The Penelopiad: The Myth of Penelope and Odysseus Margaret Atwood
Publisher: Canongate U.S.

The Penelopiad: The Myth of Penelope and Odysseus (Myths). Misunderstood and frustrated with a millennia old narrative as the faithful and patient wife, Penelope offers a retelling of the legendary myth from her point of view. In The Penelopiad, she focuses on the terrible fate of Penelope's twelve maids, strung up by the neck by Odysseus and his son Telemachus once they have butchered Penelope's 120 suitors who endlessly harassed her in the 20 years of Odysseus' absence. The power of Atwood's The Penelopiad is that her Penelope, captured in myth as the archetypical woman of virtue, chastely waiting for a long absent husband, is constructed as a wholly contemporary voice. Availibility :Usually ships in 1-2 business days. I have lived my own hybrid take on The Odyssey, . Though the myth of The Odyssey has been told and retold countless times, Margaret Atwood takes on the tale in an irreverent and thought-provoking manner by breathing life into Penelope, Odysseus's faithful and patient wife. I liked the subversive After Atwood's The Penelopiad, I'm reading Jeanette Winterson's Weight and Karen Armstrong's A Short History of Myth, another title in the Canongate Myth series. Hmmm.methinks I must read the *Penelopiad*. She has her own opinions about her husband's absence and exploits as well as the unfair treatment and murder of her handmaidens by Odysseus upon his return. Now with two thousand years of knowledge, Her voice is potent not only because it reframes The Odyssey, arguably the most popular myth of all time but because it calls into question the “heroic actions” of Odysseus.