The married couple is ubiquitous in Etruscan art. It is appropriate to the social situation of the Etruscan aristocracy, in which the wife's family played as important a role in the family's genealogy as that of the husband." (Bonfante and Swaddling, 2006, 51f.). As if we hadn't learned from our shattered mother and her monstrous spawn that all a woman can do in this world is take what she wants from it and crush those who would stand in her way before they squash her down to nothing."

On a side note, Pasiphae, Ariadne's mum is actually the sister of Circe, said to have considerable witch like abilities too. I'm surprised that Saint didn't explore that more. It would have been quite believable that Ariadne had been taught some of these techniques. Equally, the dancing that Ariadne does at the beginning of the novel just disappears, it seemed like such a useful tool to be used with Dionysus later on. Many missed opportunities. As Princesses of Crete and daughters of the fearsome King Minos, Ariadne and her sister Phaedra grow up hearing the hoofbeats and bellows of the Minotaur echo from the Labyrinth beneath the palace. The Minotaur - Minos's greatest shame and Ariadne's brother - demands blood every year. The struggle for females to break free from the influence and punishment of men is a familiar tale, and the infusion of Greek mythology makes it that much more exciting. I'm always thrilled to come across such a compelling debut, and I cannot wait to see what else Jennifer Saint comes up with.

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Why do you think Phaedra commits suicide? How does that choice reflect both her powerlessness and her power? How do you think she will be remembered? Ariadne realizes that there is a darker side to the stories of gods and men. Discuss some examples from the novel that bear this out. Is there still a tendency in our culture to valorize men while ignoring women's pain? No longer was my world one of brave heroes; I was learning all too swiftly the women's pain that throbbed unspoken through the tales of their feats.” Barry B. Powell, Classical Myth, 2nd ed., with new translations of ancient texts by Herbert M. Howe, Upper Saddle River, NJ, USA, Prentice-Hall, 1998, p. 368. In Letitia Elizabeth Landon's poem Ariadne. from Ideal Likenesses (1825), she sees her as "a lesson how inconstancy should be repaid again by like inconstancy". [40] She returned to the subject of Ariadne in 1838 with her Ariadne watching the Sea after the Departure of Theseus.: [41] one of her Subjects for Pictures.

In following Ariadne, Saint can both build a narrative that can rival any modern novel and play with the different versions of myths and how each telling is always an interpretation, which must decide which characters are to be celebrated and which are to be demoted to insignificance, or blamed for their own fates. Ariadne, Princess of Crete, grows up listening to her nursemaid's stories of gods and heroes. But beneath her golden palace echoes the ever-present hoofbeats of her brother, the Minotaur, a monster who demands blood sacrifice. 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. A beautifully written story with deeply drawn characters all shaped by the past, with vengeance in their mind and told in a narrative that is unpredictable in its reveal, beautiful in its story telling and vivid in its imagination. I just loved this story. Ariadne throws herself into domestic life on Naxos and seems to love being a mother to her sons, while Phaedra has a much more difficult time with childbirth and raising her children. Discuss the different experiences of motherhood we see in the novel, including Pasiphae's relationship with her children. Ariadne was the daughter of Minos, the King of Crete [9] and son of Zeus, and of Pasiphaë, Minos' queen and daughter of Helios. [10] Others denominated her mother " Crete", daughter of Asterius, the husband and King of Europa. Ariadne was the sister of Acacallis, Androgeus, Deucalion, Phaedra, Glaucus, Xenodice, and Catreus. [11] Through her mother, Pasiphaë, she was also the half-sister of the Minotaur (who was known in Crete as Asterion). [12]I definitely agree that the ritual with Dionysus gave shape to the Maenads grief and anger. Our rituals today also do that. Every funeral gives shape to our grief. Christian church services are the result of grief as well as exultation that ... - BuffaloGirl But retellings come in many forms and guises. In my debut novel Pandora I wanted to explore female agency and the complexities of human nature, all through the richness of a Georgian lens using the myth of Pandora’s box as an anchor. All the works I’ve chosen have interpreted the Greek myths in different ways, but they are all testament to how these ancient stories have got under our skin. I hope you enjoyed this Ariadne book review. The book is available to buy now. You may also be interested in:

Barthes, Roland, "Camera Lucida". Barthes quotes Nietzsche, "A labyrinthine man never seeks the truth, but only his Ariadne," using Ariadne in reference to his mother, who had recently died. I loved the twist on the Greek heroes. Theseus is an asshole and I loved hating on him. I enjoyed all the different elements and characters, including Daedalus and Icarus. I am a huge fan of Greek mythology and have been for years. The tale of Ariadne and Dionysus was always one of my favorites, so I leaped on this book the second I saw it, and though it started off strong, it was ultimately very disappointing to me. As an avid reader of Greek mythology I was so curious to see which myths of Ariadne Jennifer Saint would include. I’ve been especially curious about Ariadne and have read many different versions of her story and what happens to her. I was excited to delve into this book to see which ones the author would take inspiration from.

Media Reviews

Ariadne is associated with mazes and labyrinths because of her involvement in the myths of Theseus and the Minotaur. Ariadne is not written to force any idea of morality, and so is a pleasing change from many older retellings of these myths. Instead, Saint removes the misogynistic, imperialistic, and moralistic undercurrents and replaces it with a nuanced exploration of character, leaving judgement to the individual reader. 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 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. When Ariadne has spent a decade (!) with Dionysus: "I had been trusting and obedient. I had thought that was the right way to be--the path to peace and happiness."

When going into this book, I was not expecting the perspective of Phaedra, but I fully loved this too. Phaedra is the younger sister of Ariadne and her story is mostly told by Euripides in “Hippolytus” and Ovid’s “Heroides”. Phaedra is also explored in “Pandora’s Jar” by Natalie Haynes which I read earlier this month. There aren’t as many retellings of Phaedra as there are Ariadne, and I am so glad the author provides Phaedra, as well as Ariadne, with a voice and fully fleshed out characters. Ariadne makes one affirmative decision to help Theseus at the start of the story and then is just blown in the wind for the rest of the book. Even when she does stand up to others it amounts to nothing more than her own crippling self-doubt. Now it's true that Saint must follow quite closely the original source material but the internal life of Ariadne is all her own and that is unfortunately the weakest part of the story.The classical references to these progeny are at "TheoiProject: Ariadne" and "Theoi Project: Dionysus Family". Euanthes, Latramys, and Tauropolis are only mentioned in scholia on Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica, 3. 997.