High life | 12 April 2018

When poor old battered Odysseus landed on Circe’s island having lost all his ships (except his flagship) when he tangled with the Laestrygonians (their king liked to eat Greek flesh and swallowed up most of his crews, yummy) Circe — witch, sorceress and goddess in her own right — turned the few survivors into swine, except for Odysseus, whom she wanted for some old-fashioned hanky-panky. If she were around today she would most probably be the first American female president.

Odysseus serviced her rather well and stayed in her palace for a year. He also used the ‘moly’, the antidote Hermes had given him in the form of a magic herb that turned pigs back into men. When Circe realised that Odysseus was not just a dumb shipwrecked schmuck, she played nice, although kindness was not an every day occurrence in her island of Aeaea. But unlike some hardcore feminists of today, Circe developed a soft spot for Odysseus and told him how to get to the underworld and then on to Ithaca and his family. If the kindness towards Odysseus got out, however, I don’t think she’d crack the glass ceiling and make it to the White House. Hate right now is much more important than love.

Circe came to mind after reading that an American woman novelist has recast the goddess as a very nice girl, a hero in her own right, the type you’d like to bring home to your mother. American women do not particularly like to be considered second best, yet Circe was just a pit stop of one year in the hero’s ten-year peregrinations. No longer. Madeline Miller’s novel (one I do not plan to read incidentally) places Circe as a sort of avenging angel.