Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
Wildfire (2021), Edition: Waterstones Signed Exclusive Edition, 400 pages
Description
"A mesmerizing debut novel for fans of Madeline Miller's Circe. Ariadne, Princess of Crete, grows up greeting the dawn from her beautiful dancing floor and listening to her nursemaid's stories of gods and heroes. But beneath her golden palace echo the ever-present hoofbeats of her brother, the Minotaur, a monster who demands blood sacrifice every year. When Theseus, Prince of Athens, arrives to vanquish the beast, Ariadne sees in his green eyes not a threat but an escape. Defying the gods, betraying her family and country, and risking everything for love, Ariadne helps Theseus kill the Minotaur. But will Ariadne's decision ensure her happy ending? And what of Phaedra, the beloved younger sister she leaves behind? Hypnotic, propulsive, and utterly transporting, Jennifer Saint's Ariadne forges a new epic, outside the traditional narratives of heroism and glory that leave no room for women"--… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member lisapeet
A solidly entertaining retelling of the Theseus myth from the point of view of Ariadne, who helped him defeat the Minotaur and betrayed her family in the process, and her sister Phaedra. Saint has a really nice bright visual sense, animating the scenes and people well, and centering Ariadne—a
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minor but pivotal character in the original myth—was a good choice. I don't think there's any point in comparing her to Madeline Miller just because they're both retellings from a woman's POV—there isn't the same absolute control of pacing and mood as Circe, but I don't think it's intended to be the same kind of book. Ariadne is very vivid, engaging recasting of a myth and didn't need to be anything more than that—I liked it a lot just the way it is. Show Less
LibraryThing member Cariola
I loved Madeline Miller's mythic retellings, Song of Achilles and Circe,> and Pat Barker's Trojan War rendition, The Silence of the Girls,' so I snapped up Ariadne as soon as I saw it. While it didn't quite equal the others for me, I did enjoy it. Ariadne is the daughter of the cruel King Minos of
If you've read mythology, you probably think of Theseus as a great hero, but Jennifer Saint depicts him in quite a different manner. I won't go into details, because that would spoil some of the novel's best surprises. Suffice it to say that he's quite an opportunist, a manipulator, and a chauvinist, and their interactions with him define both Ariadne's and Phaedra's ultimate fates.
But this is primarily Ariadne's story and she is the narrator of it. Saint does a fine job of showing us her maturing from an infatuated teenager to a loved but somewhat paranoid wife and adoring mother. What stands out in her tale is her growing understanding of the relationships between humans and gods--their similarities, their differences, their love for and mistrust of one another.
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Crete and granddaughter of Helios, the sun god. She also has two siblings well known in myth, her sister Phaedra and her half brother, a monster called the Minotaur, who lives in a labyrinth designed by the inventor Daedalus. Defeated by Minos, the Athenians are required to send a tribute of seven young girls and seven young boys annually to be sacrificed to the Minotaur. The novel begins when a ship carrying the sacrificial victims, including Prince Theseus, arrives.If you've read mythology, you probably think of Theseus as a great hero, but Jennifer Saint depicts him in quite a different manner. I won't go into details, because that would spoil some of the novel's best surprises. Suffice it to say that he's quite an opportunist, a manipulator, and a chauvinist, and their interactions with him define both Ariadne's and Phaedra's ultimate fates.
But this is primarily Ariadne's story and she is the narrator of it. Saint does a fine job of showing us her maturing from an infatuated teenager to a loved but somewhat paranoid wife and adoring mother. What stands out in her tale is her growing understanding of the relationships between humans and gods--their similarities, their differences, their love for and mistrust of one another.
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LibraryThing member ecataldi
I've been hankering for something to whet my appetite while I wait for Madeleine Miller to cook up a new Greek re-telling and Ariadne fit the bill. Like Circe I knew hardly anything about the mythology surrounding Ariadne, even though I knew all about her supporting cast of characters (King Minos,
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the Minotaur, Zeus, Hera, Dionysus, etc). Ariadne is the daughter of Kind Minos and older sister to the Minotaur. She dreams about one day leaving the kingdom, away from her tyrant father and monster brother. She always imagines that her beloved sister, Phaedra, will accompany her. When Theseus is brought from Athens to Crete to be sacrificed to the Minotaur, Ariadne has no idea how much her life is about to change. She is determined to be the master of her own destiny - no matter what the gods cook up for her. Compelling, fascinating, and wonderful. More please! Show Less
LibraryThing member Marse
Much like Madeline Miller's "Circe", "Ariadne" takes on the story of a well-known male hero's consort, and retells it from her point of view. The famous hero is Theseus, who killed the Minotaur and escaped from the Labyrinth with the help of King Minos' daughter Ariadne, only for her to be
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abandoned by him. Phaedra, Adriadne's younger sister, tells her story as well. It is an intelligent rethinking of the famous myths which include Dionysis, King Minos, Theseus, Hippolytus, Phaedra and Ariadne, and a sympathetic reinterpretation of the females in these stories. Show Less
LibraryThing member nbmars
Ariadne is another retelling of Greek myths, this one from the perspective of the women involved in the stories. It seeks to redress the ways in which these stories have traditionally been told from the male point of view, and focuses on “the price [women] paid for the resentment, the lust and
In Greek mythology, Ariadne was a princess of Crete, daughter of King Minos and brother of the Minotaur.
Poseidon, the powerful god of the sea, had sent a magnificent bull to King Minos to sacrifice to Poseidon, acts of sacrifice and praise being very important to the gods, even if they have to provide assists. Minos wanted to keep that very fine bull for himself, so he sacrificed a different, and inferior, creature. Poseidon retaliated by afflicting Minos's wife Pasiphae with a bizarre passion for the bull Poseidon had sent, such that she even mated with it. Out of this unholy union between Pasiphae (Ariadne's mother) and the bull, the Minotaur was born. The Minotaur, a ferocious creature that was half man and half bull, preferred a diet of human beings.
As Ariadne learned, “What the gods liked was ferocity, savagery, the snarl and the bite and the fear. . . . Our fear. That was how the gods grew great.”
Moreover, as Ariadne observed, when gods want to punish a man’s actions, they come for the women. Besides the story of what happened to her mother, she was particularly affected by the tale of Medusa. At first Ariadne knew of Medusa only as a monster with a head full of snakes who turned anyone who looked at her to stone. Then her handmaiden Eirene told her the real story of Medusa, originally a virgin priestess in Athena's temple. Medusa, whose beauty drew people to the temple (much to Athena's chagrin) was raped by Poseidon (a recurring villain in this story) right in Athena's temple, thus defiling the temple as well as Medusa. Who gets punished for all that? Why the woman of course:
“Athena struck Medusa’s hair and crowned her instead with living snakes. She took her beauty and made Medusa’s face so terrible that it would turn onlookers to stone. And so Medusa rampaged . . . .”
Eventually Perseus, a son of Zeus known as the slayer of monsters, chopped off Medusa's head and used it as a weapon against his enemies. Medusa thus continued to pay the price for men’s actions.
Minos coveted the same kind of "greatness" the gods had. He wanted power and he wanted to display his dominance to the world by demanding sacrifices. He was proud of the fear and hatred he elicited among his people, because it made him god-like. He conquered Athens and required its people to send a tribute each year - seven Athenian youths and seven Athenian maidens. These young people were used to feed the Minotaur, who was kept, for everyone's safety, far below the ground in the center of a labyrinth built by Daedalus, the skillful architect and craftsman of Greek mythology.
In the third year of tributes from Athens, one of the youth that came to Crete for sacrifice was the prince of Athens himself, Theseus. Both Ariadne and her younger sister Phaedra were immediately smitten. They snuck out at night to see him, concocting a plan with the assistance of Daedalus to help Theseus kill the Minotaur and escape. Theseus agreed that afterwards, he would take the girls with him back to Athens.
Thanks to the sisters, Theseus killed the Minotaur, but tricked the girls. He misled Phaedra about the meeting point, and abandoned Ariadne to die on the island of Naxos. He furthermore arranged it so they wouldn't know he had done it all on purpose.
Just as Ariadne ran out of food and water, the half-god Dionysus arrived on Naxos, restored food and water and wine to the island, and courted Ariadne.
Back in Crete, a new king was needed: Minos had run off to find Daedalus, who left in disguise for fear of his life. Ariadne’s mild-mannered older brother Deucalion took over the throne. Deucalion arranged for Phaedra to go to Athens to become the wife of Theseus. Phaedra accepted, thinking Ariadne dead, and not yet aware of Theseus’s treacherous and self-serving nature. As she got to know who and what Theseus really was, she only felt happy when he left on his travels. Theseus, as Ariadne later assessed, was like Minos:
"[He] emulated the worst of the immortals: their greed, their ruthlessness, and the endless selfish desires that would overturn the world, as though it were a trinket box, and plunder its contents for a passing whim because they believed it belonged to them anyway.”
Ariadne was able to find contentment on Naxos, however, in spite of the trick Theseus played on her. She and Dionysus married and began to have children. Neither she nor her sister Phaedra knew what had happened to the other. When they found out and reunited, each negatively impacted the other. In particular, Phaedra sowed seeds of doubt in Ariadne about Dionysus and what he did when he was away from Ariadne.
Ariadne and Dionysus had a bigger problem of course, about which they often spoke: he was immortal, but she and her children were not; would he still love her when she was old? Would he be able to bear the pain of losing all of them when they died? Dionysus always wondered why “mortals bloomed like flowers and crumbled to nothing.” How, he asked, could everything they once were be extinguished so completely and “yet the world did not collapse under the weight of so much pain and grief?” But he also concluded this was the source of the appeal of mortals - “human life shines more brightly because it is but a shimmering candle against an eternity of darkness, and it can be extinguished with the faintest breeze.”
As for the gods, Dionysus explained to Ariadne, “their passions do not burn brightly as a mortal’s passions do, because they can have whatever they desire for the rest of eternity. . . . Nothing to them is more than a passing amusement, and when they have done with it, there will be another and another and another, until the end of time itself.” All of the brightness of mortals appealed to Dionysus, at first.
Ultimately though, the evanescent nature of humans got to Dionysus:
“Being a god and loving mortals means nothing more than watching them die. I know that all too well. . . . Can you blame me for thinking it better to garner the love of a thousand mortals instead, to hold the adoration of a city instead of one consort’s frail, mortal flesh?”
Ariadne mused:
“ . . . if I had learned anything I had learned enough to know that a god in pain is dangerous. . . . What was I to do now that my god-husband was ravenous for the company of all the women of the world, now that the love we had built together seemed to cause him only pain?”
She soon finds out, and the story ends - like many Greek stories - tragically for the women involved.
Evaluation: Saint’s writing is excellent and evocative of the style of Greek mythology. She gives the usual obeisance to Homer in his use of the expression "wine-dark sea" in the Iliad and the Odyssey. She adds a similar construction of her own when Ariadne says of her baby: “he slept, milk-drunk and dazed, against my skin.”
The inequalities for women that Saint draws attention to are, unfortunately, timeless - still today women are blamed for their own rapes (“she must have been asking for it”) and men are feted as heroes when often their deeds were dependent on the contributions of women. While many of the injustices recounted in the book are perpetrated by men, Saint doesn’t address the fact that some are by female gods. Even though they are angry over misdeeds of men, they too blame other women instead of the men. And yes, still today, when men are unfaithful, wronged women often direct their hatred at ‘the other woman” rather than at the men who betrayed them.
Saint also depicts more general and timeless matters that affect everyone: relationships among families and between partners, the importance of trust, the conflicting joys and pains of children and the guilt it inspires in mothers (but not so much in fathers) and the challenges of aging. These are all issues that remain of importance and interest, making this book an excellent choice for book clubs.
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the greed of arrogant men.” This book turns the tale of Ariadne into a “herstory.”In Greek mythology, Ariadne was a princess of Crete, daughter of King Minos and brother of the Minotaur.
Poseidon, the powerful god of the sea, had sent a magnificent bull to King Minos to sacrifice to Poseidon, acts of sacrifice and praise being very important to the gods, even if they have to provide assists. Minos wanted to keep that very fine bull for himself, so he sacrificed a different, and inferior, creature. Poseidon retaliated by afflicting Minos's wife Pasiphae with a bizarre passion for the bull Poseidon had sent, such that she even mated with it. Out of this unholy union between Pasiphae (Ariadne's mother) and the bull, the Minotaur was born. The Minotaur, a ferocious creature that was half man and half bull, preferred a diet of human beings.
As Ariadne learned, “What the gods liked was ferocity, savagery, the snarl and the bite and the fear. . . . Our fear. That was how the gods grew great.”
Moreover, as Ariadne observed, when gods want to punish a man’s actions, they come for the women. Besides the story of what happened to her mother, she was particularly affected by the tale of Medusa. At first Ariadne knew of Medusa only as a monster with a head full of snakes who turned anyone who looked at her to stone. Then her handmaiden Eirene told her the real story of Medusa, originally a virgin priestess in Athena's temple. Medusa, whose beauty drew people to the temple (much to Athena's chagrin) was raped by Poseidon (a recurring villain in this story) right in Athena's temple, thus defiling the temple as well as Medusa. Who gets punished for all that? Why the woman of course:
“Athena struck Medusa’s hair and crowned her instead with living snakes. She took her beauty and made Medusa’s face so terrible that it would turn onlookers to stone. And so Medusa rampaged . . . .”
Eventually Perseus, a son of Zeus known as the slayer of monsters, chopped off Medusa's head and used it as a weapon against his enemies. Medusa thus continued to pay the price for men’s actions.
Minos coveted the same kind of "greatness" the gods had. He wanted power and he wanted to display his dominance to the world by demanding sacrifices. He was proud of the fear and hatred he elicited among his people, because it made him god-like. He conquered Athens and required its people to send a tribute each year - seven Athenian youths and seven Athenian maidens. These young people were used to feed the Minotaur, who was kept, for everyone's safety, far below the ground in the center of a labyrinth built by Daedalus, the skillful architect and craftsman of Greek mythology.
In the third year of tributes from Athens, one of the youth that came to Crete for sacrifice was the prince of Athens himself, Theseus. Both Ariadne and her younger sister Phaedra were immediately smitten. They snuck out at night to see him, concocting a plan with the assistance of Daedalus to help Theseus kill the Minotaur and escape. Theseus agreed that afterwards, he would take the girls with him back to Athens.
Thanks to the sisters, Theseus killed the Minotaur, but tricked the girls. He misled Phaedra about the meeting point, and abandoned Ariadne to die on the island of Naxos. He furthermore arranged it so they wouldn't know he had done it all on purpose.
Just as Ariadne ran out of food and water, the half-god Dionysus arrived on Naxos, restored food and water and wine to the island, and courted Ariadne.
Back in Crete, a new king was needed: Minos had run off to find Daedalus, who left in disguise for fear of his life. Ariadne’s mild-mannered older brother Deucalion took over the throne. Deucalion arranged for Phaedra to go to Athens to become the wife of Theseus. Phaedra accepted, thinking Ariadne dead, and not yet aware of Theseus’s treacherous and self-serving nature. As she got to know who and what Theseus really was, she only felt happy when he left on his travels. Theseus, as Ariadne later assessed, was like Minos:
"[He] emulated the worst of the immortals: their greed, their ruthlessness, and the endless selfish desires that would overturn the world, as though it were a trinket box, and plunder its contents for a passing whim because they believed it belonged to them anyway.”
Ariadne was able to find contentment on Naxos, however, in spite of the trick Theseus played on her. She and Dionysus married and began to have children. Neither she nor her sister Phaedra knew what had happened to the other. When they found out and reunited, each negatively impacted the other. In particular, Phaedra sowed seeds of doubt in Ariadne about Dionysus and what he did when he was away from Ariadne.
Ariadne and Dionysus had a bigger problem of course, about which they often spoke: he was immortal, but she and her children were not; would he still love her when she was old? Would he be able to bear the pain of losing all of them when they died? Dionysus always wondered why “mortals bloomed like flowers and crumbled to nothing.” How, he asked, could everything they once were be extinguished so completely and “yet the world did not collapse under the weight of so much pain and grief?” But he also concluded this was the source of the appeal of mortals - “human life shines more brightly because it is but a shimmering candle against an eternity of darkness, and it can be extinguished with the faintest breeze.”
As for the gods, Dionysus explained to Ariadne, “their passions do not burn brightly as a mortal’s passions do, because they can have whatever they desire for the rest of eternity. . . . Nothing to them is more than a passing amusement, and when they have done with it, there will be another and another and another, until the end of time itself.” All of the brightness of mortals appealed to Dionysus, at first.
Ultimately though, the evanescent nature of humans got to Dionysus:
“Being a god and loving mortals means nothing more than watching them die. I know that all too well. . . . Can you blame me for thinking it better to garner the love of a thousand mortals instead, to hold the adoration of a city instead of one consort’s frail, mortal flesh?”
Ariadne mused:
“ . . . if I had learned anything I had learned enough to know that a god in pain is dangerous. . . . What was I to do now that my god-husband was ravenous for the company of all the women of the world, now that the love we had built together seemed to cause him only pain?”
She soon finds out, and the story ends - like many Greek stories - tragically for the women involved.
Evaluation: Saint’s writing is excellent and evocative of the style of Greek mythology. She gives the usual obeisance to Homer in his use of the expression "wine-dark sea" in the Iliad and the Odyssey. She adds a similar construction of her own when Ariadne says of her baby: “he slept, milk-drunk and dazed, against my skin.”
The inequalities for women that Saint draws attention to are, unfortunately, timeless - still today women are blamed for their own rapes (“she must have been asking for it”) and men are feted as heroes when often their deeds were dependent on the contributions of women. While many of the injustices recounted in the book are perpetrated by men, Saint doesn’t address the fact that some are by female gods. Even though they are angry over misdeeds of men, they too blame other women instead of the men. And yes, still today, when men are unfaithful, wronged women often direct their hatred at ‘the other woman” rather than at the men who betrayed them.
Saint also depicts more general and timeless matters that affect everyone: relationships among families and between partners, the importance of trust, the conflicting joys and pains of children and the guilt it inspires in mothers (but not so much in fathers) and the challenges of aging. These are all issues that remain of importance and interest, making this book an excellent choice for book clubs.
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LibraryThing member bookworm12
I LOVED Circe, so my expectations for this one were high. It's not bad and is certainly similar to Circe, but that was the problem. I kept comparing the two and this one just didn't hit the same deep notes for me. I do love that these Greek myths are being retold with women's voices. I recommend
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this if you're a fan of mythology, but temper your expectations if you are a fan of Madeline Miller's work. Show Less
LibraryThing member bragan
Ariadne is, of course, the character from Greek mythology known for helping Theseus out of the maze. This novel follows her life before, during, and after the minotaur incident, and features a Theseus who is far less heroic than his legend suggests.
It's pretty much impossible to avoid wanting to
It's pretty much impossible to avoid wanting to
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make comparisons between this and Madeline Miller's Circe, which I think is a little unfortunate, as Saint is a perfectly good writer, but in my opinion never clears the very high bar that Miller sets. Still, I enjoyed reading this, and I think Saint's themes -- about what it's like to be a human subject to the power of gods, and a woman subject to the power of men -- are handled not always subtly, but effectively. Show Less
LibraryThing member jillrhudy
Thank you to MacMillan and Netgalley for the dARC. This review expresses my honest opinion of the book.
Narrative voice is everything in a fantasy retelling written in the first person, and I slid right into the skin of Ariadne from Greek mythology in this retelling by Jennifer Saint. Ariadne lives
Ariadne and Phaedra yearn for a life that is not chosen for them by the King in a strategic royal alliance, and when the hero Perseus appears with the annual tributes for the Minotaur from Athens (in the form of young people to be fed to the monster), Perseus is determined to slay the Minotaur. Perseus promises to rescue the sisters, but one thing the princesses have learned by now is that men, and gods, often go against their word. Tales of heroes are also told, conveniently enough, by the heroes.
I felt that the climax of the novel, in which Ariadne discovers the dark truths of her blissful life on the island of Naxos, didn't live up to its foreshadowing. I was expecting something a lot more horrifying. "Ariadne" is nevertheless a well-crafted novel with strong character development and satisfying family and feminist themes. Saint explores what true freedom and power for women might look like in any civilization, ancient or modern. It might involve not only standing up and fighting for your own destiny, but even demand that women face up to harsh truths that support their own comfortable lives.
Narrative voice is everything in a fantasy retelling written in the first person, and I slid right into the skin of Ariadne from Greek mythology in this retelling by Jennifer Saint. Ariadne lives
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in the palace of her heartless father Minos with a shell of a mother, Queen Pasiphae, and a beloved little sister, Phaedra, while her monstrous brother, the Minotaur, thunders in the labyrinth underneath the castle. I won't retell the whole myth or spoil the novel, but the birth, gruesome transformation, and imprisonment of the Minotaur is what has turned the Queen into a virtual wraith.Ariadne and Phaedra yearn for a life that is not chosen for them by the King in a strategic royal alliance, and when the hero Perseus appears with the annual tributes for the Minotaur from Athens (in the form of young people to be fed to the monster), Perseus is determined to slay the Minotaur. Perseus promises to rescue the sisters, but one thing the princesses have learned by now is that men, and gods, often go against their word. Tales of heroes are also told, conveniently enough, by the heroes.
I felt that the climax of the novel, in which Ariadne discovers the dark truths of her blissful life on the island of Naxos, didn't live up to its foreshadowing. I was expecting something a lot more horrifying. "Ariadne" is nevertheless a well-crafted novel with strong character development and satisfying family and feminist themes. Saint explores what true freedom and power for women might look like in any civilization, ancient or modern. It might involve not only standing up and fighting for your own destiny, but even demand that women face up to harsh truths that support their own comfortable lives.
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LibraryThing member kakadoo202
Simplified story of Greek Gods based on Ariadne.
LibraryThing member kevn57
After reading Neon Gods I knew that I wanted more retellings of those ancient Greek myths and I'm very happy that I picked this one. I really enjoyed this book, it really brought the myth to life for me.
I don't believe I'd ever heard of Ariadne before, of course I knew the myth of the labyrinth
This was such a rich retelling I'm sure the details will stick me, much better than the Edith Hamilton mythology book did. The writing was fast paced and my favorite parts were those that covered Dionysus.
I don't believe I'd ever heard of Ariadne before, of course I knew the myth of the labyrinth
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and the Minotaur but I must have forgotten how the "Great" Theseus slew the beast, with help from Minos daughters. I'd also forgotten about Daedalus's part in creating the the labyrinth. I'm also sure I'd never heard how the Minotaur was createdThis was such a rich retelling I'm sure the details will stick me, much better than the Edith Hamilton mythology book did. The writing was fast paced and my favorite parts were those that covered Dionysus.
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LibraryThing member japaul22
I really enjoyed this Greek myth retelling. [[Jennifer Saint]] obviously has an excellent command of myths, how they fit together, and the possibilities that they lend to story-telling. Ariadne's story has several different versions, most famously that she is the daughter of Minos and helped
Saint focuses on Ariadne and her sister, Phaedra - as in many of the current myth-retelling novels being published, her goal is to illuminate how the women in these stories would have experienced the action. Overall, she does a good job, creating a page-turning novel with a lot of detail and good themes. I was, though, a little unsatisfied at the ending and also thought that if she'd kept the focus a little tighter on Ariadne, the novel also would have been more focused.
This was an enjoyable read and a fun diversion. Certainly not as good as Madeline Miller's works, but good for an engrossing story.
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Theseus defeat the Minotaur in the labyrinth. In Saint's novel, this part of the myth sets the stage and develops characters for what happens later. I would say the most action takes place when Ariadne is abandoned on Naxos and becomes the wife of a Greek God, Dionysus. Saint focuses on Ariadne and her sister, Phaedra - as in many of the current myth-retelling novels being published, her goal is to illuminate how the women in these stories would have experienced the action. Overall, she does a good job, creating a page-turning novel with a lot of detail and good themes. I was, though, a little unsatisfied at the ending and also thought that if she'd kept the focus a little tighter on Ariadne, the novel also would have been more focused.
This was an enjoyable read and a fun diversion. Certainly not as good as Madeline Miller's works, but good for an engrossing story.
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LibraryThing member brangwinn
While not as compelling as Madeline Miller in the retelling of Greek mythology, Saint’s debut is worth the read. As an elementary school librarian, I often read mythology to the kids. Among the favorites that got kids into reading for themselves, was the story of Theseus and the Minotaur. The
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female perspective filling in gaps was enjoyable. This is the first time I have really thought about how in mythology the women suffered for mistakes made by men, but its just not as magical as Miller’s retelling. Show Less
LibraryThing member streamsong
This is a retelling of the Greek myth of Ariadne, the daughter of the king of Crete. She is most remembered for helping Theseus kill the minotaur by devising a way for him to find his way out of the Minotaur’s labyrinth by using a ball of thread.
In this version, after the famous incident, Ariadne
Gods, mortals, sibling rivalry, madness, heroes, war. It was an interesting retelling of the myth, but not as riveting as others I have read.
In this version, after the famous incident, Ariadne
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is left abandoned on an island to die. There, however, she meets and falls in love with Dionysus, becoming his wife. Life with a god has unexpected twists and turns.Gods, mortals, sibling rivalry, madness, heroes, war. It was an interesting retelling of the myth, but not as riveting as others I have read.
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LibraryThing member Andy5185
Oh the tragedy! the drama! the horror! the heartbreak of it all! The gods show their ugly sides and the women are in full force in this amazing retelling of Ariadne’s story. So many of the famous show up - Daedalus and Icarus, Theseus, Minos and the Minotaur of course! Hippolytus, Dionysus and
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his maenads - it’s a huge cast all tripping over each other with the drama that only gods and their vengeful games can create. And out of it all is this blazing human story of sisterhood and sadness that rages even in the eyes of Medusa — highlighting the cost that all the women have paid. Best book I’ve read in 2021! I hope Jennifer Saint will write many more books. Show Less
LibraryThing member froxgirl
Of all the recent books offering lookbacks on the roles of women in Greek mythology, this straightforward rendering of the stories of sisters Ariadne and Phaedra is the most enlightening. There's an amazing cast of well-known monsters, heroes, and deities, but the dual narrations by the daughters
The demigod Dionysius, who lives on Naxos, finds Ariadne and marries her. All is well until Dionysius, who is sympathetic to humans because he is the child of Semele, a human woman, and Zeus, seeks followers of his growing cult, which reveres wine, music, and reanimation. He chooses not to reside in Olympus and castigates the gods and goddesses for toying with and abusing humans. But, having the worst qualities of human and god, he cannot accept the refusal of anyone who does not want to join his cult, and causes the ruination of the women of Argos, whose king is his half-brother, the hero Perseus. Ariadne, who knows the best side of her husband and adores him, now sees his fatal flaws and his hubris, and when Perseus turns Medusa, the Gorgon’s head, to face Ariadne, she is turned to stone.
Phaedra, in the meantime, has realized what a bonehead her own husband Theseus is, he who only is happy when making war on other nations, and she falls in love with his son Hippolytus, who has resolved not to marry and to become the chaste devotee of Artemis. Phaedra's unwillingness to accept his repulsion with the offer of love from his stepmother causes tragedy for them both.
The portrayals of Dionysius and Theseus are quite contrary to the familiar versions from the ancient authors, making this a gem from the female perspective, as is now the reigning custom of our wonderful modern women authors.
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of Minos, tyrant king of Crete, and his wife Pasiphae, reveal previously unimagined events and circumstances. Pasiphae is forced by Poseidon's anger at Minos to mate with a bull and gives birth to the Minotaur. When the hero Theseus arrives with his fellow citizens of Athens as forced tributes to the monster, Ariadne falls in love with him and, with the assistance of Daedalus (yes, THAT Daedalus!) the brilliant engineer, provides the key to the maze prison so that Theseus can slay her brother. Fleeing the wrath of Minos, Theseus brings Ariadne to Naxos, a nearby island, where he seduces and abandons her, for no apparent reason. Sister Phaedra flees to Athens to avoid the wrath of Minos and because she, too, has fallen in love with Theseus. The demigod Dionysius, who lives on Naxos, finds Ariadne and marries her. All is well until Dionysius, who is sympathetic to humans because he is the child of Semele, a human woman, and Zeus, seeks followers of his growing cult, which reveres wine, music, and reanimation. He chooses not to reside in Olympus and castigates the gods and goddesses for toying with and abusing humans. But, having the worst qualities of human and god, he cannot accept the refusal of anyone who does not want to join his cult, and causes the ruination of the women of Argos, whose king is his half-brother, the hero Perseus. Ariadne, who knows the best side of her husband and adores him, now sees his fatal flaws and his hubris, and when Perseus turns Medusa, the Gorgon’s head, to face Ariadne, she is turned to stone.
Phaedra, in the meantime, has realized what a bonehead her own husband Theseus is, he who only is happy when making war on other nations, and she falls in love with his son Hippolytus, who has resolved not to marry and to become the chaste devotee of Artemis. Phaedra's unwillingness to accept his repulsion with the offer of love from his stepmother causes tragedy for them both.
The portrayals of Dionysius and Theseus are quite contrary to the familiar versions from the ancient authors, making this a gem from the female perspective, as is now the reigning custom of our wonderful modern women authors.
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LibraryThing member Murphy-Jacobs
Not a bad book, but it did not hold my attention -- perhaps because I am familiar with the myths, perhaps because I just didn't find much in the main character that I could like, although I didn't dislike her. I skipped a lot, admittedly.
LibraryThing member Anniik
This book is the story of Ariadne and her sister Phaedra, and the life that both sisters lead after helping Theseus betray their father by killing the Minotaur. This is not a book for happing endings, and it is in many ways profoundly sad. One of the main themes is how 'heroes' use women, and how
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women are almost always those who end up sufffering the most, whatever happens. The first third of this book is the exciting part - the rest is not bad by any means but it does move more slowly and is more about the sisters' inner lives than anything else. I really enjoyed this book, although I did think that there were a few places in the last 2/3 where it dragged a little. Nonetheless, this is a beautiful book and a wonderful debut! Show Less
LibraryThing member Kiaya40
I loved this book. It was a great perspective and retelling. It was rather depressing and sad in parts, but it is a Greek Mythology retelling so that shouldn't be a surprise, I guess. It's just the ending got me right there, straight in the feels, ya know.
So much tragedy and so many emotions. All
So much tragedy and so many emotions. All
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the feels and all the Greek Mythology goodness all wrapped up here. Personally, I think this story/retelling and others are better than Circe, which everyone says is so great. Show Less
LibraryThing member srms.reads
Jennifer Saint’s beautiful debut is the reimagining of the Greek mythological story of Ariadne, Princess of Crete, daughter of King Minos and his queen Pasiphae. As a young girl, she is fond of dance, loves her younger sister Phaedra and even helps to take care of her brother Asterion (the
“What I did not know was that I had hit upon a truth of womanhood: However blameless the life we lead, the passions and the greed of men could bring us to ruin, and there was nothing we could do.”
She is appalled with the cruelty her father metes out towards the Athenians in demanding that Athens send across fourteen young men and women to be sacrificed to the Minotaur every year, an act of vengeance in retaliation for the death of his son. After, Ariadne and her younger sister Phaedra help young prince Theseus, who is masquerading as one of the prisoners, to navigate through the labyrinth and slay the Minotaur she escapes with him in hopes of a better life ahead and to escape the wrath of her father.
Ariadne is abandoned by Theseus at the island of Naxos only to become the wife of Dionysus and later Phaedra is betrothed to Theseus, as an act of goodwill between Crete and Athens, a union orchestrated by their brother and reigning ruler of Crete Deucalion. As the story progresses we follow Ariadne and Phaedra’s stories as they navigate their roles as sisters, queens, wives, and mothers. The narrative is mostly controlled by Ariadne but we also hear get to hear Phaedra's POV. The author deftly incorporates the stories of Medusa, the labors of Theseus, King Minos, and Hippolytus as they appear in Ariadne’s or Phaedra’s narrative. The author is brilliant in her portrayal of the resilience of these two women in the face of their many trials and tribulations. Though we are treated to the stories about the powers and accomplishments of the glorified gods and heroes of the myths, the author also sheds a light on the many flaws and not-so-heroic characteristics of these men - their vanity, ruthlessness, need for adulation and disregard for the women in their lives and their justification for the same.
While reading Ariadne’s story I could not help being reminded of the old phrase “Behind every successful man, there is a strong woman.” But is it necessary that these strong women be forgotten or relegated to the background to glorify a man’s accomplishments while their own feats of bravery and resilience remain unheard and unsung? Jennifer Saint’s Ariadne is beautifully written, engaging, poignant and heartbreaking. Though the pace of the narrative tends to fluctuate, the author does a commendable job telling the stories of two women whose contributions have been relegated to the background to glorify the men in the myths. The author gives both Ariadne and Phaedra a voice to tell their stories and these are stories that are definitely worthy of being heard.
“I float in the inky blackness. A tiny dot of light from where you stand, but bright as a flame. I flare into life as Helios leads his chariot down below the horizon, the glimmering jewel in the center of the crown. My thoughts are slow and ponderous now, rumbling in the deep heart of eternity, but I see the whole of life beneath me.”
As a debut novel, this is beyond impressive. I thoroughly enjoyed the story and look forward to reading more of Jennifer Saint’s work in the future.
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Minotaur) when he was a baby, but unable to bear his bestiality as he grows. She grows up listening to her nursemaid’s stories about the gods, goddesses and mortal heroes whose lives have become legends. She is particularly moved by the story of Perseus and Medusa and the story behind how Medusa became a Gorgon. She is witness to her mother’s suffering brought upon by the birth of the Minotaur conceived as an act of revenge exacted by the gods against her father. She ponders over her own fate in a world where gods and men rule and women have no say in the decisions crucial to their lives and are but pawns in the hands of the men who control their fate.“What I did not know was that I had hit upon a truth of womanhood: However blameless the life we lead, the passions and the greed of men could bring us to ruin, and there was nothing we could do.”
She is appalled with the cruelty her father metes out towards the Athenians in demanding that Athens send across fourteen young men and women to be sacrificed to the Minotaur every year, an act of vengeance in retaliation for the death of his son. After, Ariadne and her younger sister Phaedra help young prince Theseus, who is masquerading as one of the prisoners, to navigate through the labyrinth and slay the Minotaur she escapes with him in hopes of a better life ahead and to escape the wrath of her father.
Ariadne is abandoned by Theseus at the island of Naxos only to become the wife of Dionysus and later Phaedra is betrothed to Theseus, as an act of goodwill between Crete and Athens, a union orchestrated by their brother and reigning ruler of Crete Deucalion. As the story progresses we follow Ariadne and Phaedra’s stories as they navigate their roles as sisters, queens, wives, and mothers. The narrative is mostly controlled by Ariadne but we also hear get to hear Phaedra's POV. The author deftly incorporates the stories of Medusa, the labors of Theseus, King Minos, and Hippolytus as they appear in Ariadne’s or Phaedra’s narrative. The author is brilliant in her portrayal of the resilience of these two women in the face of their many trials and tribulations. Though we are treated to the stories about the powers and accomplishments of the glorified gods and heroes of the myths, the author also sheds a light on the many flaws and not-so-heroic characteristics of these men - their vanity, ruthlessness, need for adulation and disregard for the women in their lives and their justification for the same.
While reading Ariadne’s story I could not help being reminded of the old phrase “Behind every successful man, there is a strong woman.” But is it necessary that these strong women be forgotten or relegated to the background to glorify a man’s accomplishments while their own feats of bravery and resilience remain unheard and unsung? Jennifer Saint’s Ariadne is beautifully written, engaging, poignant and heartbreaking. Though the pace of the narrative tends to fluctuate, the author does a commendable job telling the stories of two women whose contributions have been relegated to the background to glorify the men in the myths. The author gives both Ariadne and Phaedra a voice to tell their stories and these are stories that are definitely worthy of being heard.
“I float in the inky blackness. A tiny dot of light from where you stand, but bright as a flame. I flare into life as Helios leads his chariot down below the horizon, the glimmering jewel in the center of the crown. My thoughts are slow and ponderous now, rumbling in the deep heart of eternity, but I see the whole of life beneath me.”
As a debut novel, this is beyond impressive. I thoroughly enjoyed the story and look forward to reading more of Jennifer Saint’s work in the future.
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LibraryThing member infjsarah
This was just OK. There's nothing objectionable about it but I just didn't care about the 2 main characters.
LibraryThing member ZeljanaMaricFerli
I liked it. It is not great, but it was solid enough to enjoy. It is exactly what it promises to be, a retelling of the myth of Ariadne (and her sister, which often made me think the title was a little off). The novel is atmospheric, with some great introspective parts (esp. certain parts told by
One thing I disliked and was impossible to ignore was the dynamics of the relationships that were somewhat unconvincing. The drama for me just wasn't there in some key moments. Jennifer Saint is great with words, but I wish her dialogues and relationships were as nuanced as her descriptions.
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Phaedra). One thing I disliked and was impossible to ignore was the dynamics of the relationships that were somewhat unconvincing. The drama for me just wasn't there in some key moments. Jennifer Saint is great with words, but I wish her dialogues and relationships were as nuanced as her descriptions.
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Awards
Audie Award (Finalist — 2022)
Waterstones Book of the Year (Shortlist — 2021)
Indie Next List (May 2021)
Language
Original language
English
Physical description
400 p.; 9.29 inches
ISBN
9781472293411
Local notes
Waterstones exclusive with white cover.
Other editions
Ariadne by Jennifer Saint (Hardcover)