What if the real heroes of Greek mythology were women?

In an ideal world, the myths and legends that would have come down to us from ancient Greece would not just tell the story of proud male heroes. But that’s the way it is… Luckily, two millennia later, authors such as Claire North bring the female characters of Greek mythology to the fore.

What is Homer’s Odyssey about?

With the first volume of Penelope Queen of Ithaca: Song of the Goddessesthe author offers us a rewrite of The odyssey of Homer. Did you pass? Here’s a little background. This story tells the epic of the hero Odysseus who tries to regain his island by all means after the Trojan War. His journey will last more than a decade, for a journey that should have taken about four hours by boat.

In this period, his wife Penelope is courted by dozens of men, who only dream of ascending the throne of Ithaca in the absence of King Odysseus. Luckily he imagines a scheme (hardly credible). He will decide who he will marry once he has finished making a veil on her loom. To keep the power-hungry men waiting and to protect her son Télémaque, the unfortunate woman meets every evening to undo the work done during the day until her husband returns.

In this reading, it is easy to understand that Penelope is not mistress of her destiny. She is depicted as a woman who patiently waits for her husband for many years. Her existence is determined only by the choices of the men around him…

As for the gods who are supposed to watch over her, they have nothing to do with her fate and are busy elsewhere. But in the first volume of Penelope Queen of Ithaca: Song of the Goddesses, the story of this neglected queen regains her letters of nobility. Claire North tells her story by giving her the lead role, respecting historical accuracy!

A female version of Greek mythology

In this story, the queen is not passive! Thanks to devoted servants and a network of spies, Penelope tries not to plunge her kingdom into civil war. With an attitude that gives the impression of being disinterested in her power, this queen tries hard not to attract the attention of the men who rule Ithaca in her husband’s absence.

Because even though Odysseus left the island 18 years ago, taking 75% of the men of fighting age for Troy with him, the few remaining men do not feel the least bit threatened by women. They don’t take their opinion into account to make the necessary decisions to protect Ithaca…

But Penelope is not as isolated as she imagines. The narrator is none other than a goddess who follows this whole story with a particularly watchful eye and nothing about her escapes her. She is the protector of women, wives, marriage and fertility: the queen of Olympus, Hera.

This adds to this novel an especially powerful omniscient point of view as she too suffers the sexism of the gods. Also, the portrait it paints of a few male and damn caustic characters…

Hera’s point of view, usually reduced to “sister of”, “wife of” or even deceived woman, is what adds all its feminist dimension to this novel by Claire North. Greek mythology, fascinating as it is, brings together sexist and misogynistic stories. While with this novel, author Claire North shows that female characters can emancipate themselves from their male counterparts, even hide certain actions from them.

Hera subtly insinuates herself into the daily life of the women of the island of Ithaca, in the human form of an old woman to whom no one pays attention or whispers in their ear. And this especially in the lives of queens, like Penelope, who is surely her own heroine. Even the goddesses have their favorites and are busy designing a destiny for them that will survive the ages.

This is what separates Hera from her beautiful daughters, unlike Aphrodite supporting Paris or Athena helping Achilles during the Trojan War, the queen of goddesses opts for the brotherhood.

You can discover the first volume of Penelope Queen of Ithaca: Song of the Goddesses and the sharp writing of Claire North from April 12, 2023 in the bookstores of Éditions Hautevilles.