Circe

Circe’s story goes back as far as Homer’s The Odyssey. Maybe even further. However, in Madeline Miller’s novel where Circe is the titular character, the Greek goddess and witch of Aiaia gets a whole new lease on her literary life.

Circe’s story begins in the halls of her father, Helios — the titan divinity of the sun — almost constantly surrounded by her extended family of various gods and goddesses. As much as she enjoyed sitting at her father’s feet and listening to him talk, Circe was the black sheep of her immediate family. Her younger twin siblings, Pasiphaë and Perses, make fun of her appearance and basically think she’s stupid and that they’re better than her.

Having had enough, and in a last, desperate attempt to fit in, Circe takes the power that comes with her gift of transformation into her own hands and ends up doing some … questionable things that lead to her exile from the hall of the gods to the island of Aiaia. There, she eventually meets Odysseus and his men on their way home from the Trojan War.

It’s tough to be the black sheep in any family, but it seems almost impossible to bear being the black sheep in a family full of gods and goddesses who embody perfection. Yet somehow Circe endures it.

This story is really about Circe coming into her own and learning not to care about what anyone else thinks. She’s going to do what she wants, when she wants. Consequences, what are those?

That’s not to say she doesn’t consider any consequences at all. The beginning of her time on the island of Aiaia is spent feeling some remorse for the circumstances that put her there, wondering how and why things had changed leading up to those events, and trying to make things right.

Circe is no longer a footnote in someone else’s ancient epic poem. Madeline Miller’s interpretation humanizes her and adds to her story in a fun and exciting way, with plenty of surprises. Deep down, she’s just like the rest of us. She wants to find happiness, to love and be loved for who she is. Circe doesn’t want any more than that, and she definitely doesn’t deserve any less.