Cannonball Read 3 - Review #5 - The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood

In the last few years, there was a project called the Canongate Myth Series where writers from all over the world updated, expanded on, and/or fictionalized myths in short novel form. The Penelopiad is Margaret Atwood's telling of what Penelope from The Odyssey was up to for the twenty years Odysseus was gone. While Odysseus was fighting in the Trojan war and having adventures on his way home, Penelope was struggling to raise her son and evade the many suitors who wanted to marry her for her fortune. In this story, Penelope is friendless except for her twelve young maids who she raises like daughters. In the evenings, they all sit with her as she weaves a shroud for her father-in-law, gossipping and teasing, keeping her company. At the end of The Odyssey, the twelve maids are all hung for supposed treason. Margaret Atwood tells their story as well, via Penelope's story told from the afterworld.

The book is short, more like a novella, and the tone is very modern and sardonic. Penelope, after thousands of years, is finally telling her side of the story as she floats around the shadowy underworld, as friendless as she was while she was living. She tells about her arranged marriage to Odysseus when she was fifteen, the controlling women in her new home who never let her make and decisions of her own, and the lonelieness and humiliation she felt while her husband was off sleeping with goddesses and doing who knows what for twenty years while she thanklessly toiled at home, keeping her suitors at bay and raising a bratty teenaged son. Atwood's Penelope is self-aware, sad, but strong and smart. She is utterly powerless, as everyone in her life treats her like a prop. She even explains how a quiet death would be of value to multiple people in her life so that they wouldn't have to deal with her and could just have her treasures with no interference. Her only comfort are her twelve young maids who act as her friends and confidantes. But they are unjustly slaughtered while Penelope is sleeping, and she is left alone again.

I love the idea of giving Penelope a voice, a personality, and showing Odysseus' weaknesses as a proud and selfish man. He got to travel the world for twenty years and have songs written about him, and myths told of his exploits. Penelope didn't get any songs, and she never got to leave her castle. But Penelope is the real hero. She was faithful and strong, and she did the right thing, even though no one did the right thing by her. Atwood gives her the chance to get some peace by telling her story, even though it is long after the fact.