Year Three, Almost Free 5: Circe and Tim's Birthday

Hello, Tim!

Sorry that I have not been as active as I used to be, but with the college entrance exam in mind, finding time for all my entertainment is no longer as easy as squeezing water from a soaked sponge.

The sun was still there, basking the lands of Taiwan with its welcoming warmth, but with the winds and rain in the week, the temperature has slowly lowered; I think the weather for thin jackets are soon to come.

Circe, Witch of Aiaia

There are a million ways that I could have finished this book long ago. Chucking my cell phone away, ignoring my studies, bringing my book with me wherever I go despite the recent rainy weather, and etc. However, I couldn’t have done all of them, for (quite sadly,) I’m also quite a cell phone addict; I have my studies to take care of; I wouldn’t risk having my books get in contact with even a small drop of water.

Here is what I do instead. In my diary, I remind myself every day that I am supposed to spend thirty minutes reading, however busy the days are. It worked even though there still are days I would be too tired to take in anything. Just yesterday, I finally finished reading my first book since the summer break.

Circe, a book written by Madeline Miller, the author of the life-changing The song of Achilles, is a book about a witch that was portrayed as more sinister than not on the epics of the Greeks. The instant I saw the book on the Internet as well as the reflective metallic orange design and the elegant, sleek black used to entwine with the color on the cover that makes the book shine with luster, I knew then that I would need her in my shelves.

Aren't they beautiful?

Circe in the original myths was more of a jealous and vengeful sea spirit born to the sun god, Helios. She turned a man she loved to a god by accident, and intentionally turned another sea spirit into a sea monster because the man Circe loved left her for the sea nymph. The sea monster, by the way, was an infamous Scylla. The men at sea feared her for gulping down six of the crew in a swift motion every time you go past her.

Afraid of her new-found power in witchcraft and to where lied the extent of her capabilities, the gods exiled her to an island where she could interfere with the lives of no one unless people found their way to the island. According to the original myths, Circe was practically fuming when escorted to the small island of Aiaia and turned all the ship members washed on shore into pigs until she was defeated by Odysseus and served him and his crew for a year before they went on with his thrilling expedition for the way back home.

In the retelling version of Madeline, however, focused more on the reasons or the events that led the once naive sea spirit on the path she later took. Yeas, Circe was a character with a flawed personality, and it seemed dangerous for the others that she possessed such an unmeasurable power. She did transform Scylla into a monstrosity that we all come to know from the myths, but in the novel, she never stopped mourning for the lives lost in the ferocious jaws of the monster she created, ‘Those men she had eaten were sailors as Glaucos had been, ragged, desperate, worn thin with fear. All dead. All of them cold smoke, marked with my name.’ She perceived the world unsuccessfully, for she was practical and outcast to the whole world. She unveiled the ugliness of the human world the hard way and hence the rather cynical perception she held for the world.

The author, Miller, writes about love like she was carving words into stones, wrapping it up with a generous amount of prose. Her previous work painted a picture of love between men so heart-wrenching I had buzzing in my head. Circe, on the other hand, is a book in which she portrayed more of the love a mother holds for her son. How much one could do just to kept one’s child safe: Setting herself in front of a goddess so that she couldn’t take him away; staying sane even if the kid wails about the world for seven incessant years; willing to suffer eternal pain and torment just in view of providing the infant further protection. I knew the weight of it all, all the toil that must be taken into responsibility, and how much love it takes to endure and to eventually let go, but I think it was just because I don’t have a kid of my own yet that I don’t know how much it would relate to a parent.

Before reading this book, I was convinced that Circe was just a witch working by a cauldron, satisfied with her power, cackling while plotting to turn more men into pigs. Madeline Miller’s works on Greek mythology never fails to cask a different light on the heroes that originated from the Greek eras. Just like she did with the swift-foot Achilles, I fell in love with the character of Circe.

 

This has officially become my favorite leisure activity.

End

I would like to elaborate more on the week that I had, but I apparently had no time.

Sorry, this is all I could ever muster.

Tim: Happy Birthday! Here is my digital birthday card as promised! I have to say that I am never good at designing things, but I do wish you take care of yourself even though you have such a tight schedule now.

Bonne Anniversaire! Have a happy year as a happy seventy-year-old!

 

Extra: Mom with her new-knitted shawl.

Best wishes,

Hugo