Circe

By: Madeline Miller

Narrated by: Perdita Weeks

Length: 12 hrs and 8 mins

Publisher's summary

"A bold and subversive retelling of the goddess's story," this #1 New York Times bestseller is "both epic and intimate in its scope, recasting the most infamous female figure from the Odyssey as a hero in her own right" (Alexandra Alter, The New York Times).

In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe is a strange child—not powerful, like her father, nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power—the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves.

Threatened, Zeus banishes her to a deserted island, where she hones her occult craft, tames wild beasts and crosses paths with many of the most famous figures in all of mythology, including the Minotaur, Daedalus and his doomed son Icarus, the murderous Medea, and, of course, wily Odysseus.

But there is danger, too, for a woman who stands alone, and Circe unwittingly draws the wrath of both men and gods, ultimately finding herself pitted against one of the most terrifying and vengeful of the Olympians. To protect what she loves most, Circe must summon all her strength and choose, once and for all, whether she belongs with the gods she is born from, or the mortals she has come to love.

With unforgettably vivid characters, mesmerizing language, and thrilling suspense, Circe is a triumph of storytelling, an intoxicating epic of family rivalry, palace intrigue, love and loss, as well as a celebration of indomitable female strength in a man's world.

#1 New York Times Bestseller—named one of the Best Books of the Year by NPR, the Washington Post, People, Time, Amazon, Entertainment Weekly, Bustle, Newsweek, the A.V. Club, Christian Science Monitor, Refinery 29, Buzzfeed, Paste, Audible, Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, Thrillist, NYPL, Self, Real Simple, Goodreads, Boston Globe, Electric Literature, BookPage, the Guardian, Book Riot, Seattle Times, and Business Insider.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2018 Madeline Miller (P)2018 Hachette Audio

Critic reviews

Winner of the 2019 Indie Choice Award

Shortlisted for the 2019 Women's Prize for Fiction

Named one of the 'Best Books of 2018' by NPR, The Washington Post, Buzzfeed, People, Time, Amazon, Entertainment Weekly, Bustle, Newsweek, the A.V. Club, Christian Science Monitor, Southern Living, and Refinery 29.

"Circe,' [is] a bold and subversive retelling of the goddess's story that manages to be both epic and intimate in its scope, recasting the most infamous female figure from the Odyssey as a hero in her own right."—Alexandra Alter, New York Times

"One of the most amazing qualities of this novel [is]: We know how everything here turns out—we've known it for thousands of years—and yet in Miller's lush reimagining, the story feels harrowing and unexpected. The feminist light she shines on these events never distorts their original shape; it only illuminates details we hadn't noticed before."—Ron Charles, Washington Post

"[Miller] gives voice to Circe as a multifaceted and evolving character...'Circe' is very pleasurable to read, combining lively versions of familiar tales and snippets of other, related standards with a highly psychologized, redemptive and ultimately exculpatory account of the protagonist herself."—Claire Messud, New York Times Book Review

A Weaver without Wool

"All this while, I have been a weaver without wool, a ship without the sea. Yet now look where I sail."
- Circe, Madeline Miller, Circe

This might be a 5-star book. I need to let it soak. I really enjoyed it. Feminist. Marxist almost. It looks at the gods and at Man from the perspective of a banished nymph, a witch, a daughter of Helios. The myths get brushed, twisted and woven in a way that is both familiar and new. Miller changes the myths by simply changing the narrator, removing the hero, and looking at the narrative from a different perspective. This has been done before, but Miller's approach and craft is hard to replicate. I'm not sure she is Robert Graves, but she is definitely on the same island as Mary Renault.

“My flesh reaches for the earth”

From the start of Madeline Miller’s Circe (2018), the first witch in western culture reveals how different she is from her myriad immortal Titan and Olympian relatives: while they are cruel, callous, egotistical, and powerful, she is kind, sympathetic, self-effacing, and (she believes) weak. She gives illicit nectar to Prometheus to ease his terrible punishment and sickens to imagine mortal astronomers who’ll be killed when their sun-based calculations go awry because her father, Helios, Titan god of the sun, delays his passage across the sky for his amusement. She doesn’t fight back when scorned by her mother Perse or mocked by her elder siblings Perses and Pasiphae. She doesn’t complain when her beloved brother, Aeetes, abandons her to found his sadistic magic kingdom in Colchis. Although early on she learns from her parents that mortals (“like savage bags of rotten flesh”) are shaped like the gods “but only as the worm is shaped like the whale,” she comes to be fascinated by their drooping, scarred, and wrinkled flesh and ephemeral lives. Her voice even sounds human, to the disgust of her family.

Circe, it develops, has her own will and inner strength, as evidenced by her transformations of mortal Glaucos and nymph Scylla, which end up causing her to be exiled to the idyllic and uninhabited island of Aiaia. She has been on her island for about the last three hundred of her first thousand years of life when Odysseus and his ship with 48 men happen by.

The Odysseus part of the novel is what anyone who’s read The Odyssey will be looking forward to, but such is Miller’s imagination and research and writing that although the encounter between the two is compelling, what comes before and after is much more fascinating and moving: how Circe comes to be a witch, how she teaches herself her art on Aiaia, how she comes to be Hermes’ occasional lover, how she tries to help deliver the Minotaur, how she first discovers what men are capable of, how she deals with Jason and Medea, and how she lives after Odysseus leaves her island.

Miller is good at writing convincing and complex motivations for mythological characters, like Pasiphae’s reason for getting pregnant by a sacred bull and Odysseus’s reason for staying longer than necessary on Aiaia. I was especially impressed by the entire last part of the novel featuring Telegonus, Telemachus, Penelope, and Circe. The personalities and motivations of the four and their relationships and interactions are suspenseful and poignant.

Miller works many Greek myths into her story, including the war between the Titans and the Olympians, the origin of Scylla, the birth and death of the Minotaur, the theft of the Golden Fleece, the siege and fall of Troy, and the adventures of Odysseus. Even though Circe was not a major player in most of the myths, she is a witness to some of them and a listener to accounts of others of them. Miller gives just enough details so as to fill in people new to the Greek myths without boring people familiar with them.

Miller is really good at writing appropriate and original similes, like “Frail she was, but crafty, with a mind like a spike-toothed eel,” or “Athena snapped each word like a dove’s neck,” or “I pressed his face into my mind as seals are pressed into wax so I could carry it with me.” She’s good at depicting the outwardly sublime but inwardly petty nature of gods and, despite all the children they engender, their essential sterility. One of the best parts of Miller’s novel is its celebration of our humble, painful, and brief mortal lives. “My flesh reaches for the earth. That is where it belongs.” And “Gods are more dead than anything, for they are unchanging.” In all this, there are graphic, brutal scenes of torture, rape, birth, and metamorphosis. And much of the novel is emotionally painful. But there is also wisdom, like “Perhaps no parent can truly see their child. When we look we see only the mirror of our own thoughts.”

Since the ancient Greeks until now, western writers and artists have mostly depicted Circe as a sexy witch who tempts and destroys men. As Miller says in A Conversation with Madeline Miller after the novel, “the unfortunate truth is that sexism, misogyny, and our culture’s distrust of powerful women are timeless.” But though she writes Circe from a 21st century feminist context, she does it without being simplistic or overbearing. Although amoral and abusive male characters appear in the book (including Aeetes and Helios and men who deserve to be turned into pigs despite Circe saying, “The truth is, men make terrible pigs”), there are also decent men (e.g., Daedalus, Telemachus, and Telegonus), as well as amoral and abusive female characters (e.g., Perse, Medea, and Athena). Finally, Miller’s Circe is a strong, creative, and compassionate goddess/witch/woman capable of making terrible mistakes but also of taking responsibility for and learning from them. Circe is an inspiring female and human figure.

The audiobook reader Perdida Weeks is fine, with a pleasant British voice/accent, but she almost over-dramatizes intense moments, which couples with Miller’s highly wrought intense scenes, so together they sometimes almost make the audiobook too much of a good thing.

After reading Miller’s The Song of Achilles (2011) and Circe, I’ve been impressed by her ability to take supporting characters and imagine their backgrounds and lives so as to make compelling main characters of them and to cast new light on their mythological settings. I am looking forward to reading whatever she writes next. However, I also hope that next time she will find new ways to make us root for her protagonists other than by inserting them into families who don’t love them or by making them the only sympathetic and kind people in their settings or by making them such obvious underdogs or by making them first-person narrators.

Great retelling of a classic tale

Even though I have this authors previous book downloaded, I listened to this one first. I binged it over 2 days and will probably listen again in the future. Excellent storytelling and a wonderful narrator made this more than worth the credit! Excited I have another to provide welcome distraction!

Awesome Novel!

The novel was Very Nice! I loved the depictions of the gods. It really made me think. Excellent!!

Stunning

I read and loved the book when it came out last year. I bought the audible based on reviews raving about the narration. Those 5 star reviews are spot on. I wanted to drive longer. I didn’t mind traffic jams. I just finished it and I’m already missing it. Perdita Weeks is a marvel. Madeline Miller’s writing came alive. I felt tense, laughed, cried, gasped, this had it all.

Get this, you won’t be sorry. But you might find yourself missing some sleep or thinking about it when you’re not listening.

Madeline Miller is a genius, again.

Circe is a lesser goddess, the daughter of the Titan Helios and a nymph. Looked down on by others she finds herself once she's banished. From there, her story intertwines with many of the greatest characters of Greek legend.

This book wrecked me. I got this book because I enjoyed Song of Achilles and this was a daily deal. I'm so glad I did. I loved it. I actually liked it better than Song of Achilles and that's saying something. I found myself checking to see if parts of this were made up or if Greek mythology was that complicated and intertwined. It was. The real wonder of Madeline Miller and Circe is that characters from ancient legend become people. Yes, Circe isn't action filled but I loved her exploration and growth as the story unfolded. The only thing this book left me wanting was a good copy of the Odyssey to listen to. It was just such a gorgeous wonderful book.

Perdita Weeks was a delightful narrator. Her voice pulled me in and made the story come alive. The real tragedy is she doesn't have any other books available on Audible.

This book is delightful. If you love Greek mythology or beautiful prose give it a try. Give Song of Achilles a try as well. Madeline Miller is a genius.

I have told all of my friends about this book

I have always enjoyed mythology and this lent a completely different feel to the classic stories I grew up reading. The first person aspect was delightful and I could hardly wait to get back to the story whenever I had time to listen. I think it also helped me to understand many of the myths, the God's and the basis from which their stories came about. Loved it!

Cleverly woven tale steeped in the myths of old

A fascinating spin on a character from ancient mythology that delves into the highly political world of the ancient gods & their forebearers, the titans. It also offers an intriguing take on The Odessey from the part that is intertwined with Circe. A beautifully crafted tale that will appeal to most audiences, including teenagers. The narrator was good but it was frustrating when her voice would get so low that I had to turn up the volume only for her to suddenly alter & it becomes too loud. Other than that, her voice is perfect for weaving the spell this book casts.

Most beautiful voice

The narrator has the most fabulous voice of any narrator I’ve ever heard. Truly embodies Circe.

Loved this book!

highly recommend this book if your enjoy mythology! Circe will steal your heart and leave you wanting the story to continue!