The Penelopiad; by Margaret Atwood

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Odysseus viewed from a Feminist perspective:
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I enjoyed this book. This is a good book. These two statements are not necessarily the same thing. Others do not necessarily come to the same conclusions from their readings of this book. My own views may change. A second reading is often more telling than a first.

Certainly ‘The Penelopiad’ is a short work. One could complete it in one concentrated sitting. That is not to say it is a slight book. It picks up on one incident in Homer’s Odyssey, where Telemachus, following his father’s instructions, executes 12 maids who were accused of consorting with the suitors who besieged Penelope in Odysseus’s palace. Atwood, taking her typical feminist fresh look at things, is obviously outraged by this incident. She explores how unfair and arbitrary this treatment was.

The story is told with a cool wit from the viewpoint of Penelope, speaking as a ghost. She speaks to us in our contemporary age, and hence makes ironic references to museums full of unused ‘trash’ and TVs as domestic shrines. This is amusing and quirky, lending a universality and relevance to the old story. But it also creates an unstable voice that is not successful throughout. There is an epigrammatic quality to the writing, mixed with some satire and irony.

The realistic portrayal of the unfree position of women in that society is one of the author’s main aims. Violence to the female body (and mind) is something I have noticed in all the books of hers that I have read. But it is intelligent, not virulent, feminism, and all the more effective for that.

The interpolated poems and theatre scripts may irritate some readers, but I liked them. They reminded me of some sections in James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’. They are poignant.

The portrayal of Helen (the famous one whose face launched a thousand ships) is particularly catty and telling. Atwood is alive to the destructive side of females too.