The Heroines

There seems to be a trend for feminist retellings of classic myth at the moment - at least I seem to have received a lot from the various book boxes I subscribe to over the last few months. The problem is that they frequently do not work, on a fundamental level. It is hard to deny that there is definitely a male bent to ancient tales and myth, and I can understand the desire to go back and try to tell things from a more feminine perspective. If done well I can see this working. The problem is that too many of these retellings end up feeling either anachronistic by trying to put too much of a modern bent on the female characterisations, or they fall into an almost caricature of male villainy.

The Heroines is a retelling of the rape of Phaedra from classical Greek mythology. This one definitely falls into that second category, where every male character almost feels like a pastiche of a cartoon villain. Some of the changes from the source material act specifically in this way for no apparent reason (eg - in the original myth Phaedra had several children with Theseus before the rape by Theseus son, here Theseus is shown as disinterested and effectively abusing Phaedra with neglect). For me increasing the evilness of the men is not the way to make a myth more feminist - a more subtle approach here would have reaped a far greater dividend as the story itself has enough potential without making it cartoonish in its characterisations.

The writing itself is good enough - the prose is modern and eminently readable. Having a modern prose approach to mythology is something I can definitely approve about as it opens up the classics to a more modern audience. The multiple POV works ok for me, although the differentiations between the different POV characters was limited with not enough difference in voicing. A quick and easy read and a good introduction to a classic myth, even if some of the stylistic choices and alterations to the source material fell down for me.