The Penelopiad: The Myth of Penelope and Odysseus Book

"we had no voice
we had no name
we had no choice
we had one face
one face the same

we took the blame
it was no fair
but now w're here
we're all here too
the same as you"

The truly successful myths are those that can be retold over and over from different angles and still speak to a contemporary audience with the same intensity as to past centuries. When Margaret Atwood picked up the story of Penelope and Odysseus, she kept all the familiar ideas, and yet - it is an entirely modern vision, and a modern voice speaking.

She looks beyond the famous stars of the narrative: Helen, Odysseus, Agamemnon, Menelaus, Penelope, and lets a chorus line of maids have their say. She retells the story of their harsh lives, of their vulnerability. Many of them experience rape and abuse from the suitors that gather to court Penelope during the absence of her husband, and on returning home, Odysseus decides to kill them because they "slept with the enemy without his permission".

It is a rare treat of tragicomedy when Penelope describes their fury in the Hades, after all characters involved in the drama have left the stage of the living. The maids, demanding justice in an objective court, are left disappointed because the judge doesn't want to be "guilty of an anachronism". Don't we hear that quite often still? All those cases of (sexual) violence against women, justified with "different times, different customs". Is that a reason not to raise the issue at all? How can the times and customs ever change then? Those maids, singing in a choir of rage against the double standards of a patriarchal society, seem both ancient and prophetic at the same time.

While they denounce the millennia of injustice and hypocrisy, they also become early members of the #metoo movement, begging the audience of famous mythological stories to listen to the neglected minor characters as well. Famous actresses of the caliber of Helen or Penelope may speak for themselves, but what about the powerless, poor girls in the background? The chambermaids, barmaids, nurses? Who speaks for those young women?

Atwood does, in the slightly arrogant, bitter voice of privileged Penelope - a woman in power, but with her own share of frustrations, too clever for her own good, and in the eternal shadow of her barbie doll cousin Helen.

And what about Odysseus? Well, this is not the Odyssey, it is the Penelopiad, so he is acting backstage, evasive and hard to catch, a mere prerequisite for the lives of the women of Ithaca.

Do I recommend this short novel? Yes, to those of you who love myths, and are well acquainted with Homer's take on the household drama in the palace of Ithaca as well as with the geopolitics of the time, involving the disastrous Trojan war and plenty of other local conflicts. To see and value the slight changes Atwood made to the "common myth", one has to know where she is coming from. I would also suggest trying some of her major novels before choosing this thin volume, as it is quite different (even though it is clearly a typical Atwood as well, to contradict myself in the last paragraph). Oh whatever, just read it and judge for yourselves whether she is guilty of anachronism or not. I'd say no, as her topic has never ceased to be contemporary. I hope my children will grow up and look back to say that the kind of injustice she describes is a thing of the past. Period. But chances are that The Handmaid's Tale will still be acted out in some places, and that the minor characters in the big plays will be treated with contempt by those who are famous enough to get away with anything.

Until that stops, Atwood's chorus should keep singing for JUSTICE! And we should chime in.