While following the inverted narrative of Medusa, apparently popularly expressed in tattoos, turned on its head, from monster to sexually abused woman who is made to bear both the burden of and punishment for her own abuse, we're treated to a twister of Olympian retellings. Aside from Medusa's, the obvious intersecting story is that of Perseus who may be ignorant of his victim's injury and he may be naive, but in this narration, he's offered as the bumbling villain, still successfully villainous. Though if there is a villain, the closest fit is Poseidon. The book more than succeeds in humanizing the 'monster' and portraying her as the unwitting triple victim of callous, misdirected, then pointless brutality at the hands of Poseidon, Athene, then Perseus. But it doesn't do nearly as convincing of a job at completing the narrative twist for its erstwhile hero, Perseus. Its singleminded attack on the more established version story and its underlying basis sometimes, often, overextends the points it uses in the process to the point of irritating.
Benevenuto Cellini's statue of Perseus with the head of Medusa stands in the Piazza della Signoria in Florence and is one of the most recognizable versions of the Gorgoneion, the Gorgon's head, but gorgoneia (pl?) are more likely seen on door knockers or atop a column, embedded in a frieze, or some other architectural element. The novelty of giving the Gorgoneion its own voice is one of the more creative innovations the book brings to life. Another is Elaia, the olive grove who also finds a voice--it receives a couple short chapters, telling the story of Athene's and Poseidon's bids for what was Cecropia, once named after Cecrops. While having Athene's confidant-slash-olive grove speak is an unexpected and interesting novelty, a few too many threads might be woven into this quilt. "Oh, come on. You must have realized an olive tree was the way Athene won Athens." An olive grove with an attitude.
Before most readers will realize they're being spoken to by the aggrieved head of the decapitated Medusa, the Gorgoneion's bits are understandably even more incensed:
"Anyway, don't even begin to feel sorry for the brat. He isn't saving his mother from some awful torment. He's saving her from the mild inconvenience of travelling a day or two on horseback, making a few snide remarks about former lovers until the kind - who isn't even interested in her, just spiteful - loses patience and sends her away again. Probably lending her a horse for the return journey. The idea that Perseus is a hero is one I have taken exception to since - I can't even tell you how long it is. As long as I've known his name. He's arrogant and he's spoiled." [112]
This half rant regains ground later once the reader learns to whom the voice belongs, but in the moment, the effect is more of a narrator who has lost their sense of language and restraint, breaching the fourth wall to commence a harangue of Perseus, the onetime hero who will later lob the head off this book's adopted hero. You've lost half of your audience the minute you direct them toward the correct way to feel--show, don't tell. But, in all honesty, if she lost me half way through the book, reflecting on the book's perspective (mostly the Gorgoneion), and the reasons for its tone, it won me over.
"He is a vicious little thug and the sooner you grasp that, and stop thinking of him as a brave boy hero, the closer you'll be to understanding what actually happened."
There's a conspicuous absence anywhere in Greek mythology of the blameless, unoffending hero, without crime or blemish. This seems to be lost on the narrator who, somewhat rudely, emerges without announcing herself. But you won't find that person anywhere in Greek mythology, and certainly not in the tale of a sixteen year old bastard castaway, fated to kill his grandfather, and being a self-assured sixteen year old responding, as he would, to the asshole who has just threatened to take his mother as wife out of spite for his brother. But empathy and compassion are out of order, so we're told. Euripides' Trojan Women or Aeschylus' The Persians seem to tell the loser's tale with a little more grace is the feeling I was left with. But maybe that's the point. I don't suppose my head would be as thinking, reflecting as Medusa's decapitated coconut seems to be. Maybe unbelievable, but this is Greek mythology and I get the impression that her head is something (becomes something?) apart (sorry) from Medusa altogether, a different 'person'. But certainly a different voice.
One of the most nuanced and moving accounts is the shameless and tone-deaf retelling of rape from the perspective of violator:
"And then there was his disappointment that the Gorgon girl had not been dazzled by his wit or humbled by his power. Yes, he had taken her, but there had been little satisfaction in it." Oh, fuck you. "She hadn't enjoyed the game, or admired him, or given him anything of herself at all. She had made a choice to save the mortal girls from their deaths, and Poseidon - who he was and what he ruled and how he felt - hadn't entered her mind. He was a force of destruction to her, and nothing more. It had left him feeling angry and empty. Why did no one care about his feelings?"
The light touch of gives Poseidon's callousness all the more revolting a punch.
"He regretted the whole encounter now. The girl had disappeared from his view once he'd raped her. He didn't even know if she was back with her sisters: there was no sign of her from the water. And that brought him to the next thing he was upset about: his shrinking ocean."
He moves seemlessly from self-absorbed trespasser to a self-absorbed, in his view, trespassee.
What of Perseus? In my estimation, the narration seems to lay out all the reasons why we would not blame Perseus for the crime of harvesting the Gorgon's head.
"'I see,' said Zeus. 'I don't suppose you could go and tell him not to use the head unless there's no choice?' 'He already does that,' said Athene. 'Really?' her father asked. 'Yes, he's quite cowardly and stupid, so he can hardly ever choose to do something difficult or brave,' she explained. 'The head really has made all the difference.'"
The head that he was driven to retrieve, unknowing. Perhaps with the exception of Andromeda's rescue, he barely chose any of the happenings that he was equally participant and spectator to.
"'No,' said Athene. 'He won't. He's more the kind of person who doesn't learn anything. He takes easy shortcuts whenever they're offered and gives up when they aren't.'"
Not everyone rises to the occasion. But whether or not he understood what the occasion was, I'm not sure he didn't rise to it. But Haynes successfully problematizes the idea of heroes and monsters, and while the line clearly shifts, I'm glad she doesn't make the line's boundaries explicit.
P.S. A few of the liberties that Haynes takes, as far as I can tell, are: Ceto, the mother of the Gorgon sisters, being the same as Cetus, the monster who was about to eat Andromeda, but I can't find much of a connection except a single reference from Pliny the Elder; the sequence of events after Perseus saves Andromeda; the account of Perseus killing Medusa while sleeping; the missing Pegasus and Chrysaor.
The real villians:
- Hephaestus: tricked by Poseidon into proposing to Athene... jizzes on her thigh
- Perseus: bumbling, narcissistic teenager, son of Zeus
- Zeus: can't keep it in his pants, irritable, easily offended
- Poseidon - rape of Medusa, tricks Athene