Circe by Madeline Miller

Please note these reviews contain spoilers.

Hello everyone! Welcome to the Velvet Hours Book Review Collection! There’s often a lot I have to say about the books I read, especially the books I adore. I’m quite sick of sharing these opinions with my stuffed teddies, or my cat, who looks at me blankly every time I go on one of these rants, so I thought I would share them with you. I do hope you’ll enjoy these.

I thought I would begin with my top 10 favourite books of all time, the first of which is Circe by Madeline Miller. If you have not read this book, please stop reading and go buy a copy. Please. I am begging you. (Feel free to imagine me with my palms clasped, on my eyes, with snot and tears running down my face as I plead you to read it).

If you have not read the book yet continue to read this review, I take no liability for the diminished emotional effect for when you finally read it. Also, you are insane if you read a full review before reading. But Australia is a democracy so I can’t do anything about it (unfortunately).

Now that I’ve finished grovelling at your feet, let’s talk about what makes Circe so transcendent.

Quick book summary

The book follows Circe, the daughter of Helios and a Titan in her own right, who spends her early life (a few thousand years, give or take), in perpetual boredom. Isolated from her family and an eternity to spare, she meanders through time with no purpose, no ambition, no life. Through a series of events, she discovers she is a witch, but is exiled to a distant island called Aiaia. There, she blooms for the first time in her life, and with each person she meets, and each hurdle thrown to her, she begins to understand herself.

It is a story about life itself, about understanding that your life is your own. It is about the beauty that is a brief existence – full of passion and urgency spurred by an inevitable death. It is a story about self-discovery and of crafting a life you want, even if you might lose a few people along the way.

Madeline Miller (an absolute goddess) captures this profoundness in such an intimate way. In doing so, she allows us to connect to Circe’s core, and see ourselves in her image, trapped in a world that feels misaligned, and inspires us to follow in her footsteps.

Review

If you couldn’t tell, this review is a love letter to Madeline Miller (Madeline, if you are reading this, please marry me).

Like my review, this book is a love letter to life itself. It worships the brief existence we humans are blessed with. We lead our lives with a sense of urgency because we know life is finite. We feel and care so deeply for the same reason. There is a sense of apathy and permanence among the divinity, which is perhaps why they revel in cruelty – because it makes them feel something, when everything else leaves them empty. We have this very moment, and we never know which will be our last. That, is the poetry of existence. A short, yet thrilling and passionate existence.

Circe is different. She does not simply float in a never-ending river. She feels. And by doing so, she discovers the person she is. Every experience, every person she encounters taught her another lesson about herself. For example, her interactions with other divinity made her realise just how different she is from them. She isn’t cruel. When Hermes flits through her life with his playful cunning, she observes the gods’ indifference and caprice, and she recoils at their thoughtless cruelty. When her father Helios condemns mortals to suffering without a second thought, Circe feels an empathy they cannot. It is through these contrasts — the capriciousness of the immortals versus her own growing moral compass — that she begins to understand who she truly is.”

This book also pushes us to live according to who we are. In this world, people (especially women) live to serve others. We spend most of our days at work, attempting to serve our employers and colleagues. We come home to serve our friends and family. We even try to please a stranger with whom we shared a tram or inanimate objects. Who else says “sorry” when bumping into a table? We reduce ourselves to invisibility and walk on eggshells, as if we do not have a right to be here just like everyone else. We try to live according to societal expectations (think marriage, children, jobs, cars, neighbourhoods, hobbies, music, movies, books etc.). Platforms like TikTok perpetuate this!  cough* Booktok cough. Circe carried the weight of expectations too – her role as a nymph, a Titan, a witch etc. When she is literally and metaphorically exiled, she is liberated. There, she cultivates her powers, experiments with herbs and spells, and chooses which relationships to nurture or discard. She raises Telegonus, turns strangers into lessons, and slowly discovers that she can shape her own life rather than endlessly reacting to others’ whims. This exile, initially a punishment, becomes the canvas upon which she paints her autonomy, her identity, and her happiness. Her world was stripped from her, so she built another.

You shouldn’t expect Circe to be perfect. She’s flawed. She turned men into pigs. She kept Odysseus with her despite his wish to be with his wife. She turned Scylla into a monster. She’s snarky, judgmental and sometimes rude. But she also carries sympathy. She helps those in need (like Pasiphae), even when they have treated her badly her whole life. She protected her son with all her might, and let him go to live his own life. Like her, we humans are fluid. We are constantly changing and we’re not perfect. We say things we regret and wish we could correct our past mistakes. But with each misstep, she finds her footing, and she continues forward. She does not turn around and plead for forgiveness. In that same vein, perhaps we should accept what we have said and done in the past and simply try to be a little bit better, a little bit truer to ourselves, whoever that appears to be.

Let me know what you think of the book in the comments!

If you've gotten to this point without reading the book:

a. You're crazy; and

b. I truly hope I was able to convince you to pick up a copy.