Circe

by Madeline Miller

“Whose is this?” I demanded. “Where are they?” He shook

with its ragged stitches. He was a sweet boy and would

There is no must to the life of a mortal, except death.

An idyll, I had called our time. Illusion might have been a better word.

“They have come to my house. Why should I care what is in their hearts?”

But perhaps no parent can truly see their child. When we look we see only the mirror of our own faults.

“All those years of pain and wandering. Why? For a moment’s pride. He would rather be cursed by the gods than be No one.

“We thought ourselves great minds of the world. When we were first married, we made a thousand plans together, of how we would turn everything we touched to our advantage.

his father, which was still too much a wound, but his old,

I believed that she would rather set the world on fire than lose.

There is no pleasure in hearing I was right.”

guileless.

But they were like eggs, each afraid to crack the other.

The memories of men are short.

I would say, some people are like constellations that only touch the earth for a season.

but I had seen how fast she was. I had told Odysseus once that there was

air over our heads, Scylla cried and thrashed. The weight of the fallen legs

Beneath the cliff the boat tossed back and forth in the chopped waters like a fallen leaf. The waves around

He was quiet a long time. “You are wise,” he said. “If it is so,” I said, “it is only because I have been fool enough for a hundred lifetimes.”

Olympians, who took no more notice of us than they did of the sand beetles toiling at our feet. He would say to me that he wanted

Helen: Legendarily the most beautiful woman in the ancient world, Helen was a queen of Sparta, daughter of queen Leda and the god Zeus in the form of a swan. Many men sought

by Anne Carson. Coming-of-age story about Geryon, a little red monster

perspective. Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie.

homage to

and lover—now exists where a superhero previously stood

yet in Miller’s lush reimagining,