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umadaurkax's review against another edition
dark
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Rape, Murder, and Sexual harassment
Moderate: Sexism and Sexual violence
Minor: Slavery and War
sopwoo's review against another edition
adventurous
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
Content Warnings
Minor: Rape, Slavery, Grief, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail
reading__redhead's review against another edition
adventurous
lighthearted
relaxing
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Death, Hate crime, Rape, Sexism, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Murder, and Classism
Minor: Body horror, Blood, Death of parent, and War
elizlizabeth's review against another edition
dark
reflective
fast-paced
2.5
Eh. As an essay I think some of the interludes were making a point, but the rest of the fiction does 't support it at all so it ends up kinda mid to be honest.
I'm ok with the Helen-bashing because Penelope is very young at first so this feels like a fitting attitude for a teen, but this girl just does 't get along with a single person here! Like girl at some point you have to see that YOU are the problem...
I'm ok with the Helen-bashing because Penelope is very young at first so this feels like a fitting attitude for a teen, but this girl just does 't get along with a single person here! Like girl at some point you have to see that YOU are the problem...
Content Warnings
Graphic: Misogyny and Murder
Moderate: Sexual violence and Slavery
linnybear's review against another edition
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Misogyny, Toxic relationship, Violence, and Murder
Moderate: Slavery and War
Minor: Infidelity and Rape
annamorgan27's review against another edition
dark
funny
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Violence, Murder, Sexual harassment, and Classism
tessr's review against another edition
challenging
dark
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Misogyny, Rape, Sexism, Sexual violence, Slavery, Violence, Murder, and Sexual harassment
kitt_the_dragon's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Content Warnings
Minor: Gore, Rape, and Slavery
miguelito_juanito's review against another edition
emotional
funny
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Slavery and Murder
wretchedtheo's review against another edition
dark
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
The Penelopiad is easy reading, that much I'll say for it. Its feminist turn seems laudable - until you realize the story which claims to have intended to give a "voice" to the voiceless twelve maids of the Odyssey really just reduces them to an amorphous, homogenous collective character, only one of which is even given a name. They don't get any lines in the story proper, except what Penelope reports them having said. When they are allowed to speak for themselves it is only in the "choruses" - segments of verse where the still-unnamed girls strangely parody their own pain for the reader, occasionally veering into current pop culture references for our sensible enjoyment, speaking with one collective voice.
Sure, it looks fresh, interesting and modern, but that's all skin-deep. Apply an ounce of critical thinking and there's no substance behind it. The reader feels smart for getting it; the slave girls are still indistinguishable - or, better said, undistinguished - one from another.
As is the case with most feminist fiction written by TERFs, there is a bizarre obsession with rape. It is everywhere, especially where it doesn't need to be, and not once is such a sensitive topic handled with thoughtfulness or care. The author seems to positively delight in it, so haphazardly does she strew it about in her tale. Any criticism of this can of course be stopped up with "yes, well, y'know, it was like that in those times."
There is also that insistence with which the protagonist reminds the reader she is Not Conventionally Attractive, and proceeds to repeatedly bash at least one other female character for the crime of being, in fact, Conventionally Attractive. The Penelopiad could've done something interesting with Helen - that age-old sex symbol beloved of men, why not reclaim her? Why not at least explore her motives and mentality? Why not do anything but turn her into the Ancient Greek version of a bitchy, brainless, boy-crazy high school prom queen stereotype? But no. Whatever.
These are not the only areas in which Atwood's feminism disappoints. What seems on the surface to be a liberating revision of a tale so old as to have become the stuff of symbol within the European cultural consciousness really just reinforces preexisting power structures, giving a voice and agency only to a (European) woman. The Penelopiad's eponymous protagonist is a queen, a rich lady, a slave owner. Of course she loves her slaves and looks after them. (Of course, it's not her fault what happens to them, she was like a mother to her slaves, boo-hoo! Gosh, where have I heard this before?) But in her "story-making" there is no room for the "maids" (her slaves). She speaks for them. It is classist. It is whatever the feminine equivalent of "paternalistic" is. All the violence done to the slave girls is conveniently heaped onto the male characters' heads. Poor, innocent, white and teary-eyed Penelope had no hand in it whatsoever.
Again, TERF ideology is visible in the construction of the male characters. None of them are allowed to be the slightest bit good or kind, or even likeable. They have no redeeming traits. Moreover, the narrative is interrupted by several weird, unnecessary takes about men that lump them all together in an uncomfortably bioessentialist style. The male slaves, oppressed by their rich lady owner, are hardly even mentioned. Because it's not about them. It's not about anyone but Penelope.
You could make the argument that all of this is intentional on the author's part, that Penelope is established as an unreliable narrator - but you have to consider Atwood's stake in this, something she makes clear from the very introduction of the text. She says she wanted to write the story of "what Penelope was really up to". Fair enough. But right afterwards - and, more preposterously - she claims to have been "haunted by the twelve maids" (seriously?) and therefore, she wanted to tell their story. Very well, Atwood. Then why not give them all names, and personalities, and character arcs? You didn't have to make this a novella, you could've made some space in the story for the slave women you righteously claim "haunted" you. How very convenient for you that your beloved protagonist-narrator's mistreatment of the slaves can be spun around as an indictment of The System, As A Whole™ when you run into any criticism for the complete and utter lack of conscious and meaningful intersectionality in your critically-acclaimed, commercially successful feminist epic.
Finally, the style - though as I said earlier, easy to read - has this contrived wryness to it that really gets annoying after about three pages. I only finished it for an exam. I'm glad I didn't buy it. This novel is for self-righteous, self-victimizing white feminists comfortable in their privileged worldviews and eager to wallow in a faux-profound yarn whose nobly suffering female hero will confirm their biases, stroke their egos and have them nodding their heads as it tells them how oppressed they are without challenging them even once to think of those worse off than they. In short, it is not for me.
Sure, it looks fresh, interesting and modern, but that's all skin-deep. Apply an ounce of critical thinking and there's no substance behind it. The reader feels smart for getting it; the slave girls are still indistinguishable - or, better said, undistinguished - one from another.
As is the case with most feminist fiction written by TERFs, there is a bizarre obsession with rape. It is everywhere, especially where it doesn't need to be, and not once is such a sensitive topic handled with thoughtfulness or care. The author seems to positively delight in it, so haphazardly does she strew it about in her tale. Any criticism of this can of course be stopped up with "yes, well, y'know, it was like that in those times."
There is also that insistence with which the protagonist reminds the reader she is Not Conventionally Attractive, and proceeds to repeatedly bash at least one other female character for the crime of being, in fact, Conventionally Attractive. The Penelopiad could've done something interesting with Helen - that age-old sex symbol beloved of men, why not reclaim her? Why not at least explore her motives and mentality? Why not do anything but turn her into the Ancient Greek version of a bitchy, brainless, boy-crazy high school prom queen stereotype? But no. Whatever.
These are not the only areas in which Atwood's feminism disappoints. What seems on the surface to be a liberating revision of a tale so old as to have become the stuff of symbol within the European cultural consciousness really just reinforces preexisting power structures, giving a voice and agency only to a (European) woman. The Penelopiad's eponymous protagonist is a queen, a rich lady, a slave owner. Of course she loves her slaves and looks after them. (Of course, it's not her fault what happens to them, she was like a mother to her slaves, boo-hoo! Gosh, where have I heard this before?) But in her "story-making" there is no room for the "maids" (her slaves). She speaks for them. It is classist. It is whatever the feminine equivalent of "paternalistic" is. All the violence done to the slave girls is conveniently heaped onto the male characters' heads. Poor, innocent, white and teary-eyed Penelope had no hand in it whatsoever.
Again, TERF ideology is visible in the construction of the male characters. None of them are allowed to be the slightest bit good or kind, or even likeable. They have no redeeming traits. Moreover, the narrative is interrupted by several weird, unnecessary takes about men that lump them all together in an uncomfortably bioessentialist style. The male slaves, oppressed by their rich lady owner, are hardly even mentioned. Because it's not about them. It's not about anyone but Penelope.
You could make the argument that all of this is intentional on the author's part, that Penelope is established as an unreliable narrator - but you have to consider Atwood's stake in this, something she makes clear from the very introduction of the text. She says she wanted to write the story of "what Penelope was really up to". Fair enough. But right afterwards - and, more preposterously - she claims to have been "haunted by the twelve maids" (seriously?) and therefore, she wanted to tell their story. Very well, Atwood. Then why not give them all names, and personalities, and character arcs? You didn't have to make this a novella, you could've made some space in the story for the slave women you righteously claim "haunted" you. How very convenient for you that your beloved protagonist-narrator's mistreatment of the slaves can be spun around as an indictment of The System, As A Whole™ when you run into any criticism for the complete and utter lack of conscious and meaningful intersectionality in your critically-acclaimed, commercially successful feminist epic.
Finally, the style - though as I said earlier, easy to read - has this contrived wryness to it that really gets annoying after about three pages. I only finished it for an exam. I'm glad I didn't buy it. This novel is for self-righteous, self-victimizing white feminists comfortable in their privileged worldviews and eager to wallow in a faux-profound yarn whose nobly suffering female hero will confirm their biases, stroke their egos and have them nodding their heads as it tells them how oppressed they are without challenging them even once to think of those worse off than they. In short, it is not for me.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Misogyny, Rape, and Slavery