Claire North
Autor/a de The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August
Sobre l'autor
Nota de desambiguació:
(eng) Claire North is a pseudonym of British writer Catherine Webb (who also writes under the name Kate Griffin). As there are other authors named "Catherine Webb" and "Kate Griffin", do not combine this page with either of those.
Sèrie
Obres de Claire North
Hurrem and the Djinn [short story] 1 exemplars
La scelta di Penelope. La saga di Itaca 1 exemplars
Obres associades
2001: An Odyssey in Words: Celebrating the Centenary of Arthur C. Clarke's Birth (2018) — Col·laborador — 52 exemplars
The Other Side of Never: Dark Tales from the World of Peter & Wendy (2023) — Col·laborador — 10 exemplars
Etiquetat
Coneixement comú
- Nom oficial
- Webb, Catherine
- Altres noms
- Griffin, Kate
North, Claire - Data de naixement
- 1986-04-27
- Gènere
- female
- Nacionalitat
- UK
- Llocs de residència
- London, England, UK
- Nota de desambiguació
- Claire North is a pseudonym of British writer Catherine Webb (who also writes under the name Kate Griffin). As there are other authors named "Catherine Webb" and "Kate Griffin", do not combine this page with either of those.
Membres
Ressenyes
Llistes
Premis
Potser també t'agrada
Autors associats
Estadístiques
- Obres
- 33
- També de
- 6
- Membres
- 9,559
- Popularitat
- #2,517
- Valoració
- 3.8
- Ressenyes
- 475
- ISBN
- 246
- Llengües
- 14
- Preferit
- 9
- Pedres de toc
- 204
Ithaca tells the story of Penelope (of The Odyssey fame), dealing with the rash-like abundance of suitors as she waits for her husband Odysseus to return to their beloved island of Ithaca. Trouble begins when raiders begin to encroach the island, pushing Penelope to marry, and the secret arrival of her cousin Clytemnestra, who just murdered her husband Agamemnon of the The Oresteia fame and is on the lam. Machinations, goddess-drama, and annoying whelps ensue, until fate has its way on the poor island.
Ithaca isn't a poorly constructed novel so much as it is boring, overwritten, and mindless. It didn't present the reader with anything new, and instead took a potentially fruitful scenario and pondered on and on until it withered up and died. I have no doubt that the only reason this was published (and sold as a TRILOGY!?) is that the author is established in the industry and that there is a large publishing push right now with Greek and other mythology retelling to secure enough sold copies. I mean hell, it got me: trendy and beautiful cover, women’s fiction, Ancient Greek story. Triple whammy book request if there’s ever been one. Unfortunately, this is the kind of book they warn you about in elementary school: it’s truly the worst book with the best cover that I’ve read in a long time.
The story has a fascination with the trappings of Ancient Greek storytelling that I fear the author believed would carry more weight than it did. It has that oh-so-memorable turns of phrase for anyone who studied the language: we get a good “rosy-fingered dawn” and an interesting inverted patronymic of “father-of” with many male characters—the most annoying unfortunately is the constant “what will the poets think?” anytime a woman does anything a bit off the book, shall we say. It seems that a woman cannot so much as breathe in an unladylike way and it’s noted for the reader like a giant red arrow for all to see. There's very little subtlety in this book. This is the sort of stuff that "feminist retelling" criticism was made for.
While these turns of phrase show that the author has, at least, put some thought into the accoutrements of her writing, so many things were just—well—straight up wrong historically speaking. And without any explanation as to why. I think the standout was the relationship and actions of Penelope’s (enslaved!) maids, who all acted like this massive line of power just… didn’t exist? Yes, they bowed and simpered a bit, but the odd veiling etiquette, the way they all spoke to the queen, and the level of agency they had were all just massively ignored. It told me right away that the people who would enjoy this are not the ones who know very much about this world...
Perhaps the most egregious is the overall tone of the novel: the author employs the goddess Hera as the narrator, which speaking on a narrative level sucks all the life out of the God damn thing. Naturally, then, it’s written in a very grand voice that the author is simply not good enough to pull off authentically. And there were so many damn adjectives! Double triple adjectives! Purple prose my god!
Basically, and I said this earlier, this book is boring, without any reason for being so. I always feel like I have to reiterate, I read boring books: look at my classics tag. Like, if your plot is thin, the characterization or the theme or the beauty of your writing has got to be superb. Unfortunately, this novel does not supply any of those. The characters are flat and there is somehow no character development in the 400+ pages. There are no themes other than "Wow, did you know women did stuff and had feelings two thousand years ago?", and the small bits of beauty in the text are buried beneath eye-rolling metaphors without a hint of something gruff and good.
Anyway. Eh.… (més)