Madeline Miller is a american writer, born in 1978, and wrote Circé in 2018. She is already famous for Le chant d’Achille, published in 2011. I really enjoyed this work, which links Greek mythology with the author’s own contributions. The reader is immersed in the world of Circe, daughter of Helios, and describes her daily life and the highlights of her eternity.
This novel is perfectly suited to our subject, since Circe is a rather important part of the Odyssey. We find ourselves in Circe’s head and we learn about her weaknesses, her desires, and the exile she will experience and which will provoke her meeting with Ulysses. We also learn the hardness of her life as an immortal, the different levels between the powerful and less powerful gods, the stakes of their discussions and relationships. A story that makes it possible to understand that infinite life is not necessarily good to take and that is the beauty of Odysseus’ soul, who understood this a long time ago. Like Les aventures de Télémaques, this story can be described as an addition to Homer’s work and can complement a reader who would like to discover an even richer universe.
