Monday, September 9, 2013

The Penelopiad

Author: Margaret Atwood
Rating: 4/5 Stars
Reviewer: Lydia

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Although slight in volume, Margaret Atwood's novel The Penelopiad is a dazzling book based upon the famous mythic tale. This book is an interesting blend that makes for an enjoyable read: it is part novel, part poem, and part play. It details events from Penelope’s perspective, the ever-faithful wife of Odysseus from The Odyssey. Atwood’s feminist tale is wonderfully written and filled with humor and wit.

The Penelopiad manages to summarize The Odyssey in under two hundred pages, which is a spectacular feat in and of itself. Atwood focuses primarily on Penelope’s version of events, a woman who is forced to wait for her husband for twenty years as he sails the seas battling monsters, encountering goddesses, and indulging his every whim. As the story progresses Penelope becomes her own woman, and learns quite a few things about herself.

I recommend this book for anyone who has read—or attempted to read!—The Odyssey. Atwood’s tale gives one a fresh new perspective on a classic work. The book is funny, quick to read (easily read within a day), and is just one work by a prolific and highly talented artist.

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