Book Review: The Penelopiad
Margaret Atwood positively boot-scoots through The Penelopiad, a lively, postmodern retelling of the myth of Odysseus through the eyes of a long-dead Penelope and the 12 maids that Odysseus strung up and hanged for treachery upon his return. Floating in mid-air with their pretty toes still twitching, the maids form the chanting and singing Chorus of traditional Greek theater, doing an about-face by saucily burlesquing the main narrative with sailor costumes, can-can high kicks, and an anthropology lecture. Still bitter, still hungry for vengence, the maids’ interjections color Penelope’s underworld soliloquy—their spectral fury culminates in a farcical 21st century courtroom drama, “The Trial of Odysseus, As Videotaped.”
Unapologetically feminist, Atwood’s words slip, slink, and slither:
…we’re right behind you, following you like a trail of smoke, like a long tail, a tail made of girls, heavy as memory, light as air: twelve accusations, toes skimming the ground, hands tied behind our backs, tongues sticking out, eyes bulging, songs choked in our throats.
Atwood adroitly recasts this old, familiar story with her signature wit, cunning, and pathos. What was Penelope really up to all those years, she asks, deftly skewering the historically maudlin depiction of Penelope as the long-suffering, faithful wife. (While Odysseus was screwing every goddess, sorceress, and queen he encountered, I might add.)
Haunting, in every sense of the word.
