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Circe Madeleine Miller

What did I know about Circe when I started reading the book? Almost nothing. I remembered that she was sung by Homer in his Odyssey, Circe, a great but very lonely sorceress who turned passing sailors into pigs, who fell in love with Odysseus and bore him a son. But Madeleine Miller made her the main character.And in Miller's presentation in the myths appears the beat of life - through emotions, warmth and experiences of the heroine, burdened by torments, joys, sorrows and desires, who is not indifferent to people and wishes them well.

In my memory Circea was a villain who stood in the way of the great hero, who was in a hurry to return to his family. But in Miller's case, it's a bit more complicated. Reading the book, I kept coming back to the fact that the main character is very easy to understand. Despite the fact that she is a Greek goddess, daughter of a titan, mistress of the great Odysseus. Circea contrasts well with the powerful and overbearing gods and goddesses, with their base impulses, playfulness and intrigue. Circea is ridiculed, mocked, ignored, but intrigue aside, she lives - her independent life, the life she desired for herself.

Though the beasts and birds listen to her voice, and the herbs in her hands become treacherous weapons. She is a woman who longs for love. A woman who fears loneliness and despises her immortality. How many times did Circe give herself her word not to throw herself into the abyss of feelings, not to submit to love, not to let it break her heart, and each time she failed miserably...Because she could not do otherwise. And let then again loneliness, again pain, again thoughts about the impossibility to love and be loved.But, she solves her dilemmas, makes mistakes, achieves success, independently determines with whom to communicate, what to do and whom to love. Madeleine Miller gave her heroine a chance for happiness. Allowed her dream a dizzying flight. Ended the story on a pleasant note. Although we all realise that Greek stories about the gods are an endless string of lust, pain and betrayal.

When asked what the book is about, the most appropriate answer is probably loneliness. About how different it can be. After all, you can be lonely not only on a desert island, but also in a palace full of relatives.

But the most important problem, the author outlined in the first paragraph: ‘So, the word nymph was actually a measure and a sign of our future. In our language it means not only a goddess, but also a bride’. Except Circea wasn't born beautiful or gifted, so it doesn't even take Helios to find her a majestic groom. Moreover, she is not like the other gods - she cannot live peacefully, knowing that she causes suffering to others.

It is because of this that the main conflict of the story arises. The question ‘Who is she?’ does not disappear until the last page, and perhaps remains afterwards. The open ending makes you think about serious questions, and that is one of the many benefits of the book.

Everything about RWRB is fantastic!!! 🤩. It's beautiful and heartwarming 🫶🏻♾️.

One of my favorite books and movie adaptation ✨😇

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If you haven't picked up the book 📖 or haven't watched the movie 🎥📺 yet??! now is your time

oops! it seems i tripped and dropped several million free books, papers, and other resources

https://annas-archive.org

https://sci-hub.se

https://z-lib.is

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https://www.pdfdrive.com

https://library.memoryoftheworld.org

https://monoskop.org/Monoskop

https://libcom.org

https://libretexts.org

http://classics.mit.edu

https://librivox.org

https://standardebooks.org

https://www.gutenberg.org

https://core.ac.uk

— Jay Vespertine; not from a book but from an actual conversation.

Fictional men who have the "it's ok to murder but it's never ok to disrespect your wife" energy >>>>

Minster Gate Bookshop, York

“We write for the same reason that we walk, talk, climb mountains or swim the oceans – because we can. We have some impulse within us that makes us want to explain ourselves to other human beings.” – Maya Angelou

@/fridacashflow

buying books & reading books..two different hobbies.

ajaneofallreads on Instagram

how to start reading again

from someone who was a voracious reader until high school and is now getting back into it in her twenties.

start with an old favourite. even though it felt a little silly, i re-read the harry potter series one christmas and it wiped away my worry that i wasn't capable of reading anymore. they are long books, but i was still able to get completely immersed and to read just as fast as i had years and years ago.

don't be afraid of "easier" books. before high school i was reading the french existentialists, but when getting back into reading, i picked up lucinda riley and sally rooney. not my favourite authors by far, but easier to read while not being totally terrible. i needed to remind myself that only choosing classics would not make me a better or smarter person. if a book requires a slower pace of reading to be understood, it's easier to just drop it, which is exactly what i wanted to avoid at first.

go for essays and short stories. no need to explain this one: the shorter the whole, the less daunting it is. i definitely avoided all books over 350 pages at first and stuck to essay collections until i suddenly devoured donna tartt's goldfinch.

remember it's okay not to finish. i was one of those people who finished every book they started, but not anymore! if i pick up a book at the library and after a few chapters realise i'd rather not read it, i just return it. (another good reason to use your local library! no money spent on books you might end up disliking.)

analyse — or don't. some people enjoy reading more when they take notes or really stop to think about the contents. for me, at first, it was more important to build the habit of reading, and the thought of analysing what i read felt daunting. once i let go of that expectation, i realised i naturally analyse and process what i read anyway.

read when you would usually use your phone. just as i did when i was a child, i try to read when eating, in the bathroom, on public transport, right before sleeping. i even read when i walk, because that's normally a time i stare at my screen anyway. those few pages you read when you brush your teeth and wait for a friend very quickly stack up.

finish the chapter. if you have time, try to finish the part you're reading before closing the book. usually i find i actually don't want to stop reading once i get to the end of a chapter — and if i do, it feels like a good place to pick up again later.

try different languages. i was quickly approaching a reading slump towards the end of my exchange year, until i realised i had only had access to books in english and that, despite my fluency, i was tired of the language. so as soon as i got back home i started picking up books in my native tongue, which made reading feel much easier and more fun again! after some nine months, i'm starting to read in english again without it feeling like a huge task.

forget what's popular. i thought social media would be a fun way to find interesting books to read, but i quickly grew frustrated after hating every single book i picked up on some influencer's recommendation. it's certainly more time-consuming to find new books on your own, but this way i don't despise every novel i pick up.

remember it isn't about quantity. the online book community's endless posts about reading 150 books each year or 6 books in a single day easily make us feel like we're slow, bad readers, but here's the thing: it does not matter at all how many books you read or what your reading pace is. we all lead different lives, just be proud of yourself for reading at all!

stop stressing about it. we all know why reading is important, and since the pandemic reading has become an even more popular hobby than it was before (which is wonderful!). however, there's no need to force yourself to be "a reader". pick up a book every now and then and keep reading if you enjoy it, but not reading regularly doesn't make you any less of a good person. i find the pressure to become "a person who reads" or to rediscover my inner bookworm only distances me from the very act of reading.

If you buy a lot of books and end up not liking some of them very much, can I suggest checking them out from your library first?

I worked in bookstores for a long time, and of course lots of my paycheck went directly back into the store. I've ended up "weeding" a lot of those books and donating them to different places just because I knew I wasn't ever going to read them again.

Now I'm a librarian, and I'm realizing just how much money I'm saving by checking books out FIRST. Maybe I check something out and I end up DNF'ing it within 50 pages. Maybe I check something out and I enjoy it, but not enough to read it again. Maybe I check something out and I really love it, but it freaked me out so bad it's tattooed on the inside of my eyeballs and I won't need to read it again (Drew Magary's The Hike, I'm looking in your direction).

Or maybe I check something out and I love it! And then I go buy a copy to own because I know I'll reread it, probably with a pen to mark up the margins in a way I know I can't with a library book!

Idk man. If you want to be more intentional with the way you spend your money, if you want to combat the commercialization of the publishing industry, if you hate that authors are being forced to do all their own marketing on TikTok and that readers are feeling shame about not purchasing and finishing literal hundreds of books per year... Maybe start by going to your local library. You can still post haul photos of library books without spending a dime.

— diksha suman (moon poet)