Anna (lion_reads)'s Reviews > Wake, Siren: Ovid Resung

3.5 stars

Um, so content warning for everything from rape to incest and other extreme violence...no, really, brace yourselves.

I thought this was quite an interesting collection. I remember liking Ovid's Metamorphoses, but if you've read Greek/Roman myths, you know they come with an aftertaste of fucked up. (WHY is Zeus allowed to scamper around the countryside turning into animals and surprising unsuspecting women with sex?) Nina MacLaughlin dials all of that up and brings the stories into the modern world.

I liked MacLaughlin's interpretations of the stories, and the way each story experimented with narrative style — some stories were crass, others contained only one word, and others were told in a solemn but recognizable to the modern ear tone. And each was told from the perspective of the women who feature in the background of the stories about the gods. Some stories were more personally appealing than others, but I didn't feel that there was a great dissonance between the stories as sometimes happens in collections. The stories were all in conversation with each other, they built off of each other and coloured the contexts of the stories around them without creating annoying repetitiveness. Some worked, some didn't, but overall I enjoyed the experience.

I have to say that many of the stories here left me deeply uncomfortable. I was even made dizzy by the violence, at times. However, the violence didn't strike me as gratuitous. It was in the realm of possibility for the stories and for the state of the world today. It felt too real. The acts of metamorphosis themselves were violent or sad. In Ovid's version, they are easy to interpret as whimsical, magical and fun, but here they are indisputably acts of necessity, desperation, and helplessness. Here they are a taking of agency, an imposition on a story rather than a making of one. I liked that perspective on Ovid.

I find it odd that there are people who denounce modern retellings of old stories, that beg the reader to respect the source text. How is this possible? These myths are products of their time and are equally as flawed as things written today. Why do they deserve more respect? They are not an ideal, even if they did inspire much of Western culture. And what is literature anyway if it doesn't comment on the literature around it? And while we're there: there's plenty to comment on Ovid and the myths.

Anyway, an arresting exploration of Ovid's Metamorphoses and one worth trying out if you can stomach it. :) Also: knowledge of Ovid or said myths not necessary!