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Helen of Troy by Margaret George

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lauragill
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Helen of Troy by Margaret George

Post by lauragill » Wed July 20th, 2011, 7:13 pm

Having loved Margaret George's Autobiography of Henry VIII and the Memoirs of Cleopatra, and generally being a sucker for any book dealing with the Trojan War, Helen, or the House of Atreus, I couldn't resist picking up Helen of Troy.

While the book is a decent read, at the same time there are a great many things wrong with it. George's attention to historical detail is usually very good, but here I'm left scratching my head as to why she didn't set the novel in its proper Bronze Age context. When Paris writes "I love you" in the spilled wine on Menelaus's dinner table for Helen to see, is he writing in Linear B, Hittite cuneiform, or Classical Greek? It does matter. And there isn't a single bare-breasted bodice, flounced skirt, figure-of-eight shield, or tholos tomb in the entire narrative, for those of you who look forward to such things.

Helen's story does, however, transcend time a bit, and George could be forgiven for being off by a few centuries had she not gotten the details of Helen's own life mixed up. I'm not sure how carefully she read the sources, because she omits the entire episode of Helen's abduction by Theseus, which would have been far effective in showing that even from a young age Helen is a wellspring of sex and violence than having her hidden behind a veil for the duration of her childhood. (btw, is it that hard to spell "Ariadne" correctly? It's a pretty famous myth.)

Furthermore, with regard to Helen's sister Clytaemnestra, did the author not know that Agamemnon courted her by murdering her first husband and baby son? George knows there's a curse on the House of Atreus, because her Clytaemnestra says so, and yet misses a golden opportunity to ramp things up a notch. Show, don't tell.

Although the narrative does pick up once the siege of Troy gets underway, and is a page turner thereafter, I got the sense that George wasn't as involved with Helen or her world as she was with Henry VIII and Cleopatra, and wasn't giving it her best effort.

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Misfit
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Post by Misfit » Wed July 20th, 2011, 8:09 pm

Reviews of this book have been so mixed I've not decided if I want to read it or not. Ancient times aren't really my thing anyway.
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Post by annis » Fri July 22nd, 2011, 7:22 pm

I haven't read this one, Laura, but if you haven't come across it already, it occurs to me that you might enjoy Susan Curran's thoughtful novel, The Mouse God, which shows the experience of the Trojan War from a mostly female POV. It does contain bare-breastd bodices and flounced skirts and consideration of what it must have been like to be taken as war booty and expected to adapt to life as a concubine with an enemy who'd killed your husband and children. I particularly liked the fact that the glamorous Helen is side-lined in favour of lesser-known female characters - Briseis, Chryseis, Andromache and to a lesser extent, Polyxena and Cassandra.

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Post by N. Gemini Sasson » Sat July 23rd, 2011, 2:14 pm

I'm not well versed in ancient history, but I did enjoy this book overall.

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Ludmilla
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Post by Ludmilla » Sat July 23rd, 2011, 3:48 pm

[quote=""lauragill""]and generally being a sucker for any book dealing with the Trojan War, Helen, or the House of Atreus, I couldn't resist picking up Helen of Troy.
[/quote]

I haven't read this, or any of George's books. I think I've been afraid to try it for the same reasons. I've long had a fascination for the multi-generational tale of the House of Atreus since first reading it as a kid (my sister came home with a booklet that was a retold tale of the House of Atreus and I wore it out reading it over and over).
I'm not sure how carefully she read the sources, because she omits the entire episode of Helen's abduction by Theseus, which would have been far effective in showing that even from a young age Helen is a wellspring of sex and violence than having her hidden behind a veil for the duration of her childhood.
I think a lot of authors cherry-pick the episodes that fit with their own story and neglect the rest. There are quite a few variations on Helen out there. I guess one of the reasons I loved the Greek myths to begin with is that the heroes were so very fallible. Hubris and ignominious endings eventually caught up with most of them.
you might enjoy Susan Curran's thoughtful novel, The Mouse God, which shows the experience of the Trojan War from a mostly female POV.
Christa Wolf's Cassandra is another book that tells the tale from the female viewpoint (keeping in mind that it is written with a feminist agenda in mind and is also a modern critique of war in general, but provides some interesting backstory that isn't often explored in modern retellings). I've never quite been satisfied by any author's depiction of Cassandra, though. Not sure I can explain why that is.
Last edited by Ludmilla on Sat July 23rd, 2011, 5:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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