"Stone Blind" by Natalie Haynes

 A retelling of the myth of Perseus killing the gorgon Medusa and rescuing Andromeda, much of it seen from the point of view of Medusa. It confronts the reader with the moralities of the situation - the male Olympians are serial rapists, Medusa is very much a victim, Perseus has no defensible reason for killing her, or cheating the Graiai - and questions the 'othering' of 'monsters'. It does this by narrating things from a very modern perspective although it never seriously questions the hierarchy.

The conceit of portraying the characters as if they were modern men and women (rather as also done by Stephen Fry in, for example, Mythos and Heroes) is frequently delightful and often very funny although I felt towards the end that this was insufficient to carry the whole book. Nevertheless, it certainly cuts the gods and heroes down to size (although the Greek myths already portray the gods as having very human failings; perhaps this exercise should be repeated for gods who are still worshipped or would that be blasphemy?). 

I was not convinced that Perseus was, as the voice of the head of Medusa tells us, "a vicious little thug". He's much more complicated than that. There are times when he is heroic - if heroism is to act despite overwhelming fear - such as when he climbs the cliffs or faces the sea-monster. He is repeatedly humiliated, for example by Athena for not being as clever as she is and by the kleptomaniacal Hesperides when they catch him skinny-dipping. Fundamentally he is a plaything of the gods. When he is wicked it is, perhaps, not because of who he is but because he is burdened with unrealistic expectations and, later, too much power. 

And how does Athena get away without censure for what she does to Medusa? 

Nevertheless, there are some wonderfully funny scenes, such as the conversations between Perseus, Hermes and Athena, and the wonderfully comic Hesperides, and there are some fabulous characterisations. This is, above all, a brilliantly comic novel.

I was disappointed not to find out whether Perseus did, in the end, kill his grandfather.

Selected quotes:

• "Hera and Zeus were ideally matched, at least in terms of their capacity to antagonize one another. There were days when she believed he could scarcely rise from his bed without seducing or raping someone." (1: Hera)
• "Zeus was on the verge of saying he had never seen anything more beautiful unless she was naked, when he caught sight of his wife's eyes ... and decided that perhaps some thoughts were better left unsaid." (1: Hera)
• "Imagine being a god, she thought, and still needing to tell everyone how impressive you were." (1: Medusa)
• "Being afraid of dying must be especially awful, because there was no hope of avoiding it." (1: Danae)
• "Even the birds had stopped singing, as though they knew he was going the wrong way and couldn't bear to watch." (3: The Graiai)
• "He had learned to assess travellers by however well or ill prepared they appeared for whatever was to come. These two looked like what was to come would have to prepare for them." (3: The Graiai)
• "He's just a bag of meat wandering around irritating people." (4: Athene)

A very funny comic novel.

For a totally different modernisation of Greek myth, read Country by Michael Hughes, which updates the Iliad, setting it in Northern Ireland at the time of the Troubles. 

March 2024; 368 pages

This review was written by the author of Bally and Bro, Motherdarling  and The Kids of God