Book Review: ‘House of Odysseus’ by Claire North

Author: Claire North
Title: House of Odysseus
Series: The Songs of Penelope
Release Date: 24th August 2023
Preorder: Bookshop.org*

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Summary

House of Odysseus is the second book in Claire North’s Ithaca-set, Penelope-centric ‘Songs of Penelope’ trilogy. It picks up where we left off at the end of the first book, Ithaca, and deals with the aftermath of Clytemnestra’s death: Orestes is being driven to madness, watched over by the vengeful Furies, and Electra seeks Penelope’s support as Menelaus tries to turn the precarious situation in Argos and the Western Isles to his advantage.

Mythic Context

North’s main focus in her ‘Songs of Penelope’ trilogy is to explore what Penelope was doing on Ithaca during her husband Odysseus’s long absence - first, while battling at Troy, and then, while battling to return home to Ithaca.

In Homer’s Odyssey and other ancient texts Penelope is depicted and described as the ‘ideal’ (chaste) wife but we know, realistically, that she must be taking power - albeit differently to how her cousin Clytemnestra took power - and ruling Ithaca in Odysseus’s absence or Ithaca would be in ruin when he finally returned. But what does ‘taking power’, when it isn’t usurping one’s husband and murdering him on his return, look like?

We know, too, from the Odyssey that Penelope used various tricks and wiles to fend off the many suitors who vie to take her husband’s place, but how do these tricks work in practice? And what tricks, beyond the weaving and unweaving of her father-in-law’s funeral shroud, does Penelope employ?

House of Odysseus also engages with Aeschylus’s tragedy Eumenides and how Orestes overcomes the trauma of committing matricide.

Review

Ithaca was written from the goddess Hera’s point of view and House of Odysseus is written from Aphrodite’s, which makes me excited and hopeful that the third book of the trilogy will be written from Athena’s! Aphrodite has such a fantastic voice here: she’s funny, she’s witty, she’s sassy, she’s a bit of a pervert (she comments on literally every single fit person and/or exposed bit of flesh that she comes across) but I love how she can’t not see the beauty in everything. I love, too, that her focus isn’t just on sexual or romantic love: she tries to teach her virginal sisters Artemis and Athena how to understand what love can mean to them, too.

Aphrodite describes the Judgement of Paris quite early on in the book. I’m ashamed that I’d never really paid this myth much attention beyond what we’re always told/shown about the three goddesses (Aphrodite, Hera, and Athena) being catty and competitive with one another, each wanted to be declared the most beautiful of them all. But North’s approach is incredibly thoughtful and full of emotion. Hera and Athena are humiliated by the debasement of this contest - initiated by Zeus - and the violation of their bodies, and Aphrodite tries her best to help them through it. Zeus is truly vile here: he takes a sick pleasure in the goddesses’ humiliation.

Penelope receives her Spartan guests towards the beginning of the book. Menelaus is the perfect villain: he’s horrid, he’s despicable, I can imagine him twirling a comedy villain moustache when he speaks, and he is just a delight in how awful he is. I’m always a little bit wary about portrayals of Helen but North’s Helen is just as delightful as her husband but in a completely different way! She’s older, she’s visibly ageing, she’s accompanied by signs of vanity (her extraordinary mirror, her piles of gowns and makeup, the potions and ointments scattered across her dressing table - a delicious hint to the grief-removing potions she gives Telemachus and others in the Odyssey!) and acts silly and simpering, but there are hints of something deeper beneath the surface. There is a lovely moment between Helen and Penelope - who really ought to have recognised such tricks were afoot - when her ‘act’ is revealed.

Helen is Aphrodite’s particular favourite, but the narrative leaves us wondering whether being a god’s favourite is a blessing or a curse - an interesting thought to be left with as Odysseus is guided home to Ithaca by his patron goddess, Athena.

Penelope has Mycenaean guests, too: Orestes is incapacitated for most of the book and his sister Electra is more vulnerable here than she was in Ithaca. I could really feel how the weight of everything she’s been through and everything she is trying to survive is bearing down on her. This is a lovely, sympathetic portrayal of a very complicated character.

Orestes brings with him the Furies, horrifying malevolent creatures invisible to mortals but, as Aphrodite tells us with a shiver, constantly lurking in the background wherever Orestes is.

I was curious to see how the Furies and Orestes’ purification of the sin of killing his mother would be handled in this book. I’ve always found Aeschylus’s solution somewhat dissatisfying: it’s too neat, too Athenian, too ‘real-life’. North’s solution is very different: Athena is the arbiter of justice here as she is in Aeschylus, but the Athenian law-courts are swapped for a ‘council’ of women in the wilds of Kephalonia. We’re given a very quiet, very intimate, and very powerful scene between Penelope and Orestes where she talks to him about love and forgiveness. I found it incredibly moving, and much preferable to Athena’s misogyny and the sterility of law-courts in Aeschylus - and I think this is a perfect example of how a good myth retelling can (and should) alter and adapt existing mythic traditions. The cycle of alteration and adaptation is what happened to myths in antiquity, and North’s handling of the extant source material proves that there’s still life and emotion and feeling to be lifted from these ancient stories.

Penelope is, of course, still beset by her suitors, and the Egyptian Kenamon continues to be an utter delight. Penelope seems to shed some of her queenly burdens and come to life around him and I swear my heart beats as fast as hers does when they flirt and make eye contact and touch fingertips!! It’s basically heresy to see Penelope/Odysseus as anything but endgame but I honestly think I ship Penelope/Kenamon now and there’s nothing Odysseus can do about it.

House of Odysseus ends with Odysseus waking up on Ithacan shores. This should be a happy moment and we should be left feeling relieved that the king has finally returned, but North deftly reverses these expectations and makes us feel anxious and wary about what will happen and how Penelope - and her maids and the other women of the island - will react.

A digital copy of this book was given to me in exchange for an honest review.