Circe, by Madeline Miller

 

Characters
Titans	Olympians
Helios – father Perse – mother Circe - nymph Pasiphae – sister Perses – brother Aeetes – brother, gave to Circe to raise   Medea – Aeetes’ daughter   Prometheus – punished for not obeying Olympians   Phaethousa – half sister   Scylla – nymph, Circe turned her into a monster (12 legs, 6 heads)	Zeus   Athena – daughter Hermes – son Apollo -son   Ares – brother
Mortals	Others
Daedalus – craftsman Icarus - son   Glaucos – Circe turned him into a god, rejected Circe for Scylla   Minos – son of Zeus and mortal mother   Odysseus Telemachus – son with Penelope (wife) Telegonus – son with Circe	Minotaur – Pasiphae’s baby, monster, head of a bull, body of a man, ate humans
Island of Aiaia
Circe banished to island Telegonus – son with Odysseus   Nymphs – sent to island as punishment   Odysseus Penelope and Telemachus   Discovered power of flowers “apotrope” – turning aside of evil   Hermes – son of Zeus, hiding from Apollo (brother)   Turned shipwrecked men into pigs if they attacked her

 

NOTE: Pages are from hardback edition.

1.      What did you think about Odysseus?  Telemachus thought that he had had “a bad life” (page 320), and that “he made life for others a misery” (page 321).  He blamed him for not returning home after the war and thought his mother, in particular, would have been happier.  Why did he decide to spend such a long time on Aiaia?

2.      Both Circe and Penelope found peace on Aiaia.  Do you think they could have found this same peace somewhere else?  What is your Aiaia?

3.      Athena offered Telemachus a new kingdom in the West and told him he would “found a prosperous city there, you will…seed a great people who will rule in ages to come” (page 351).  He turned down this offer and instead chose to be a regular man.  Why did he do this?

4.      Were you surprised that Telegonus accepted the above offer?

5.      What did you think about the end when Circe decided to become mortal?

6.      Do you enjoy reading about Greek mythology?  If not, how did this affect your reading and understanding of the book?

7.      Did you enjoy the writing?  Was there anything that jumped out at you that you particularly liked?  Two sentences that I remember are:

a.      When Circe and Pasiphae were talking in the bedroom and the author wrote about Pasiphae, “She was leaning forward, her golden hair loose, embroidering the sheets around her” (page 146).

b.      Describing Scylla turning into a monster, “A hideous leg.  Like a squid’s, boneless and covered in slime.  It burst from her belly, and another burst beside it, and more and more, until there were twelve in all dangling from her” (page 58)

8.      Did you have difficulty keeping all the characters straight?  When did you discover the list at the back of the book and how often did you reference it?