Brilliant different perspective on the Madusa myth.
I really liked how the story was told. I was vaguely familiar with the myth, and did a little Wikipedia skimming to get familiar with the greek gods and the Gorgons.
I loved how Haynes took the myth, kept it, from what I could tell, entirely intact, but told it from the sympathetic perspective of not only Medusa, but the women throughout the mythology.
Very early in the book Haynes writes, which captures the tone perfectly:
This particular monster is assaulted, abused and vilified. And yet, as the story is always told, she is the one you should fear. She is the monster. We’ll see about that.
Excellent stuff.
2 Highlight(s)
This particular monster is assaulted, abused and vilified. And yet, as the story is always told, she is the one you should fear. She is the monster. We'll see about that.
Mortals have a word for this kind of arrogance: the kind that makes a person think she can compare herself favourably to a goddess. The word is hubris. And while I am all in favour of using precision to describe something, might I suggest that you would be better off not doing something so dangerous so often that you need a specific word for it? Perhaps develop your self-control, rather than your vocabulary.