ariadne — Blog — Kell-Read

I hope May has treated you all well. Here in Melbourne, the leaves are changing, and the frost is encroaching as the mornings get colder and colder. Alas, the end of autumn is here and it’s time for three months of cold, rain and wind. I feel like May was a long month and I’m not quite as shocked as I usually am that we have reached the end of it. But, enough about me, let’s get into my wrap up for May 2021 and the books I hope to get to in June!

My May 2021 hopefuls (not pictured, The Wolf Den by Elodie Harper because it hadn’t been published yet)

Some things to note about me: I am a slow reader, I love to annotate, I love to read multiple books at once and I cannot stick to a tbr to save my life. At the beginning of May, I posted my ‘hopefuls’ list, which is pretty much just a tbr that has absolutely no expectations of actually being read (which is my favourite type). I like to try and add books from different genres onto my hopefuls list to at least give me a chance to get some of them read, depending on my mood. In May, I read 3 of my 6 hopefuls and I feel really proud of that.

May wrap up

The first book I read in May was one that I started in April and that was the Odyssey by Homer and translated by E.V. Rieu. Reading the Odyssey was such a long time coming, I think I was just super intimidated by it. In saying that, now that I have read it, I wish that I read it sooner 😂 I loved the translation done by E.V. Rieu, although it was in prose rather than verse, it still had such a poetic feel to it which I really loved, and it has made me want to read a verse translation next to really be able to compare the different interpretations of the text. Overall, I found it to be easier to read than the Iliad (which may honestly be because the Iliad is like, 80% names and genealogy), and it wasn’t written in a way I expected. Many of the adventures that Odysseus had embarked on were recounted to Alcinous of the Phaeacians, rather than experienced first hand, which I actually think I preferred. Odysseus’ long-winded journey home was full of adventures, and overall, I really enjoyed the story and the translation. Check out my full review.

My second read of the month was Jennifer Saint’s debut novel Ariadne, which follows the lives of Ariadne and Phaedra, the daughters of King Minos and Crete and Pasiphaë from their childhoods to their deaths. Not only has Saint put together the stories of the two sisters, which are stories that are often told separately, you also get points of view from both Ariadne and Phaedra, which (if you know me at all), you’ll know that I loved! I wasn’t too familiar with the myth of Ariadne past the Theseus and the Minotaur events, and I really loved watching her character evolve, and her relationship with Dionysus change and develop throughout the tale. I thought the contrast of the two sisters, with Ariadne, secluded on Naxos surrounded by women and Phaedra living the life Ariadne wanted for herself with Theseus in Athens surrounded by people hostile to her home city of Crete was so striking. It allowed the reader to draw some fascinating parallels between the sisters that would have otherwise been difficult to do, since their stories are almost exclusively, told separately. I thought the ending was so poignant and bittersweet, and even if you are familiar with the myths of Ariadne, Theseus, the Minotaur, Phaedra and Hippolytus, you will definitely love this new retelling of their stories. Check out my full review! If you’re interested in hearing a bit more about Ariadne, I was lucky enough to have been able to interview Jennifer Saint, and ask her all sorts of questions about her novel which you can find here! (non-spoiler of course!)

The final book I finished for the month was The Wolf Den by Elodie Harper, which was my favourite read for the month, and potentially for the year (it’s neck and neck with The Porpoise by Mark Haddon). The Wolf Den is set in the lupanar, or brothel of Pompeii in the first century CE, and follows the point of view of Amara, a Greek woman who was sold when she was younger after the death of her father. I thought The Wolf Den did such a wonderful job at bringing the ancient world to the modern-day through the intertwining of graffiti found at the site of Pompeii. This graffiti is written by the everyday people of Pompeii, and gives us an incredibly rare insight into the daily lives of the everyday people of Pompeii, rather than the rest of the literature which survives which is almost exclusively written by the powerful men of the Roman Empire. The story emphasises the unbreakable bonds of friendship between the five prostitutes who work at the wolf den, and the contrasting ways in which they deal with their loves and their lack of autonomy. Elodie also does such a phenomenal job of bringing the lives of these women to the forefront, and highlighting the often overlooked fact that prostitutes in the ancient world would not have chosen this life, nor would they have necessarily always been prostitutes. Amara’s main focus in this novel is to change her fate, and do it by any means necessary, which provides her many opportunities for her character to develop, and she often has to make hard decisions which highlight the fact that all of these characters are morally grey, which adds another layer to the relationships and the character development in general. I loved this book, and I would highly recommend it to anyone! if you’re worried you don’t know enough about Pompeii or the ancient world, don’t fret! You can absolutely still enjoy this book, but if you want a bit of context to ancient Pompeii before jumping into this novel, check out my full review where I give a rundown of the context and graffiti in Pompeii! I was so lucky to get a chance to interview Elodie harper, and I had such a wonderful chat about the book, her experiences writing it and the development of her characters! You can either watch it, or read it! The interview, just like my review, is spoiler-free!

June hopefuls

It’s getting cold, which means inside our house is going to get cosy and warm which is the perfect setting for reading! This month, I have 5 physical books on my hopefuls list, and one audiobook. The audiobook is The Crown of Gilded Bones by Jennifer L. Armentrout which I have been listening to throughout the entirety of May. I cannot believe I am still reading this book, it is SO long and I swear only like, three things have happened. This book needed some serious editing. I only have a couple of hours left of this book, so I truly hope I get it finished this month. Along with finally finishing TCOGB, I am hoping to read Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune, The Library of Greek Mythology by Apollodorus, The Poems of Catullus and The Bacchae by Euripides which I am going to read with the lovely Erica over at MoanInc!

So! I guess we will see how I do this month, but honestly, as long as I take some time to read something, I consider it a successful reading month! I hope you all enjoyed this post, and let me know down below or over on my Instagram Kell_Read what book you are most looking forward to reading this month!

★★★★★ (Either 5 stars or 4.75… either way, this book was brilliant!) Head to the end of my review to find my interview with Jennifer Saint with World History Encyclopedia! After you’ve finished watching my interview with Jennifer, I would recommend you then head over to Erica’s YouTube channel MoanInc, where she has built off the questions I asked, and delved even deeper into the story with Jennifer which you can find here!

Ariadne by Jennifer Saint was a hugely anticipated read for me this year, even more so after I saw the beautiful cover art for both editions. So to say I was excited to read this one is an understatement, especially due to my obsession with Greek Mythology and women in the ancient world. I am very happy to say I was not disappointed. If you aren’t familiar with the myths of Ariadne, Phaedra, Theseus and the Minotaur, then this will spoil those for you. Since the book follows the myths very closely, this review details the core myths used in Ariadne, and then my thoughts on the book below will mention key points from the myth which will spoil it for you if you aren’t familiar with it!

Mythological Inspiration (this is a long one…)

Let’s start with the mythology Ariadne is based off. As the title suggests, our main focus of the book is Ariadne, although I was pleasantly surprised that in Part Two and Three of the book (it’s split into four parts), we also get the point of view of Ariadne’s little sister Phaedra. Ariadne and Phaedra were daughters of King Minos of Crete, a son of Zeus, and his wife Pasiphäe who was a daughter of the Titan-god of the sun, Helios. When the ruler of Crete, Aseterion, died, the three sons of his wife Europa with Zeus; Minos, Sarpedon, and Rhadamanthus all wanted to be king. Minos claimed he had support from the gods to become king of Crete, and so he said that if he sacrificed and prayed to the gods for anything, they would fulfil the wish. So, Minos sacrificed to Poseidon and asked him to send a bull from the sea, and that if Poseidon did this, Minos would sacrifice the bull to the god. Poseidon sent the magnificent bull, and Minos’ claim was supported. However, when Minos saw the bull and how magnificent it was, he couldn’t bring himself to sacrifice it, and so he kept the bull for himself and sacrificed one of his regular bulls instead, in the hopes that he could trick Poseidon.

Your coronet will guide sailors to safety through the labyrinth of the treacherous seas. Women will look to it for a sing of comfort, a light in the darkness. Children will whisper their wishes to it before the close their eyes to dream. It will stay there, fast and true, for all time. (pg. 239)

Obviously, Poseidon knew exactly what Minos had done and so he plotted to punish Minos for his hubris. The punishment of Minos was done through his wife, Pasiphäe. In some accounts it’s enacted by Poseidon, in some it is by Aphrodite (or Venus in Roman texts) because Pasiphäe hadn’t shown the proper piety to the goddess, and in some Poseidon seeks the help of Aphrodite in the punishment. Whichever myth you read, it ends the same, Pasiphäe is sent an all consuming desire for the bull, and so she seeks the help of Daedalus the inventor. Daedalus constructs Pasiphäe a wooden cow covered in a real cow hide, and so she hid in the contraption and lay with the bull, since it thought that the wooden cow was real. From this union, Pasiphäe became pregnant with the Minotaur who was half human, half cow, and she named him Asterion.

The birth of the Minotaur brought shame to the family, and although Pasiphäe cared for it when it was younger, the Minotaur grew monstrous and ferocious, and his hunger was only satiated with human flesh. To hold the creature, Minos had Daedalus create the Labyrinth underneath the palatial centre at Knossos where the Minotaur lived. There was still the issue of how to keep the Minotaur fed, but after Minos’ son Androgeos was killed in Athens, Minos blamed the Athenians for his death and so requested 7 young boys and 7 young girls every nine years (or every year depending o the source), which he would feed to the Minotaur in punishment for the death of his son. In the third round of tributes, Theseus the prince of Athens volunteered as one of the tributes. When he arrived on Crete, both Ariadne and Phaedra fell in love with Theseus, and so Ariadne sought out Daedalus to help save Theseus. Ariadne gave Theseus a ball of string so that he could find his way out of the Labyrinth. Theseus successfully killed the Minotaur, and then left Crete with Ariadne and Phaedra. On the way home, Theseus abandons Ariadne on the island of Naxos, and takes Phaedra as his wife. Ariadne becomes the wife of Dionysus, and Phaedra becomes the Queen of Athens until she falls in love with her stepson Hippolytus, which does not end well for either her or the youth.

So there you have it, the most condensed version of the myth I could possibly write. If you want a more in-depth article about the myth, check out World History Encyclopedia’s article on The Minotaur!

… but also by the terrible truth that she had sacrificed everything she knew for a love as ephemeral and transient as the rainbows that glimmered through the sea spray. (pg. 1)

Thoughts and Feelings

I have been finding it hard to put my thoughts about this book into coherent sentences, so much so that I’ve taken a few days since finishing it to let it settle before sitting down to write this review. Let’s start off with some general thoughts on Ariadne. The first thing that struck me when reading this book was the writing, it’s absolutely beautiful. Saint’s writing style is lyrical and poetic, and it has given me the same feeling as Madeline Miller’s Circe. The amount of tabs I used for this book is just insane, and it was primarily so I could go back to the sentences that were so beautiful and striking. I thought the descriptive language lended itself well to the story, as it is quite a slow burn. If you are looking for action, then this is not the book for you. I would have liked a little bit more dialogue to help the story move a bit, but when we did get dialogue, Saint made it count. It strikes me as very similar to Greek Tragedy in the sense that any action or violence is never shown, but rather told. You don’t actually read about Theseus killing the Minotaur, but when he exits the labyrinth with the other tributes, you know that a bloody fight has just occurred.

I know that human life shines more brightly because it is but a shimmering candle against an eternity of darkness and it can be extinguished with the faintest breeze. (pg. 229)

The book is split into four parts; the first and fourth part are from Ariadne’s point of view, and in parts two and three, we get both Ariadne and Phaedra’s point of view. Having dual perspectives in this novel was such a brilliant way to tell this story, especially since Phaedra essentially lived the life Ariadne dreamed for herself, the second she locked eyes with Theseus. This book was full of hints to the long history of Greek epic poetry, such as the reuse of epithets commonly seen in Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. My favourite, and one that popped up a lot was ‘rosy-fingered dawn,’ which could be found rewritten numerous time in ways such as ‘the rosy fingers of dawn’ (15). You also have the bee pendant given to Ariadne from Daedalus, which can only be inspired by the Minoan gold bee pendant found in the site of Malia on Crete, as well as mentions of the labrys, also known as a double axe which is a very common symbol and artefact found in Minoan sites and contexts. Any time an author intertwines archaeological aspects into a retelling or reimagining of a myth, I automatically like it more.

One very prevalent theme throughout this retelling is the inherent unfairness there was in being a woman in the world of the gods, and in Ancient Greece in general. Furthermore, this idea of women being punished for the actions of men is commented on by Ariadne as early as page 15 with her thought ‘however blameless a life we led, the passions and the greed of men could bring us to ruin, and there was nothing we could do.’ The myths of women such as Scylla who betrayed her father to help Minos, and who was then killed by Minos for her treachery, of Io who was turned into a cow to ‘save’ her from Hera’s wrath after she slept with Zeus, of Semele who was tricked by Hera into forcing Zeus to show her his divine self which then promptly killed her, of Medusa who was turned into a monster with snakes for hair and a look which could kill after being raped by Poseidon, were all brought up time and again in this book, as an emphasis of how women were punished for the follies of men, and I wish Ariadne learnt from these stories. Of course, the myth had to play out, but by having those myths mentioned throughout the story makes it all the more clear how helpless the lives of women were.

I wondered what it felt like; to command the respect of people who had not seen you for years and knew nothing of you except that you were the son, rather than the daughter, of the King. (Phaedra, pg. 152)

This book was very character driven, and I was loving every minute of it. We pretty much get the entire life of Ariadne and Phaedra from their childhood until the day they die in 386 pages, so naturally, their development and growth was a huge part of the narrative. Ariadne was always quite self aware, she knew the consequence of her actions, but she was so naive to assume that everyone else (ahem, Theseus), was as trustworthy as she was. Her character fluctuated between being a relatively naive woman who let things happen to her, to being this strong, courageous woman who did what she wanted for herself. The inconstancies of her character made her all the more human to me, and a loved reading through her life, and the ways which Saint interpreted her life on Naxos with her children and the Maenads. Having the dual perspective of Ariadne and Phaedra was such a great way to show the contrasting lives of the sisters, and how they grew up so differently. The most striking contrast for me was the way in which the two women dealt with becoming mothers and their feelings towards their children. It was haunting, and their different experiences has really stuck with me. This is similar to their relationships with their husbands, Dionysus and Theseus. Dionysus is the god of wine, and the fact that he is a god and has married a mortal is your first sign that this cannot stay so perfect. His development was one of my favourite parts of this book, it was so intriguing to read how the following of mortals in his rites affected him, and consequently his relationship with Ariadne and their children. In contrast, Phaedra and Theseus were never in love, and Phaedra lived a lonely existence as the Queen of Athens. Being in her head as she meets this innocent, pure and outwardly kind man, Hippolytus, really casts her story with Hippolytus in a different light than what we get from primary sources. It was fascinating and tragic, and I loved it. This brings me to Theseus, the opposite to Hippolytus in every way possible. He was obsessed with being a hero, and so I thought that the early description of his ‘cold green eyes’ hints to his cold and cunning soul. He doesn’t care for anyone other than himself, and his lies and manipulation was all calculated and without a second thought for anyone else’s feelings, but only for how it would help him become a greater hero. I really liked the way he was portrayed in this book, but I have a feeling that might change after reading some primary sources of the myth of Ariadne and Theseus.

I will be coming back to this review after I have read 1. The Library of Greek Mythology (also known as the Bibliotheca) by Apollodorus and 2. Plutarch’s Parallel Lives: Comparison of Theseus and Romulus because I’m interested to see how my opinions change about the character of Theseus and Ariadne after reading a couple of primary sources on him. I am also having an interview with Jennifer Saint which I am so excited about, so after I have published that video, I’ll be sure to link it here so you can check that out! The transcription of my interview with Jennifer has been posted to World History Encyclopedia which you can read here! Have you read Ariadne? I would love to hear your thoughts on it either in the comments or find me over on Instagram @kell_read!