3 posts tagged “helen of troy”
Oh, Margaret George. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I'm happy to report that I picked up this book, expecting a fantastic story, and was not disappointed in the least.
Before this book, George wrote historical fiction based on real people. This book is a bit of a departure, since there's currently no conclusive proof that Troy or Helen ever existed. But the story that we are all familiar with - Helen, Menelaus, Paris, Achilles, and the rest - all come alive under George's retelling. In The Iliad, Helen is either completely absent or portrayed as weak and helpless. In Helen of Troy, she is a completely human woman who lives under the mantle of prophesized doom, but risks everything for love anyway.
What is absolutely remarkable about this book is how George manages to make you feel as though there might be a happy ending after all. Up until the very sentence describing Paris' death, you think the lovers might actually escape to Egypt and live a quiet existence together. You root for them, as obnoxious as both can be, and you understand why they make the choices they do. You want their all-consuming love to continue on, which makes the horrific fall of Troy that much worse.
This is a story that should appeal to men, too: it's not a "chick book" focusing on the love between Paris and Helen. True, the story is told from Helen's point of view, but it explores every aspect of humanity you can imagine: vanity, passion, wrath, war, jealousy, treachery, family, hospitality, choice, and consequence. Best of all, George does it well. It is a 600-page book, so all of these subjects are written about in depth.
I'm also pleased to note that George included a partial bibliography at the very end of the book to describe where she got her information, why she set it in the time period she did, and how she reconciled the inclusion of the gods of Olympus with her realistic approach. This book does not include as much historical information as The Memoirs of Cleopatra did, but it is grounded in research.
When I think of The Memoirs of Helen of Troy, a book I read earlier this year by Amanda Elyot, there is simply no comparison. Helen of Troy is far superior in every way--in particular, I was relieved that George didn't make Helen a martyr and deprived her of all friendships, as Elyot did. George's characters are unflinchingly human, good or bad; Elyot's are simply unlikeable.
I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Read it!
I've had a lot to review lately (always a good thing!), so here's some of what I want to talk about in the next few days:
Helen of Troy by Margaret George(I'm so excited that she put out a new book!)- Through a Glass Darkly and Dark Angels by Karleen Koen
- Sony 30GB HDD Handycam
- Adobe Premiere Elements vs. Windows Movie Maker, for web-publishing
- MAC Select Cover-up Concealer (as opposed to L'Oreal True Match)
Zelda's Cut by Philippa Gregory
I just started Helen of Troy last night, which, frankly, seeing as I love Margaret George's work to death, is orgasmic. I want to savor it, but I also want to plow through it and see how she tells the story. I've also started Through a Glass Darkly, but that was put aside when my request for Helen of Troy came in at the library.
As an aside, Margaret George has written several other excellent historical novels with such attention to historical detail that it would (and did) make a history major weep:
- The Memoirs of Cleopatra
- Mary, Called Magdalene
- Mary, Queen of Scotland and the Isles
- The Autobiography of Henry VII (With Notes From Will Somers, His Fool)
I highly recommend the first two - the others I haven't had a chance to thoroughly read yet. Does anyone want to buy them for me? :D
The Memoirs of Helon of Troy caught my eye in the new books section of the library, so I rewarded myself for completing the LSAT and picked it up to read this weekend. I love mythology, I love the story of Helen, and I love history - and the reviews on the book said this was a well-researched book.
The book is written in first person, and follows Helen from her childhood up until the writing of her memoirs, long after Paris is dead. What bothered me about this book is that while Helen feels very three-dimensional - she does good and bad things - is that when it was all said and done, I kind of hated Helen. She abandoned her children for a man she'd known only a few days, she loved the four children she had with Paris more than the others, and she wrote a memoir to her daughter Hermione trying to justify these acts? That didn't sit so well with me. The ending, also, was half-assed, but I won't elaborate on that in case you'd still like to give it a try.
I loved the first half of the book, though - it was full of adventure and Helen as a girl was much more appealing than Helen as an adult. When Helen is kidnapped by the Athenian Theseus and she falls in love with him, the ensuing scenes are hot. It's a little Stockholm Syndrome, sure, but Amanda Elyot writes it well - Helen didn't like her home in Sparta and this was exactly what she had been hoping for - a way to get away from it all. Helen settles into her Athenian life quite easily and her love affair with Theseus is woefully short.
It was also hilarious when Helen, who had children with three men, accused a slave girl of not being able to keep her legs shut, near the end of the book. Come on. COME OOOON.
I can't comment on the historical accuracy of this book, as my ancient mediterranean knowledge is pretty rusty, but it seemed fairly well done. I don't like Elyot's style of using Greek words in dialogue and then defining them in the same sentence. This is supposed to be a memoir to her daughter, who would ostensibly know the language Helen is using.
All in all, I would give it maybe 3 out of 5 stars. It's a fun read, but nowhere near the quality of Anya Seton's Katherine (which I finished, and was quite good) or any of Margaret George's historical fiction novels.
