equality

[ spoilers ahead! ]

my first atwood and i picked up a retelling. hehehe. but i do intend to read "the handmaid's tale" and "blind assassin" hopefully someday soon.

what i liked best about this book - playful penelope, funny suitors, silly and suprisingly wise water queen mother - are the 12 maids. they punished penelope and odysseus for their murders equally. penelope said that odysseus cannot stay for very long in the afterlife because he gets restless. the maids make him restless.

so he reincarnates himself into the waking world, leaving penelope waiting for him again in the after life. the maids keep them separate for odysseus killing them off. they were killed when penelope was asleep... and of course she won't fully divulge why she fell asleep while her maids were being slaughtered.

who could sleep through such carnage? she herself admits that what she and her husband say to each other doesn't always match what they really mean in their hearts. or their words did, they just didn't last for very long that way.

penelope's joy at seeing odysseus again after 20 years gone was more obvious than her mourning her murdered 12 maids. odysseus wanted to make sure he asserted his kingship in case he needed to leave penelope again (and he did leave). the best way to assure that is to strip penelope of her most trusted allies - the 12 maids.

this book just reminded me how tiltillatingly complex the adult world is. it reminded me why i put off joining it for as long as i could. i don't have time or energy to waste on smoke and mirrors. even if i end up learning, i know i'll regret it. if i grow up at all, bitterness is a fruit i don't ever want to be accustomed to.  ¶ 2/07/2006 11:31:00 PM