cats.
Then I wouldn't even call it cannibalism at this point.
She's technically a god.
They're technically a pig.
You know, it's not really even a crossover at any point.
But yes.
OK, Hannibal Lecter.
It's in the fine print, mate.
What counts?
Now, how do I kind of talk about this?
I think this does a really good job.
I think the yes, I think it's well done.
Yes, it's and it's really hard because it was still hard to read.
It was still challenging, but it was tasteful and I think I don't know how many times she
rewrote this.
Maybe it was all in one, but she fine tuned.
So I think she gets a good balance.
I think what's really nicely done is that we see what this does to Circe.
We see how she responds.
But also going back to that mirroring that early incident with Galkos and Scylla, we
see how in many of it at some points it drives her too far or how exactly like there are
parts where Hermes asks her or maybe it's Odysseus who asks her, how do you determine
the good men from the bad?
How do you know they deserve it?
And she says, oh no, OK, to be more specific, she makes a parachute for Circe and saying
sometimes you can just tell they're not bad guys and she doesn't turn them into pigs.
She's saying, well, it's not all of them.
It's just one she's suspicious of.
But then there's parts where Odysseus says, within a crew, how do you know they're all
bad guys?
And she says, I don't know and I don't care.
I just do it.
I mean, our protagonist.
And I think it's really interesting how, for me at least, this is how it made me feel.
I can simultaneously be so much so empathetic to Circe and be like, I'm 100% there with
you why you have gotten to this point on your path.
And at the same time be like, and that is a little bit too much.
I love you.
I want to help you.
Isn't it?
But we've got to step back.
Doesn't it go to show how connected you can be to a character when they're extremely well
written?
That you can watch them do these deeply morally compromised things and still not be on their
side.
And I can empirically say that you have probably done a great deal of evil in this act because
you fed people to pigs without technically knowing that they were going to harm you.
And you had to be like lions, excuse me.
They were pigs.
And then you think of characters like Rin from the Poppy War.
And something very similar is attempted to be done there.
You're trying to show characters doing morally compromised acts and you have to show them
how they get to that point and it purely comes down to did you do a good job of writing this
character and this story?
Because the answer is yes.
You can basically have them get away with anything.
Well, I don't know about anything, but your your right is about taking on that journey.
And I think the thing that we're assertive is that we do take the whole of the first
half.
Duncan, do you remember the Wyrmendys Kings?
Yes.
The most destructive act we've seen in any story ever.
Right?
OK, fair enough.
All right.
Yes, you can get away with anything.
Go listen to Wyrmendys Kings.
Someone literally and generally in that novel by the time we get to that short story.
Sorry.
I was like, Fair play.
I'm with you.
Do you want me to keep that or do you want me to censor that and say that was a huge
spoiler?
Go listen to our episode on the Wyrmendys Kings.
Definitely the second one.
I'll just do a full 35 second beep to cover all that up.
So anyway, we have this scene.
Odysseus arrives.
And Odysseus arrives.
We're here, Geordie.
It's Troy-ish.
Hooray, it counts.
So Troy has happened by the time Odysseus rocks up.
That's how it works.
It goes to Troy and this is his journey home and he shows up.
And Circe, she's on the pig turning path.
That's her plan.
Odysseus walks in through.
Now in the classic story, I'm not quite sure how this plays down.
You know, does he just get away?
Does he outwitter?
Like, how does he deal with her in that story?
So I will lay out the exact differences between this story, okay?
Go for it.
So in the Odyssey, he and his crew arrive on the island and he says, you guys fan out
and you go look for food and shelter.
I'm gonna stay with the ship for some reason.
I don't remember if he sends out all his guys or if he goes to nap, which he often does,
or if he sends out some of his guys.
But the point is that a bunch of his guys go out and they don't come back.
And we know from the narrative of the story that they have been turned into pigs.
A long time passes, Odysseus gets worried, he sets off to try and track down his men.
And then in the forest, he's met by Hermes.
He shows up and says, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, listen up, okay?
There's a witch in this wood called Circe.
She's turned your men into pigs.
Find this magical flower, eat it, and then her spell will not work on you.
She won't be able to turn you into a pig.
However, now she gives him really precise instructions.
Take this herb, go to her house, and then let her cast a spell on you, and then produce
your spear and threaten her.
And then she will be powerless and you must take her to your bed, because then you'll
have power over her and she won't be able to harm you and she'll turn your men back.
And this is like explicit instructions given to him by a god, and he does all of this,
and then he stays on the island for a year, and basically the rest of the stuff that happens
in the book happens.
Whereas, in this book, Odysseus shows up and he doesn't eat the flower.
In the book, he doesn't trust Hermes enough, but it's also supposed to show that he isn't
planning on conquering Circe through brute force.
It shows that he's this gentler, softer soul, and he's not come to outwit her.
He's come to just be nice, to just ask in a cool, calm way, that she will let, that
she will turn his men back into human beings.
Odysseus, cool guy when he wants to be.
When he wants to be.
So now, there's a very interesting thing that happens.
We get Odysseus, who was an important character within Song of Achilles, and he's depicted
quite differently.
He's clever in both books, but it suddenly became very obvious the ways in which the
perspective character of Circe, who's the one telling this story, and Patroclus in Song
of Achilles really had different relationships with Odysseus.
I remember thinking, while reading Song of Achilles, I can't believe that Madeline Miller
would ever write a story about Odysseus and Circe if this is how she depicts Odysseus,
because he's a jerk, and he's pretty awful.
He's violent, and he's cruel, and he's kind of heartless.
I don't like him at all in this, and that's sad, because Odysseus is one of my favorite
characters in all of fiction.
But in this, he's suave, and he's devin-air, and he's sensitive, and he's sad, he's deeply,
deeply sad.
It's very interesting.
Something that I really noticed when we went to read Song of Achilles is a different character.
Or the way Madeline Miller's using her perspective license, saying that we're seeing him through
Circe's eyes, as opposed to the eyes of the characters in Song of Achilles, to make him
a very different character.
I don't know if you've heard it out explicitly, there's a bit where Odysseus says,
Achilles went a bit crazy after he lost his lover, Patroclus.
He didn't like me much.
And that's nice, because I like the idea that this is still a shared Madeline Miller universe
for Greek mythology.
I think if we didn't have anything, I'd just be like, is this just another one, or are
these linked?
Come on, this is the same universe.
Keep it together.
It is.
It absolutely is.
I'm very happy about that, and yeah, he is nice.
He is the first genuinely nice guy.
Ish.
I really want to keep saying Ish, and maybe, and kinda.
Yeah, okay, we'll get to that later.
But so there's this really interesting change that happens here, which is it dramatically
changes Odysseus's one year stay on her island.
Now if you have ever read the Odyssey, and you've talked about it like in a classroom
setting, there is a very understandable modern impulse to go, okay, so Odysseus is our hero,
and his whole mission is he wants to get home, and he loves his wife, and he wants to give
back to his wife.
But he stays on Circes island for a year, and he sleeps with her all the time, and he's
being unfaithful, and he's not trying to get home.
What's up with that?
And the actual answer is, yeah, this is a Greek myth.
They thought that was fine.
Him staying for a year is weird, but him sleeping with a woman is justified in the text, and
it was just fine.
She's basically his property after he's won.
Yep, a little uncomfortable version of the Greek myth, but that's why I'm very happy
we get the reimagining.
Exactly, and it is reimagined, because a clear thing that she's trying to do here is that
she is fighting with the source material, just like in the section where she says he
doesn't eat the herb, he just talks to her, and he's nice to her, and he's kind, and importantly,
she invites him to her bed, like it's in her power.
This is an act of reclamation of herself and her sexuality.
Odysseus' decision to stay and his relationship to Circes is really fascinating, and it's
probably the most interesting part of the book, because you see ways in which he's doing
this just because he's afraid.
He's afraid to go back to Ithaca, and he's using the domicility of living on her island
to be as practiced, to say, yes, I remember what it's like to be at home and not at war,
or in an absolutely insane ship, journey by ship.
Very much so, and I think there's also the relationship with him and Circe.
Again, it develops it more.
He clearly is shown to having far more genuine feelings towards her, and I like that.
I like the fact that we finally get this moment of no slap in the face for a second.
One person passes you on the street and doesn't hit you.
Not ominous at all for what comes up next.
In this time frame, we also get the fact that Circe becomes pregnant with Odysseus' one
of Odysseus' sons, Telegonus.
This dude is so minor in the mythos that I genuinely do forget that, yeah, I'm pretty
sure this guy does exist, but he's so minor and so small in the canon that I'm like,
does he exist?
Did she make him up?
I can tell you now, he has a Wikipedia page, so he must exist.
Yeah.
That's genuinely-
And the reason why I feel like he doesn't get brought up a lot is that he's a bummer.
As in, he is very sad.
To go over this-
Story.
Yes, to go over this ever so briefly, because I'm just gonna say this, he's not an interesting
character.
In fact, he's genuinely a bit annoying.
He just represents so many of what all the other heroes have been.
As in-
But just a dumb fuck.
I know this book is sort of about, it's a book about being a woman, and therefore there
are parts that I'm just not gonna grok.
Because one, I'm not a parent, and two, I'm especially not a mother, and three, I'm not
a single mother, which is essentially what this section of the book is about.
It's about what a nightmare it is to be a single mother, especially when you're alone
on an island and for some reason you send all the nymphs away.
And also, the goddess Athena wants to kill your baby.
That sounds really rough.
And yeah, it's about how hard it is to be a mum, to be terrified that you're fucking
up your kid.
It's so much like the previous section of this bit where I explained it as, I love how
this is written, I'm sure this is doing an excellent job, I have so little personal life
experience, just like the not being listened to elements, I'm sure you're capturing this
really well.
I just gotta have faith you're doing it.
I'm still empathising with the character, I still have sympathy for the character, so
you're still doing a good job for your story, with just not having that final click.
And it's not like I can't relate to stories of mothers, I love the fifth season and all
of that trilogy, which is about the fraught relationship between mothers and daughters,
I love the Pixar short bow, I'm the only person I know who does.
No, it's amazing, and when I first watched that before Incredibles 2, I was like, we
ain't topping this.
It's so good, it's beautiful.
She eats the bow bun.
Oh, I was shocked.
I know, there were gasps in the cinema.
What was I saying before we talked about bow?
So this section, it goes on for a bit, Teleganus is a bit annoying because he's a brat and
he doesn't understand what danger is in, he's a dumb fuck, but also he's a bummer because
he leads into a part of a book, which I just forget about when I think about the myth of,
well not the myth, the poem of Odysseus, which is that he dies.
And Odysseus was such an important, ever present character when I was a boy, and long before
I'd read The Odyssey, which is a challenge, long before I'd read it, I'd listen to a bunch
of different shorter abridged audio versions of it, which were beautiful and full of great
music and it made it more appropriate for listening to as a kid.
And they do not go to the bit where he dies tragically and pathetically.
Pointlessly, I remember so clearly when we did Song of Achilles and you said these words,
and I'm sure they're recorded, obviously, so you can go back and check, you said, and
so the age of heroes ends when Odysseus gets home and hangs up his cap, that is it, that's
the end.
And I've never just been like-
Shit, I did say that, you're right.
Oh, no, I've read Circe, definitely goes on a bit longer, definitely not good.
Well, good for you for keeping that to yourself for a year.
And to be honest, this whole section alone kind of makes me wish I didn't read Circe,
because I hate it, it's so sad.
It's the ending of so many of the great myths, like even you talked about, Jason has an unfortunate
end, Odysseus, what I really love is leading up to the fact that obviously he dies, I like
the fact that in this, in Circe, we hear about the fact that he struggled, despite
practicing on the island, he struggled to hang up his adventurous cap.
Yeah, that was awful, like him as Vietnam vet Odysseus, like in a constant state of
paranoia and violence, it felt like such a betrayal of the image of Odysseus's return
home that I built up.
To me, Odysseus has always represented the ultimate struggle, as much as the character
like say guts, like someone who has to keep fighting and fighting and fighting and suffering
to just try and get one thing which is to go home and see his wife and his son and his
dog, only to suffer again and again and again and be denied.
The fact that he does get to go home, and he does get to rule over his kingdom and he
does get his wife back was so beautiful and profound to me that any other ending feels
like a genuine portrayal of such an important story in my life.
It would be like if I found out that Willy Wonka just threw Charlie Bucket out of that
elevator.
Oh, I mean.
I guess if I just read the next book that came after, because apparently it's bad.
Oh, Willy Wonka and the Great Glass Elevator.
Yes.
Mate, it's weird.
They go to outer space, they talk to the President of America, they fight aliens.
It's insane.
I have no time for that.
Right, yes.
It's really sad and it definitely puts a melancholy end on another Greek hero, which obviously
so many of them had, I'm sorry it did so much to destroy your image of him, like the only
heroic one who doesn't end up, you know, he gets his normal life.
But it does transition us into the next path of this plot, moving towards the end of Circe.
Circe has to do with the fact that Odysseus is dead, he's killed, sorry, I don't think
we made it clear, he's killed by his son, Telangos, I'm going to go with, because she
sends Telangos off to meet his father, complications ensues, and he stabs Odysseus with a magic
spear.
Yeah, the super duper poisonous spear, which is the way all good heroes should die.
And then Penelope, Odysseus' wife, and Telemachus flee to her island for reasons.
I think Telemachus is afraid that he'll be blamed for his father's death for some reason.
But the real reason is Penelope is like, Athena, the patron of Odysseus, will want Telemachus
to take his father's place as the great hero, the great strategist.
And so she flees to this island because Circe has made it so that Athena cannot enter this
island, so that she cannot kill her child because he was destined to kill Odysseus.
I'll be honest, at this particular point, I do feel like the emotional resonance gets
a little lost with a little bit of too much maneuvering of characters.
Yeah, it slows down a bit here.
Particularly compared to the rest of the book, or yeah, the entire rest of the book, where
we keep it so laser focused on Circe and her emotional story and her character growth,
this gets a little wibbly wobbly.
But to vaguely sum up, Circe's son by Odysseus, it takes Athena's offer and goes off to do
a lot of the work, and Circe gets a liking to Odysseus's other son by Penelope, and Circe
goes off to her banishment ends.
Honestly, I'm saying it so blasé because for me, it was really blasé.
I had very little emotions.
Yeah, it's like the end of Red Dead Redemption.
Sorry, not Red Dead Redemption.
It's like the end of, what the fuck's that book called?
Stephen King, it's about a prison, Shawshank Redemption, where he's like, I would like
to leave prison now, and they say, yeah, all right, and he does.
Great moments.
And it's just good fact, she blackmails her dad, he speaks to Zeus, there's this whole
bit where it's just like Helio, she was always looking down on me, even when I think it was
going awful.
Anyway, she goes off and we have what I actually think is the emotional strong point of the
story.
She goes still with Scylla, and this is the bit where she realises her mistakes.
We've said it before, she goes too far, she lashes out at the wrong people, she's not
really turning them into what they are, what she thinks they are, and she finally recognises
it.
And...
She doesn't turn Scylla back, turns her to stone, but that's Greek myths for you.
If there's ever an insurmountable problem in Greek mythology, you should just turn someone
into stone.
It worked for Perseus.
Just do it all the time.
I don't know what happened to Medusa's head, it's got to be kicking around somewhere.
I would love to know what your canon is, where Medusa's head went after that.
Medusa, she turns Scylla to stone and she puts her great sin to rest.
Now she's free, she can do as she pleases.
And she and Telemachus are free together.
He's freed of her destiny, she's free of her imprisonment, and then for some reason, they
become a couple.
This feels very out of place.
I will say...
This feels really fetishy.
So this is in the myth.
So Circe gets with...
Is it now?
Yes.
Really?
This is part of the original story and you never guess what else.
Who do you think Odysseus' son by Circe ends up with?
God, I really couldn't... not Penelope?
Yes, Penelope.
What?
No!
That's gross.
In some accounts, in some accounts, Telegonus took to wife Odysseus' widow Penelope.
That's disgusting.
That's Pornhub shit.
What the hell?
That's Greek mythology, people.
That's worse than...
What, Vicality?
No, you're right, it's not.
But anyway...
How do you move on from that, Geordie?
So then that's the end of Circe.
No, there's one other...
No, it's not the end of Circe, it's Circe, because the last scene that happens is a really
beautiful part.
Circe and Telemachus agree they're going to travel the world forward slash the Mediterranean
together.
They're going to go to Egypt.
They're going to go to...
They call it...
It's not Arabia, they call it like an antiquated name.
Arabian or something.
And they're going to go see the world.
And Circe performs one last rite.
She concocts this potion.
And then the narrative changes, this whole time it's been first person, past tense, from
her own perspective, looking back at her life.
For her in the first opening words, all about her recollection.
And now we go back to the moment of that recollection.
And it becomes future tense.
It becomes her vision of the future.
Perhaps a literal, prophetic vision.
She does have prophetic visions, we know that.
That's canon.
So maybe this is what shall happen, or maybe this is her wish for what will happen.
And maybe, as she casts her final spell, to turn herself mortal, we see a glimpse of what
her life will be as a mortal woman.
As a mother, she and Telemachus, raising their children together and going on their journeys
in a hard, difficult life that will end someday.
And her old friend and lover Hermes will at last deliver her as the psychopomp down into
the underworld, to meet again with all those who have gone before.
It's a really good kicker of an ending.
It's a great mirror to the Galakos near the beginning, where she was in love with a mortal
and wanted to turn him into a god.
So accepting that her son to become a mortal, a self-empowerment.
She didn't fit in.
She just hadn't enjoyed the role she was put in, in taking this massive on-surface sacrifice,
but to live as a mortal woman.
And how that is what she wants, that is great for her, is amazing.
And the fact that we talked about in the story, the fact that so many characters, because
Bansminalia die over the course of the story, Daedalus, Medea, the fact that it's like,
well, how do you be with these mortals again?
You become mortal and you go and join them in the afterlife.
And it is really beautiful.
Just like, I've forgotten her name.
Arwen, Arwen!
It's a beautiful end.
I love it.
I'll tell you how I thought the book was going to end.
You want to hear?
Go for it.
I'm going to tell you about the book, Kersin Modern Day.
Like, literally, interview of vampire style.
She has, she's a mortal being.
She has lived to see all of Ancient Greece fall away and be replaced by Rome and then
the fall of Rome and then the rise of like, various powers.
And yeah, she's like, looking back on it from the current day.
And she's like, still here and she's still a strange witch wandering the world.
But no, or still on her island maybe.
But no, that's not how it shook up in the end.
I think I would love that as an ongoing series.
What am I saying?
Obviously, I would love Greek myth characters in the modern world.
Yeah, I figured you would though, couldn't I?
In fact, maybe it could focus on like, plucky teenagers.
The final quote.
All my life I have been moving forward and now I am here.
I have a mortal voice.
Let me have the rest.
I lift the brimming bowl to my lips and drink.
It's beautiful and it's poetic and it didn't resonate with me quite as much as Song of
the Achilles.
No.
And you can say the whole thing for the whole book.
You know, I said before, Song of Achilles is beautiful because it's that wind up punch.
You know how it's going to end.
It's just like Hadestown.
You say, no, it's a tragedy.
We know it's a tragedy.
We know how it's going to end.
We're going to sing it anyway.
And that book made me cry and I never came close to crying in this book.
I felt deep sadness at the sections that relate to post Vietnam vet Odysseus, but it was also
mingled with a frustration which diluted that potent sadness.
I wasn't able to actually like connect to the experiences of the characters, to Odysseus
and to Circe and to Telemachus because I was distracted by the fact that I really didn't
want to engage with this new idea of Odysseus.
It made me unhappy, but more so it made me kind of reject the story because I wanted
to put my fingers in my ears.
In some respects, that's something that I also felt maybe not around Odysseus, but around
Circe's experience.
You know, there are so many points where I get so kind of upset for this character that
I almost wanted to disengage because there was maybe not the balance for me of sort of,
I don't know, niceness and unpleasantness.
It got a little bit too, and again, never stopped being beautiful and never stopped
being poetic.
I ran away as doing an excellent job, but for me it just swung a little bit the other
way.
I will say I spoke to my sister, my little sister.
She's also read both books.
She is like Circe's bear all the way.
Oh Duncan, how could you?
I completely see that, and I think it might just be a matter of which enemas you personally
kind of gel with or you hit notes with.
Maybe this one's for the girlies and Song of Achilles resonates more with men because
it's a book about men.
I kind of don't want to say it's that gender specific, but I'm not going to lie, it is
my experience as a bloke, so maybe.
Still well worth it, and I'm still very happy I've read Circe.
Well, and you know what, I definitely recommend it as well, I want to make that totally clear.
We 110% recommend Song of Achilles to everyone.
I recommend this book as well, and I recommend it for everyone who is not sensitive about
sexual violence in books, because it kind of hinges on that a lot, so you should go
into it with some caution if you're worried about that.
Duncan, there is no need for you to tell me what book we're doing next time because we
both have already read it.
That we have everyone, due to the nature of us having our holidays, I did tell Geordie
ahead of time so that we could get ahead of schedule, we could be prepared.
And so the book that we have-
I read both of the books before Duncan had finished his reread of Circe.
That is quite true, and this one's quite a big one, people, so do buckle down if you
want to read this in time for our next episode because we are reading Brian McAllan's Promise
of Blood.
First book in the Powder Maids trilogy.
Geordie, this has sat on my shelf for quite some time.
I am so excited to hear your thoughts on it.
Mine is still very much in the forming stages.
This is a cut into, I'm going to say more maybe, epic fantasy.
This is a story of magic, of kingships, and of muskets, and revolution, and republics.
But it's also kind of like, I don't know, a Tom Clancy novel?
Maybe a bit of an expanse novel?
Like it really hits a different tenor from a lot of the other fantasy out there.
Like it does have a lot of really standard fantasy stuff, wizards and gods, but it also
has like a completely different air to it because of the inclusion of the novel part,
gunpowder and gunpowder magic, which I am very eager to share my various thoughts on.
Well hold off for now Geordie.
We'll talk about that next time on the It's Just Fantasy podcast.
If you have read Circe, Circe, Song of Achilles, Gosh, Promise of Blood, any of the other books
we have discussed or yet to discuss on this podcast, the best place.
Or Galatea, her other much shorter book of Greek mythology.
Yes, and very excited for her up and coming Persephone, it was announced in 2021 that
that will be the next book she's working on as someone who has read the entirety of
Lore Olympus.
I am so excited.
Now that is interesting.
I'm looking forward to that.
I did not know that it existed.
I guess we might not be getting Medea at all.
She might stop at three, but I hope not.
I hope she does everyone.
I can't wait for Belophanus or whatever his name is.
In a minute it's definitely the person to do it.
Can't wait to read another one of her works.
Until then, I've been your host, Duncan Nicoll.
And I've been your host, Geordie Bailey.
Bye.
So long.