Divine Might
Goddesses in Greek Myth
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
Bestselling author Natalie Haynes returns to the world of Greek myth she so wittily explored in Pandora’s Jar and turns her focus on Olympus itself – not on the gods, who have had far more attention than they deserve over the millennia since these stories were first told, but on the goddesses.
Here we meet Athene, who sprang fully formed from her father’s brow (giving Zeus a killer headache in the process), goddess of war, guardian of the city named for her and sacred to her, and provider of wise counsel. Here, too, is Aphrodite, born of the foam (or, some sources say, sperm released from a castrated Titan’s testicles), the most beautiful of all the Olympian goddesses, dispensing desire and inspiring longing – but with a nasty line in brutal punishment of those who displeased her. And then there is Hera, Zeus’s long-suffering wife, whose jealousy of his repeated dalliances with mortals, with nymphs, with other goddesses, led her to wreak elaborate and often painful revenge on those she felt had wronged her. Well, wouldn’t you?
We also meet Demeter, goddess of the harvest and mother of the hapless Persephone; Artemis, the huntress, virgin goddess of childbirth (Greek myth is full of confusion); the Muses, all nine of them; wide-bosomed Gaia, the earth goddess; and Hestia, goddess of domesticity but also of sacrificial fire.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this zippy study, Haynes (Pandora's Jar), a novelist and classicist, opines on depictions of Aphrodite, Artemis, Demeter, and other Greek goddesses in literature and pop culture. For instance, she pushes back against Ovid's portrayal in Metamorphoses of Hera, Zeus's wife, who holds captive one of Zeus's paramours whom the god turned into a cow in a vain attempt to disguise his adultery, as a "pathologically jealous wife." Haynes instead suggests Hera's response is justified and represents the concerns of fifth-century BCE Athens women who had no legal ability to initiate divorce but could be left by their husbands for other women. According to Haynes, Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty, is defined by her unflappability in the face of attempted humiliation, as seen in a story from Homer's Odyssey in which Aphrodite shrugs off getting caught cheating on her husband with Ares. The lighthearted tone and humor will keep even those already familiar with Greek mythology entertained through lengthy recaps of various legends ("I didn't start this book expecting to compare Arnold Schwarzenegger to the goddess Artemis," Haynes writes, "but we are where we are"), making the stories fresh and accessible for a new generation. The result is a fun take on Greek myth.
