Jesse > Recent Status Updates

Ariadne goes from being disgusted by Perseus and his grim token of Medusa’s head to empathizing with him being caught between two Gods, one of whom - Hera - is considerably more dangerous. Perseus denies his divine brother because, like the Greek women, he is only attempting to survive in an unjust power structure and make his best of it. It is fundamentally a Catch-22 situation due to the powers at play.

There is fuel here for a grimdark retelling that recasts Ariadne as a bloodthirsty Maenad who fought with arms against Perseus. It’s good to have so many variations of source texts to support Saint’s meta-narratives about motherhood and sisterhood and power disparity. Saint emphasizes the imbalance of Gods and men but with Hera’s foreshadowed appearance, Ariadne universalizes the theme.

The finish dwells in the sisterhood of suffering that defined the position of women - and girls - in Ancient Greece and which continues, however diminished, in the modern age. I was unfamiliar with Dionysus’s conflict with Perseus. Saint’s retelling is relatively bloodless, emphasizing the importance of Ariadne’s sacrifice and her motherhood, giving her some measure of closure as a beacon for all women.

Phaedra is unequivocal in her love for her stepson and has worded her language out of the trauma that she has suffered in her loveless marriage to Theseus. She also gave a voice to the unease that Ariadne feels at the changing rights of Dionysus, prompting her to investigate her divine husband. I have no idea how Saint is going to finish Phaedra’s story but i doubt that she consummates her love for her stepson.

Saint’s retelling has Phaedra reconnect with Ariadne… contemporaneously with her falling in love with Hippolytus, her step son, who has just arrived in the text. Saint further develops Phaedra by having her suffer from post-partum depression and really just disliking her own children (by Theseus the conspirer). She is developing into something of the Medea that the sisters condemned during Theseus’s story time.

Theseus is full-blown himbo here, with Phaedra becoming the originator of democracy that is typically attributed to Theseus. This book has become a treatise on how women survive under the oppressive Greek power structure, and where they try to find love or make the most of the closest thing they have to it. Dionysus is the sympathetic/empathic love interest, but as Ariadne points out in her CPTSD, he is still a God.

Uh, my mistake on misreading. Perseus for some strange reason is apparently the main culprit in Ariadne’s death if the story being told involves it.

What Saint gives us is the time and means to forge Phaedra into a manipulator in her own right, the shadow behind the throne that Theseus leaves vacant on his hero’s journies, always looking for what she suspects is the truth behind her sister’s announced death. From what I can gather, this isn’t far from her depiction by Euripides, falling in love with her stepson notwithstanding.

The tradition in Gods and Heroes said that Dionysus claimed her to force Theseus to abandon her but broader sources resemble Saint’s story in that Theseus abandoned her, with a wide variety of outcomes leading to their marriage. These include murder (by Theseus), suicide, and her eventual fates include being slain by Artemis - Theseus’s cover story - and being killed with the head of Medusa by Perseus.

It feels out of place but as a recontextualization of Phaedra’s story it makes sense and also avoids being horribly squicky… not that Saint spares the reader. I think I’m out of my element trying to compare Saint’s retelling with the myths because the emphasis should be on the plural - there’s more than one tradition of how everything went down.

It isn’t much of a twist to turn Theseus into a maneuvering sociopath who purposefully abandons Ariadne - without Dionysus’s interference. Immediately acquiring the 13-yr old Phaedra in an arranged marriage, to be finalized / consummated on her 18th birthday, is a weird discontinuity that feels like an attempt to appease modern sensibilities about consent considering that most greek women were married at 14.

At this point the meat of the myth involving Ariadne is complete, with a lot of dwelling on her feelings at being abandoned for more or less dead - as she understands it - on Naxos. It’s a genre staple, of course; the Gods and Heroes of Ancient Greece had a lot of heartfelt soliloquies by betrayed women. It’ll be interesting to see what the next 2/3 of the book does… beyond the awkward kid sister love triangle.

Not a very event-driven book thus far but the accounts of Ariadne’s sympathy for her monstrous baby brother are sadly beautiful. Knowing the myth makes this story incredibly awkward as we get to see 13 yr old Phaedra swooning over Theseus - but Greek myth has always been big on telling you what is going to happen and then having it happen! Idk how spicy Theseus / Ariadne is going to get but Saint is laying it on.

Lots of little bits here. Some slice of life Kafka anxiety mixed in with surreal stories about taking jackals, a cat / lamb hybrid creature that appears to be begging the narrator to kill it, a man who triumphs in a vulture’s death when it spears into his mouth, and several short musings on Greek figures. Like, Poseidon does too much work to ever really enjoy being the king of the sea type stuff.

Josephine the Singer: another animal story about the resilience of mice and the passion to be recognized as producing art when art is not valued, whether or not the art is “good”.

The rest of this volume consists of bits of flash fiction that range from dreams about being happily buried alive to creeping on women and getting sassed for it to being invaded by the morose ghost of a girl. Some fun reads so far.

A Little Woman: A sketch wrote about Kafka’s landlady, who he imagines loathes him entirely for no particular reason.
The Burrow: Another grueling tale told by a burrowing animal. It delves into the neuroses of being both predator and prey and satisfaction with safety. Suspense comes late as a whistling noise begins to drive the creature to new heights of anxiety, but the unfinished story has no ending event.

The Refusal: a very short account of how people are comfortable being exploited in unbalanced power structures.
The Hunger Artist: a parable about a man whose accolades for fasting dry up and he consequently dies in obscurity in a circus.
Investigations of a Dog: VERY dry philosophical and scientific examination told from the point of view of a dog. Super tough read.

A Report to an Academy

This is an account, by a chimpanzee, of how he was shot and captured by merchants and then cast off his ape nature to become part of “polite” society. The subtext that Kafka imbues differentiates between notions of what it means to be “free” vs. the ape’s desire for “a way out” as a mirror for what we are willing to give up of ourselves to engage with society.

Finished: The Country Doctor, The Hunter Gracchus, and The Great Wall of China. The first one is a nightmare of trials for a doctor who denies his own agency. “Gracchus” seems to contextualize a German folk-tale, about a not quite dead man whose funeral boat travels the mortal seas for eternity, in the modern age. “The Great Wall” reads more like a philosophical essay and is an incredibly dense read.

Finished: The Warden of the Tomb

Yet another unfinished story. Presumably about courtly intrigue but centered around an old man who must wrestle with the ghosts of the noble ancestors every night. At least, that’s what he says that he does. The prince is being partially conspired against by the steward and the chamberlain and it’s hard to get a read on the prince’s betrothed, a “foreign” princess.

Finished: Blumfeld, an Elderly Bachelor

Another surreal story, a character sketch of an old office worker in two parts. The first details a haunting by two self-animated balls and then abruptly starts detailing his office escapades with his office mates. Some parallelism between the two?

Finished: The Village Schoolmaster

Tough to read. It’s a blow by blow account of an old man who wants accolades for discovering a giant mole, something that he hasn’t proved, and his conflict with someone who tried to get the entire affair some greater recognition. As an academic struggle, it’s more of a character sketch between a jealous, obstinate old man and his understanding, youthful foil.

Finished: In the Penal Colony

This story is surreal and borders on a sort of horror-fantasy. It centers around a ghastly means of executing prisoners, a machine that scribes words into the victim until it bores all the way through the body. It’s described by an officer in excruciating detail and you can feel how unhinged he is. Very dark, very cool. Reminds me of Fallen London weirdness.

Finished: The Metamorphosis

More stories about anxiety and depression. It’s sort of a parable about how someone who is a drain on the emotional stability of his family but through no fault of his own. He literally wakes up one day and is a giant bug, and his family tries to cope but, well, who possibly could? It’s a fascinating story as told from the pov of the afflicted and very human.

Finished: The Judgement

This is a short but brutal story about an elderly father who shames his neglectful son into committing suicide. There’s a lot more to it than that but it’s someone who is clearly suffering from a lot of existential anxiety and feeling like they’re coping but getting blasted by ugly truths beneath their existence.