Summer, September, Circe, and Sea Monsters
Title: Circe
Author: Madeline Miller
We spent a good chunk of our summer reading ancient history and mythology. The summer months of sunshine and blistering heat seem to be the best months for mentally spending time in the mediterranean, Egypt, and all the other places we think of when we imagine gods and goddesses.
I read Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan out loud to my nearly nine year old. Last time I’d done that she was maybe two or three. I picked up history books on Athens and Amazons faster than I could read them; I’m still finishing some of them up now. We recently started Sea of Monsters, the second in the Percy Jackson series, my daughter is smitten, I’m gloriously amused.
One historical novel that did stand out, though, was Circe by Madeline Miller. It started out sounding forcefully archaic, cold, like someone trying to hard to tap into a world of Homeric myth; but as I kept reading I found myself smitten by the sea-witch nymph–just as I believe Miller intended us to be. She starts out cold and heartless and grows warm with each mortal interaction.
It’s interesting to me how pervasive witches, goddesses, and nymphs are in modern day culture, despite having been born of myth thousands of years ago. We are enthralled with books like Deborah Harkness’s All Souls Trilogy, captivated by the Percy Jackson series, completely taken in by anything resembling immortality.
Is it our hearts longing for Heaven as Richardson says in Eternity in Our Hearts? So we invent ways that might allow us to stay? Or create reasons why it is better that we don’t? I know I find these stories most intriguing as I watch everything around us die for the oncoming winter.
I look forward to reading The Song of Achilles.
Anakalian Whims 
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