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This book is based on The Odyssey by Homer.
Canongate Myth
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Description edit
"Homer’s Odyssey is not the only version of the story. Mythic material was originally oral, and also local -- a myth would be told one way in one place and quite differently in another. I have drawn on material other than the Odyssey , especially for the details of Penelope’s parentage, her... read more
Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit
Summary edit
Penelope discusses her isolated life, past and present from the Underworld. She talks about her childhood, her marriage to a man who first desired her cousin, his disappearance, and her life after death.
The novel is heavily concerned with Odysseus's murder of Penelope's handmaids and... read more (warning: may contain spoilers)
Characters/People edit
- Penelope: The protagonist and storyteller, the wife Odysseus left behind on his journey.
- Helen: Penelope's cousin, famous for her beauty
- Telemachus: Penelope's and Odysseus' son
- Odysseus: Penelope's husband, left for Troy to fight the war
- Eurycleia: Odysseus's nurse
- Melantho of the pretty cheeks: One of Penelope's favorite maids
Quotes edit
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“Why is it that really beautiful people think everyone else in the world exists merely for their amusement?”
The narrator - Penelope
- Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers
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You don’t have to think of us as real girls, real flesh and blood, real pain, real injustice. That might be too upsetting. Just discard the sordid part.
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Not the fat and bones of animals, but our suffering, is what they love to savour.
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Water does not resist. Water flows. When you plunge your hand into it, all you feel is a caress. Water is not a solid wall, it will not stop you. But water always goes where it wants to go, and nothing in the end can stand against it. Water is patient. Dripping water wears away a stone. Remember that, my child. Remember you are half water. If you can’t go through an obstacle, go around it. Water does.
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Why is it that really beautiful people think everyone else in the world exists merely for their amusement?
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(Excessive weeping, I might as well tell you now, is a handicap of the Naiad-born.
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This was one of his great secrets as a persuader—he could convince another person that the two of them together faced a common obstacle, and that they needed to join forces in order to overcome it. He could draw almost any listener into a collaboration, a little conspiracy of his own
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The teaching of crafts to girls has fallen out of fashion now, I understand, but luckily it had not in my day. It’s always an advantage to have something to do with your hands. That way, if someone makes an inappropriate remark, you can pretend you haven’t heard it. Then you don’t have to answer.
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First Sentence edit
Now that I'm dead I know everything.
Table of Contents edit
Introduction
i A Low Art
ii The Chorus Line: A Jump-Roping Rhyme
iii My Childhood
iv The Chorus Line: Kiddie Mourn, A Lament by the Maids
v Asphodel
vi My Marriage
vii The Scar
viii The Chorus Line: If I Was a Princess, A Popular Tune
ix The Trusted Cackle-Hen
x The Chorus Line: The Birth of Telemachus, An Idyll
xi Helen Ruins My Life
xii Waiting
xiii The Chorus Line: The Wily Sea Captain, A Shanty
xiv The Suitors Stuff Their Faces
xv The Shroud
xvi Bad Dreams
xvii The Chorus Line: Dreamboats, A Ballad
xviii News of Helen
xix Yelp of Joy
xx Slanderous Gossip
xxi The Chorus Line: The Perils of Penelope, A Drama
xxii Helen Takes a Bath
xxiii Odysseus and Telemachus Snuff The Maids
xxiv The Chorus Line: An Anthropology Lecture
xxv Heart of Flint
xxvi The Chorus Line: The Trial of Odysseus, as Videotaped by the Maids
xxvii Home Life in Hades
xxviii The Chorus Line: We're Walking Behind You, A Love Song
xxix Envoi
Notes
Acknowledgements
Series & Lists edit
This book is in Canongate Myth. (publisher series)
Authors & Contributors edit
- Margaret Atwood (Author)
First Edition edit
Original Language: English
Publisher: Knopf Canada
Country: Canada
Publication Date: 2005
ISBN: 067697418X
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Knopf Canada
Country: Canada
Publication Date: 2005
ISBN: 067697418X
Page Count: 216
Awards edit
- Mythopoeic Fantasy Award (Finalist, 2006: Adult Literature, Finalist)
Classification edit
- Library of Congress: PR9199.3.A8 P46 2005
- Dewey: 813.54
Subjects edit
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