A review by theatomicblonde22
House of Names, by Colm Tóibín

2.0

I'm not entirely sure how to express my feelings in a short, succinct review of this book. I love a good myth retelling, and I'd heard this one comes highly recommended. It's my first Colm Tóibín book and his writing definitely beautiful. The book is broken up into three narrative sections - Clytemnestra, Orestes, and Electra - and spans from the beginning of the Greek's journey to fight the Trojans and ends many years later after the murders of *spoiler?* both Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. I really, really enjoyed Clytemnestra's sections, where we get to see the raw emotion of a mother mourning her child and the buildup of her resentment and hatred towards her husband. But, that's sort of where the enjoyment ends for me... Orestes' chapters were very boring and I honestly don't recall more than half of it (granted, it's the entire middle half of the book) and Electra struct me as a floundering, also useless portrayal of what should have been a compelling character. The ending of the book was, for me, completely unsatisfying and delves VERY little into the aftermath of Orestes' matricide. No furies chasing him, no attempt to cleanse himself of the blood of such a crime, nope. None of that. The book literally ends in the middle of his wife (who is not the mythological cousin he DOES marry) in labor about to have a baby that's not actually his. I almost feel like that was a huge waist of an 8 hour audiobook.