Synopses & Reviews
The internationally acclaimed Myths series brings together some of the finest writers of our time to provide a contemporary take on some of our most enduring stories. Here, the timeless and universal tales that reflect and shape our lives-mirroring our fears and desires, helping us make sense of the world-are revisited, updated, and made new.Margaret Atwoods Penelopiad is a sharp, brilliant and tender revision of a story at the heart of our culture: the myths about Penelope and Odysseus. In Homers familiar version, The Odyssey, Penelope is portrayed as the quintessential faithful wife. Left alone for twenty years when Odysseus goes to fight in the Trojan Wars, she manages to maintain the kingdom of Ithaca, bring up her wayward son and, in the face of scandalous rumours, keep over a hundred suitors at bay. When Odysseus finally comes home after enduring hardships, overcoming monsters and sleeping with goddesses, he kills Penelopes suitors and-curiously-twelve of her maids.
In Homer the hanging of the maids merits only a fleeting though poignant mention, but Atwood comments in her introduction that she has always been haunted by those deaths. The Penelopiad, she adds, begins with two questions: what led to the hanging of the maids, and what was Penelope really up to? In the book, these subjects are explored by Penelope herself-telling the story from Hades — the Greek afterworld - in wry, sometimes acid tones. But Penelopes maids also figure as a singing and dancing chorus (and chorus line), commenting on the action in poems, songs, an anthropology lecture and even a videotaped trial.
The Penelopiad does several dazzling things at once. First, it delves into a moment of casual brutality and reveals all that the act contains: a practice of sexual violence and gender prejudice our society has not outgrown. But it is also a daring interrogation of Homers poem, and its counter-narratives — which draw on mythic material not used by Homer - cleverly unbalance the original. This is the case throughout, from the unsettling questions that drive Penelopes tale forward, to more comic doubts about some of The Odysseys most famous episodes. (“Odysseus had been in a fight with a giant one-eyed Cyclops, said some; no, it was only a one-eyed tavern keeper, said another, and the fight was over non-payment of the bill.”)
In fact, The Penelopiad weaves and unweaves the texture of The Odyssey in several searching ways. The Odyssey was originally a set of songs, for example; the new versions ballads and idylls complement and clash with the original. Thinking more about theme, the maids voices add a new and unsettling complex of emotions that is missing from Homer. The Penelopiad takes what was marginal and brings it to the centre, where one can see its full complexity.
The same goes for its heroine. Penelope is an important figure in our literary culture, but we have seldom heard her speak for herself. Her sometimes scathing comments in The Penelopiad (about her cousin, Helen of Troy, for example) make us think of Penelope differently - and the way she talks about the twenty-first century, which she observes from Hades, makes us see ourselves anew too.
Margaret Atwood is an astonishing storyteller, and The Penelopiad is, most of all, a haunting and deeply entertaining story. This book plumbs murder and memory, guilt and deceit, in a wise and passionate manner. At time hilarious and at times deeply thought-provoking, it is very much a Myth for our times.
From the Hardcover edition.
Synopsis
In Homer s account in The Odyssey, Penelope--wife of Odysseus and cousin of the beautiful Helen of Troy--is portrayed as the quintessential faithful wife, her story a salutary lesson through the ages. Left alone for twenty years when Odysseus goes off to fight in the Trojan war after the abduction of Helen, Penelope manages, in the face of scandalous rumours, to maintain the kingdom of Ithaca, bring up her wayward son, and keep over a hundred suitors at bay, simultaneously. When Odysseus finally comes home after enduring hardships, overcoming monsters and sleeping with goddesses, he kills her suitors and--curiously--twelve of her maids.
In a splendid contemporary twist to the ancient story, Margaret Atwood has chosen to give the telling of it to Penelope and to her twelve hanged Maids, asking: "What led to the hanging of the maids, and what was Penelope really up to?" In Atwood s dazzling, playful retelling, the story becomes as wise and compassionate as it is haunting, and as wildly entertaining as it is disturbing. With wit and verve, drawing on the storytelling and poetic talent for which she herself is renowned, she gives Penelope new life and reality--and sets out to provide an answer to an ancient mystery."
Synopsis
CA
About the Author
Margaret Atwood was born in Ottawa in 1939, and grew up in northern Quebec and Ontario, and later in Toronto. She has lived in numerous cities in Canada, the U.S., and Europe.
She is the author of more than forty books — novels, short stories, poetry, literary criticism, social history, and books for children. Atwoods work is acclaimed internationally and has been published around the world. Her novels include The Handmaids Tale and Cats Eye — both shortlisted for the Booker Prize; The Robber Bride, winner of the Trillium Book Award and a finalist for the Governor Generals Award; Alias Grace, winner of the prestigious Giller Prize in Canada and the Premio Mondello in Italy, and a finalist for the Governor Generals Award, the Booker Prize, the Orange Prize, and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award; The Blind Assassin, winner of the Booker Prize and a finalist for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award; and Oryx and Crake, a finalist for The Giller Prize, the Governor Generals Award, the Orange Prize, and the Man Booker Prize. Her most recent books of fiction are The Penelopiad, The Tent, and Moral Disorder. She is the recipient of numerous honours, such as The Sunday Times Award for Literary Excellence in the U.K., the National Arts Club Medal of Honor for Literature in the U.S., Le Chevalier dans lOrdre des Arts et des Lettres in France, and she was the first winner of the London Literary Prize. She has received honorary degrees from universities across Canada, and one from Oxford University in England.
Margaret Atwood lives in Toronto with novelist Graeme Gibson.
From the Hardcover edition.
Reading Group Guide
1. What is your overall opinion of
The Penelopiad? Would you recommend it to a friend? Why, or why not?
2. Consider the personalities of the women in The Penelopiad, especially Penelope, Helen, and Penelopes mother. How are they different? What do they tell us about womens roles, within the poem and without?
3. Is Penelope a reliable narrator? Do you believe her version of events?
4. What do the various poetic and musical forms Margaret Atwood uses to tell the maids story bring to the telling? Why do you think she chose to write The Penelopiad in this way?
5. “Down here everyone arrives with a sack, like that sacks used to keep the winds in, but each of these sacks is full of words — words youve spoken, words youve heard, words that have been said about you.”
Discuss gossip and rumour / truth and lies in The Penelopiad.
6. If you have read other retellings of The Odyssey, compare The Penelopiad. You could look at Ulysses (by James Joyce) or O Brother Where Art Thou (directed by the Coen brothers), and discuss how each adapts and alters the original. Or, if you have read any, compare The Penelopiads approach to that taken by other writers in the Myths series.
7. “The heart is both key and lock.” How would you describe the marriage of Odysseus and Penelope?
8. How does The Penelopiad fit with other works by Margaret Atwood? Does she pursue similar themes here as elsewhere? If so, does she do so in the same way or differently?
9. How is Odysseus presented in The Penelopiad, as opposed to in The Odyssey? Why?
10. The Penelopiad is being turned into a piece for the stage. How would you cast it?
11. What are your criticisms of The Penelopiad?
Author Q&A
What inspired you to write The Penelopiad? I first read about the maids when I was fifteen, and they’ve been bothering me ever since. There was something about that hanging — all pretty maids in a row, using just one rope, how frugal — that was not only gruesome but suspicious. The evidence that supposedly condemned them just didn’t add up.
My suspicions got turned into The Penelopiad after I was ambushed by Jamie Byng of Canongate Press at breakfast, and due to my own weakness of will and a Vulcan Mind-Meld he puts on people who haven’t yet had their morning coffee I found myself agreeing to his Myths Series scheme.
What were the challenges and pleasures of writing The Penelopiad, taking it from idea to finished book?
I tried it this way and that, with no results. I couldn’t seem to get the kite to fly. As every writer knows, a plot is only a plot, and a plot as such is two-dimensional unless it can be made to come alive, and it can only come alive through the characters in it; and in order to make the characters live, there must be some blood in the mix. I won’t sadden myself by detailing my failed attempts. Let’s just say there were so many of them that I was on the point of giving the thing up altogether. The task was a great deal more difficult than I’d thought, and not being a mythological being myself, I couldn’t call on the ants or fishes to come and help me sort out the words.
“Do you think Jamie Byng would mind very much if I just gave back the advance and cancelled the contract?” I asked my British agent, Vivienne Schuster of Curtis Brown. By this time I was embarrassingly behind deadline, and the first page was just as blank as it had always been. True, I had quite a few thirtieth pages, but they were crumpled up in the waste bin.
Vivienne’s upper lip is nothing if not stiff — she has climbed Mount Kilimanjaro — but I detected a quavering over the telephone as she said actually she expected that he might in fact mind quite a lot. But that I shouldn’t let that influence me one way or the other. And if I couldn’t I couldn’t, she added staunchly. But Jamie would probably be gutted.
I am susceptible to British slang. I did not want to be responsible for gutting anyone. “Give me a couple of weeks, then,” I said. Desperation being the mother of invention, I then started writing The Penelopiad. Don’t ask me why, because I don’t know. A door opens and you go through, or else you don’t; sometimes it’s the right door. The result of my rather feverish period of writing is what has now appeared before you.
Is there a question you’ve never been asked about The Penelopiad, but wish someone would raise?
Just one: “Why didn’t you include Odysseus’ dog?”