In the introduction to The Penelopaid, Margaret Atwood’s retelling of the Myth of Odysseus, she writes: “I’ve chosen to give the telling of the story to Penelope and to the twelve hanged maids. The maids form a chanting and singing Chorus, which focuses on two questions that must pose themselves after any close reading of the Odyssey: What led to the hanging of the maids, and what was Penelope really up to? The story as told in the Odyssey doesn’t hold water: there are too many inconsistencies. I’ve always been haunted by the hanged maids and, in The Penelopiad, so is Penelope herself.”
With The Penelopiad, Atwood has written a fierce, funny, and subversive myth that challenges the patriarchal nature of Greek Mythology.
“By turns slyly funny and fiercely indignant, Ms. Atwood’s imaginative, ingeniously constructed ‘deconstruction’ of the old tale reveals it in a new—and refreshingly different—light.”—Washington Times
