Ariadne
A Novel
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4.2 • 211개의 평가
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- US$11.99
출판사 설명
A mesmerizing debut novel for fans of Madeline Miller's Circe.
Ariadne, Princess of Crete, grows up greeting the dawn from her beautiful dancing floor and listening to her nursemaid’s stories of gods and heroes. But beneath her golden palace echo the ever-present hoofbeats of her brother, the Minotaur, a monster who demands blood sacrifice.
When Theseus, Prince of Athens, arrives to vanquish the beast, Ariadne sees in his green eyes not a threat but an escape. Defying the gods, betraying her family and country, and risking everything for love, Ariadne helps Theseus kill the Minotaur. But will Ariadne’s decision ensure her happy ending? And what of Phaedra, the beloved younger sister she leaves behind?
Hypnotic, propulsive, and utterly transporting, Jennifer Saint's Ariadne forges a new epic, one that puts the forgotten women of Greek mythology back at the heart of the story, as they strive for a better world.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Saint's enchanting debut retells the myth of the minotaur through the eyes of Ariadne, daughter of King Minos of Crete. Ariadne's life has always been touched by the gods, as her mother, Pasiphae, is the daughter of Helios, god of the sun. She has also witnessed their wrath, unfairly brought down upon Pasiphae by Poseidon, the sea god, because of Minos's transgressions against him. Her punishment, to fall into obsessive love with a bull, resulted in the Minotaur, Ariadne's half-human, half-bull brother. When Theseus, prince of Athens, is sent as part of that city's annual sacrifice to the Minotaur, a smitten Ariadne helps him defeat the monster and they flee Crete together. Ariadne hoped they would bring her sister, Phaedra, with them, but fickle Theseus breaks his promise, leaving Phaedra behind and abandoning Ariadne on the island of Naxos. The island is the home of Dionysus, god of wine and pleasure, and he takes Ariadne as his wife. Phaedra, meanwhile, is reluctantly married off to Theseus in a political maneuver of her father's. As the women navigate their changing positions of power, they court disaster at the hands of both gods and men. Saint expertly highlights how often the women of this world pay the price for the actions of the men around them. Lovers of mythology should snap this up.
사용자 리뷰
A must read for lovers of Greek Mythology
Wonderful story and beautifully written .
My new favorite
I love this book! I didn’t want it to end.
Excellent until the ending
A great book with captivating prose, gripping characters, and a completely disappointing ending. Instead of offering readers any kind of balm to the bitter reality of womens' expendability, the ending miserably concedes to this fact; shrugging apathetically at our two female leads dying unceremonious deaths, while the gods and heroes surge on with relative ease. As usual.
Ariadne's realization that Dionysus was indeed just as terrible as any other god or man could've be achieved without the cartoonishly gruesome and strangely paced scene wherein he murders an entire town of infants (?!) And then for Ariadne to die at the hands of Medusa's stone gaze feels cruelly ironic in a way that undermines the books (seemingly) sincere focus on women supporting each other when no one else will.
At no point in the story does Ariadne have true agency - other than maybe agency of thought. And even then, once she has children with Dionysus, she willingly turns a blind eye to his actions and muffles her own concerns and fears.
Some might argue that things happened the way they did because this is a (mostly) loyal retelling of the original myths. But I have to wonder what value that truly offers - why not use this "feminist" retelling to change course and offer some kind of hope to the thousands of women reading this story? The ending gave us no resolution to the arcs we established with Ariadne and Phaedra. Merely a footnote about Ariadne’s spirit watching over future births. And Phaedra, hanging herself out of fear of what might come after a rejected love confession. Sigh.