A brilliantly original, landmark Retelling of Greek myths, recounted as if they were actual scenes being woven into textiles by the women who feature prominently in them--including Athena, Helen, Circe and Penelope Greek myths were full of powerful witches, unpredictable gods and sword-wielding slayers. --from the Introduction.
They deal, in short, in the hard, basic facts of the human condition.
Greek myths remain true for us because they excavate the very extremes of human experience: sudden, inexplicable catastrophe; radical reversals of fortune; and seemingly arbitrary events that transform lives.
In the twenty-first century, we have long left behind the political and religious framework in which these stories first circulated--but their power endures.
For the Greeks, the word muthos simply meant a traditional tale.
Floods and fire tear lives apart.
Mysterious diseases devastate cities.
The law of the land can contradict what you know to be just.
The cleverest of people can be blind to what is really going on.
Women suffer violence at the hands of men.
Parents endure the grief of losing children.
Lovers are parted.
Wars destroy the innocent.
People tell the truth but aren\'t believed.
All the same, brothers really do war with each other.
The stories were obviously fantastical.
Humans and immortals inhabited the same world, which was sometimes perilous, sometimes exciting.
There was magic, there was shape-shifting, there were monsters, there were descents to the land of the dead.
They were also extreme: about families who turn murderously on each other; impossible tasks set by cruel kings; love that goes wrong; wars and journeys and terrible loss.
A brilliantly original, landmark Retelling of Greek myths, recounted as if they were actual scenes being woven into textiles by the women who feature prominently in them--including Athena, Helen, Circe and Penelope Greek myths were full of powerful witches, unpredictable gods and sword-wielding slayers
