A Myth of Her Own: Austinist Reviews Margaret Atwood's The Penelopiad

Penelope, in Atwood’s version, is quick witted, prideful, romantic, intelligent, and just a little bitter about playing second banana to her gorgeous cousin. She's joined in telling the story by the twelve maids, who harbor some resentments of their own for being forced to sleep with Penelope's suitors and then being hung by Odysseus.

Through the alternating strands---Penelope's past in Ithaca, her present in Hades, the maids' interjections---we get various versions of the story: the traditional, the scholarly, the speculative, the imaginative. Atwood refrains from judging any of the storytellers or the stories, leaving it to the reader to decide whether Penelope was a faithful, loving wife who was helpless to stop the hangings or a scheming harlot who let her maids be killed to save her own skin. Or, perhaps, something in the middle.

In reimagining the myth, Atwood also tweaks the classic form of the Greek tragedy. She keeps the basic outline---long monologues punctuated by a revealing chorus---but then abandons the conventions of serious Literature. Penelope's monologues are delivered in a casual, gossipy tone, and the maids' chorus is delivered as a children’s rhyme, a bawdy sea chanty, and a kicky musical number.

Atwood makes a few missteps. Although she keeps a swift pace to the slim volume, the story hits a few speed bumps when she tries to fit in a few too many mythological references and alternate theories. The maids’ anthropology lecture and the court trial both could---and probably should---have been dropped. Atwood also occasionally gets too caught up in her own conceit of an ancient character telling her story to a modern audience. She hits it right when Penelope makes sardonic judgments, such as describing the modern soothsayers: “It was demeaning, all of it---to have to materialize in a chalk circle or a velvet-upholstered parlour just because someone wanted to gape at you.” But she gets it very wrong when she tries too hard to make Penelope a wide-eyed outsider---the clichéd time traveler from the past---referring to the Internet as “the new ethereal-wave system” and computers as “flat illuminated surfaces that serve as domestic shrines.”

Still, The Penelopiad, is vintage Atwood: the winking wit and keen observations, the clever subversion of tradition, the multidimensional women who defy stereotypes, and the twists and turns that keep the reader guessing and second guessing what is true and what is myth.

Austinist Also Recommends:

The Tent by Margaret Atwood: Everything we love about Atwood in bite-size portions.

A Short History of Myth by Karen Armstrong: For those of us who last studied mythology in the seventh grade, Armstrong gives a brief overview from the Paleolithic period to the present. Armstrong is clear and concise without being dry, thorough without being tedious, intelligent without being pretentious, and accessible without being condescending or flip. Even if you aren’t interested in myth, read this for the quality of writing.