“Well-behaved women seldom make history.” – Lady Thatcher Ulrich, 1976
Powerful women, whether in history, myth, legend or literature, must muscle their way onto the stage, often disturbing or shouldering aside men who are disgruntled, enraged or disturbed by their presumption.
Having been entranced by the legend of Clytemnestra, Ms. Casati decided to give this Spartan princess and Mycenean queen the literary treatment. She breathes life into this figure, making her more than the flat figure of menace, vengeance and bloodshed portrayed by male writers.
Having been reared in Sparta, Clytemnestra is a fighting princess, wrestling with other girls to achieve strength and dominance. However, what really shines isn’t her viciousness but her fierce unquenchable love for her sister Helen.
Helen too has been reviled in mythology, often made out to be little more than a vain, lovely, lascivious princess. Growing bored with her Spartan husband Menelaus, she traipses off to Troy with a pretty boy prince, Paris. Yet here she is so much more. Initially, her fate is intertwined with Clytemnestra but she becomes a figure of note of her own. To this reader’s surprise, she is also taught to fight, although she is never the ferocious figure that her other sisters are.
In Ms. Casati’s hands, Helen is not a pampered, preening beauty. On the contrary, she dislikes being known simply as the “pretty one” and chafes at being in Clytemnestra’s shadow. Clytemnestra is astonished to find that Helen sometimes resents her. Helen sees her as Clytemnestra, the clever one, the brilliant thinker, the powerful fighter. Helen, on the other hand, is sought after just for her dazzling good looks, a fact she bitterly reveals to her sister in a private conversation.
However, it is Clytemnestra who is placed front and center, especially after Helen’s legendary flight with Paris. When the brutal, vicious King Agamemnon is called away to retrieve his wayward sister-in-law, Clytemnestra’s strength of character is tested as she mounts the throne and manages the politics and mundane affairs of Mycenae in her husband’s absence. Both women find themselves reviled: one as an adulterous slut, the other as an overreaching queen. Yet they forge forward regardless of what is said against them.
Unlike Madeline Miller’s “Song of Achilles” and “Circe”, this book features no gods or goddesses. While many people speak of them, Clytemnestra doesn’t believe that they concern themselves with human beings. She sees the deities as cold, distant figures who have other things on their minds and don’t care what lowly mortals do. So she despises priests and priestesses who do nothing but mouth prophesies and call for human sacrifices. People must make their own paths; nobody but weak men and women wait for the gods to fulfill their destinies.
What emerges is a story of strong-willed women, females who must decide what makes a queen and what can undo her. Helen is certain she can manage her cuckolded husband even if Troy falls and she is once again within his grasp. Clytemnestra possesses the same grim certainty. But her plans contain the prospect of bloody revenge.
The menfolk aren’t neglected in this story. But they are seen through the lens of women who must learn to deal with them. We wince in sympathy at female slaves who cower in the presence of Agamemnon, that emerge from his bedchambers with bruises. We read about handsome lackadaisical royals like Castor and Menelaus, bedding all the willing (and unwilling) female slaves in their reach. Priests claim to speak for the gods and demand the sacrifices of hapless women. Even in Sparta, where women possess a freedom to take up arms, men are seen as the dominant sex. They force their will on those around them and we witness how two very different queens—Leda and Clytemnestra—deal with their ruthless demands.
This is a debut novel for Ms. Casati but it’s hard to believe it. The author paints her characters with a deft hand, one that doesn’t shy away from brutality, gore, murder and sacrifice. There is tenderness displayed at moments so that we understand Clytemnestra craves love, warmth and genuine affection, even though she knows that affection often comes burdened with harsher emotions.
Above all, we see her in her many roles as daughter, wife, mother, lover, diplomat and queen. She is ably depicted in all of them and this reader laid the book aside with regret. This was a woman and queen I grew to appreciate as much as Ms. Casati did. In that, the author has succeeded admirably.
Powerful women, whether in history, myth, legend or literature, must muscle their way onto the stage, often disturbing or shouldering aside men who are disgruntled, enraged or disturbed by their presumption.
Having been entranced by the legend of Clytemnestra, Ms. Casati decided to give this Spartan princess and Mycenean queen the literary treatment. She breathes life into this figure, making her more than the flat figure of menace, vengeance and bloodshed portrayed by male writers.
Having been reared in Sparta, Clytemnestra is a fighting princess, wrestling with other girls to achieve strength and dominance. However, what really shines isn’t her viciousness but her fierce unquenchable love for her sister Helen.
Helen too has been reviled in mythology, often made out to be little more than a vain, lovely, lascivious princess. Growing bored with her Spartan husband Menelaus, she traipses off to Troy with a pretty boy prince, Paris. Yet here she is so much more. Initially, her fate is intertwined with Clytemnestra but she becomes a figure of note of her own. To this reader’s surprise, she is also taught to fight, although she is never the ferocious figure that her other sisters are.
In Ms. Casati’s hands, Helen is not a pampered, preening beauty. On the contrary, she dislikes being known simply as the “pretty one” and chafes at being in Clytemnestra’s shadow. Clytemnestra is astonished to find that Helen sometimes resents her. Helen sees her as Clytemnestra, the clever one, the brilliant thinker, the powerful fighter. Helen, on the other hand, is sought after just for her dazzling good looks, a fact she bitterly reveals to her sister in a private conversation.
However, it is Clytemnestra who is placed front and center, especially after Helen’s legendary flight with Paris. When the brutal, vicious King Agamemnon is called away to retrieve his wayward sister-in-law, Clytemnestra’s strength of character is tested as she mounts the throne and manages the politics and mundane affairs of Mycenae in her husband’s absence. Both women find themselves reviled: one as an adulterous slut, the other as an overreaching queen. Yet they forge forward regardless of what is said against them.
Unlike Madeline Miller’s “Song of Achilles” and “Circe”, this book features no gods or goddesses. While many people speak of them, Clytemnestra doesn’t believe that they concern themselves with human beings. She sees the deities as cold, distant figures who have other things on their minds and don’t care what lowly mortals do. So she despises priests and priestesses who do nothing but mouth prophesies and call for human sacrifices. People must make their own paths; nobody but weak men and women wait for the gods to fulfill their destinies.
What emerges is a story of strong-willed women, females who must decide what makes a queen and what can undo her. Helen is certain she can manage her cuckolded husband even if Troy falls and she is once again within his grasp. Clytemnestra possesses the same grim certainty. But her plans contain the prospect of bloody revenge.
The menfolk aren’t neglected in this story. But they are seen through the lens of women who must learn to deal with them. We wince in sympathy at female slaves who cower in the presence of Agamemnon, that emerge from his bedchambers with bruises. We read about handsome lackadaisical royals like Castor and Menelaus, bedding all the willing (and unwilling) female slaves in their reach. Priests claim to speak for the gods and demand the sacrifices of hapless women. Even in Sparta, where women possess a freedom to take up arms, men are seen as the dominant sex. They force their will on those around them and we witness how two very different queens—Leda and Clytemnestra—deal with their ruthless demands.
This is a debut novel for Ms. Casati but it’s hard to believe it. The author paints her characters with a deft hand, one that doesn’t shy away from brutality, gore, murder and sacrifice. There is tenderness displayed at moments so that we understand Clytemnestra craves love, warmth and genuine affection, even though she knows that affection often comes burdened with harsher emotions.
Above all, we see her in her many roles as daughter, wife, mother, lover, diplomat and queen. She is ably depicted in all of them and this reader laid the book aside with regret. This was a woman and queen I grew to appreciate as much as Ms. Casati did. In that, the author has succeeded admirably.