Title: Ariadne
Author: Jennifer Saint
Publication Date: 29 April 2021
Genre: Greek Mythology Retelling
Publisher: Wildfire
Rating: 🌟🌟🌟
I am an eternal lover of Greek Mythology, but the one thing that is always missing is a good female perspective. Greek mythology has long lived with the curse of the male gaze and the male perspective, where women are treated as property, used and abused and cursed because of the fickle whims of men. Jennifer Saint hasn’t shied away from these ideas, instead, she has embraced them, and explored what it really means to be a women in Ancient Greek society (and how this can reflect realities for women in our world today).
As Princesses of Crete and daughters of the fearsome King Minos, Ariadne and her sister Phaedra grow up hearing the hoofbeats and bellows of the Minotaur echo from the Labyrinth beneath the palace. The Minotaur – Minos’s greatest shame and Ariadne’s brother – demands blood every year.
When Theseus, Prince of Athens, arrives in Crete as a sacrifice to the beast, Ariadne falls in love with him. But helping Theseus kill the monster means betraying her family and country, and Ariadne knows only too well that in a world ruled by mercurial gods – drawing their attention can cost you everything.
In a world where women are nothing more than the pawns of powerful men, will Ariadne’s decision to betray Crete for Theseus ensure her happy ending? Or will she find herself sacrificed for her lover’s ambition?
Ariadne gives a voice to the forgotten women of one of the most famous Greek myths, and speaks to their strength in the face of angry, petulant Gods. Beautifully written and completely immersive, this is an exceptional debut novel
GOODREADS
You’ll Like This If You Love…
- Greek mythology
- Women main characters
- Female rage
- Real women’s struggles (day to day)
- Greek heroes (that may not be so heroic)
My Thoughts:
Is this book really what it says on the tin? A feminist retelling of the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur? I would say, yes… but also no… but also yes?
Let’s start with Ariadne. The very first thing that struck me about this novel was how little I had read Greek mythology from a woman’s perspective. Ariadne’s perspective gives a fresh take on the Theseus and the Minotaur myth where Theseus’ heroics are somewhat diminished beneath Ariadne’s naive understanding of the world and her brains to come up with the plan that made Theseus’ heroics successful. As the novel progresses, Ariadne’s character development becomes the real artistic part of this novel. We see her go through so many different stages: unbelievable grief, pure female rage and eventually love. Her marriage to Dionysus (not a spoiler as it is in the original myths) was one of the more feminist aspects of this novel. Dionysus, although a typical Greek God with the powers and ego to match, creates a relationship with Ariadne that is built on mutual respect and trust. However, in their relationship, we also see common struggles of many women: the manipulations of men, the curse of inexperience, a lack of decent male role models, the never-ending hope of something better (even after being let down) and societies rules and expectations (that are not put on men).
Phaedra is the other main perspective character in the novel. At first, I liked Phaedra’s character a lot more than Ariadne’s. She is headstrong and wilful and determined to break out of the societal mould that her father and those around her have placed on her. However, as the novel progresses, I felt like her character almost regresses into a more childlike state. She becomes more submissive and immature and her actions reflect this, leading in dire results. One of the things that I did really like about Phaedra’s character was the way that she struggles with many things that many women, even today, struggle with. She lives in a loveless relationship, doesn’t like being a mother, and envies other for the ease of their lives. However, despite these universal elements of Phaedra’s story, I ended up despising Phaedra’s character as I felt a lot of her story was out of character, even for the original Greek myths she comes from.
Theseus is undoubtedly one of the major antagonists of the novel. Saint is very particular about showing the dark sides of his character and it was very clear from the beginning of the novel that Theseus’ hero status was simply a facade. Time and again he is shown to be a manipulative and narcissistic character who uses and abuses others for his own gain. I think what was really clever about Theseus in this book is that he very slowly, over the course of the novel, starts to lose his grip on the power and control he so desperately aimed to gain at the start, showing the falseness of his character beneath the shiny mask he wears as the King and hero of Athens.
Of all of the characters, one of my favourites was The Minotaur (or Asterion as he was born). One thing I both hate, and love, Jennifer Saint for, is her ability to make me empathise with a character that was doomed from the start. Using Ariadne’s character to retell the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur, meant that the Minotaur is presented first and foremost as Ariadne’s brother. This pushes the reader to battle with the nature/nurture argument as Asterion grows up and becomes the monster in the labyrinth that he has mythologically been known as for decades. It made his ultimate (and obvious) demise even more devastating because as his character develops, he slowly loses his humanity in the madness of the Minotaur, meaning that when Ariadne and Theseus ultimately plan to battle him, the reader is left wondering whether Ariadne feels remorse over his death: the death of her brother.
The world building in this book was fundamental to the development of the characters. Crete is a place where both Ariadne and Phaedra are hidden from the world, sequestered and protected from its influences. This means that both of them deal with a betrayal in Theseus’ character at the very start because they do not have the maturity to understand that he is manipulating them. Athens, for Phaedra, becomes a place where reality comes crashing down. A big city with strange customs and strange people. She deals with a lot of change there and all of the regression we see in her character is as a direct result of what happens in the palace at Athens. Naxos, however, for Ariadne is her place of healing. The island where Theseus initially abandons her becomes a haven where she can truly find a slice of paradise. But, because it is so isolated, she becomes disconnected from the wider world and the happenings beyond its shores. The only thing I wish, is that the gods and goddesses has played more of a vital role in the story. One of the beauties of Greek mythology is that the mortal world relies so much on the happenings of Olympus, but I felt like there was a disconnect between the world of Olympus and the world of the characters, with the only connection often being Dionysus’ character, who is often gone from Naxos and Ariadne.
The plot of this book is fairly straightforward, and is where many of the feminist features lack. The plot itself is simply a straight retelling of the different myths that Ariadne is a part of: Theseus and the Minotaur, Ariadne and Dionysus and Phaedra and Theseus. Jennifer Saint does not really deviate from the original myths which I think is both a good thing, but also a drawback of this novel. Sticking to the source material means that there is not much space to add many more feminist themes than can be added into the characters’ development. However, something that is very clear in the plot of the novel is that by sticking to the source material, Saint shows the overarching power and control of the Gods and Goddesses. Every character throughout the novel, in some way, pays a price for angering the gods (whether they were the ones to anger them or not). However, the women in the novel, more often than not, pay the harshest price.
Why It Was A 3-Star Read For Me:
The pacing was where this book was a bit of a let down for me. The book is split into four parts: the first part in particular focuses on the original Theseus and the Minotaur myth from Ariadne’s perspective. This section felt very well paced, with enough detail to keep me on my toes and engaged in the story, hoping endlessly that things might end differently for Ariadne. However, sections two and three felt slow for me. At times the pace was so fast I wasn’t sure what was happening and had to re-read parts, but for most of the time I wished I could skip pages to get to the parts of the book where something was actually happening or changing. I think because the pacing was so erratic for much of the book, I felt as if I was constantly waiting, but not in suspense.
What is most poignant about this novel is that Jennifer Saint doesn’t try to remake the Greek Myths into something they are not. Instead, she gives a voice to the women who are so often left behind in the stories, centering the myths around their lives and struggles of being a woman in Ancient Greece. Struggles woman can face today as well. This is not a book that is trying to put it’s female characters on the same footing as men, instead, it is a novel that analyses and criticises the place of women in society through the lens of Greek myths where women are often used and left behind. As Ariadne herself says: there is “a truth of womanhood [in Greek myths]: however blameless a life we led, the passions and the greed of men could bring us to ruin, and there was nothing we could do.”
About the Author:
Jennifer Saint grew up reading Greek mythology and was always drawn to the untold stories hidden within the myths. After thirteen years as a high school English teacher, she wrote ARIADNE which tells the legend of Theseus and the Minotaur from the perspective of Ariadne – the woman who made it happen. Jennifer Saint is now a full-time author, living in Yorkshire, England, with her husband and two children. Both ARIADNE and ELEKTRA are Sunday Times bestsellers.