What do you think?
Rate this book
Herculine: A Mythic Romance
A Mythic Romance, tells the story of twenty-one-year-old Herculine Danton, a Classics scholar at Berkeley, who discovers twelve mysterious poems hidden in one of her father’s books after he dies. Herculine undertakes a personal journey/mythic quest to understand the poems' multilayered meanings once she realizes they contain a coded narrative that retell the stories of twelve classical Greek heroines, revealing clues to her father’s past, her grandmother’s involvement in the French Resistance, and a series of historical intrigues. As Herculine attempts to solve the puzzle of the poems before her academic rival does, her life and her passionate relationships with women and men begin to mirror their narratives, while uncovering family secrets and shedding light on her own identity.
326 pages, Paperback
First published August 11, 2015
1 person is currently reading
253 people want to read
About the author
Diana Wallace
5 books16 followersDiana Wallace is a native New Yorker who is a writer and teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area. She has a PhD in Comparative Literature, and has self-published four books. For more information about Diana Wallace, please visit her website www.dianawallacebooks.com
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 13, 2022
I’m sure that Diana Wallace has put in tremendous effort, here. And I’m equally sure that I couldn't replicate it. But - this book is a mess.
Herculine, the titular character, is an adorkable, polyamorous, hereditarily brilliant UC Berkeley Classics student. She is imbued with these 3 traits and not one more. Her story struggles to life following the death of her father, a man whom she loved and whom she takes after but of whom she knows very little.
After discovering some very poor verse in even poorer French, Herculine's quest to uncover the mystery of her father leads her into the world of 1940s French lesbian revolutionaries. How? Excellent question. Based on the third of the novel that I managed to work through, Wallace uses poetic references to Greek myth to stitch together such times / themes / places as a teenager's complicated dorm life and an unhappily-married lesbian's abandonment of her child to fight against the rising tide of fascism.
It does not work. This book suffers the worst excesses of an unfocused teen romance AND the rote reliance on setting-rather-than-story that is the hallmark of the WWII-era novel - which means both sides of this genius plan crumble away from the independently weak "poetic" centre. Any novel that uses foreign languages for ~effect~ and does not have the decency to ensure correct translations betrays a greater interest in aesthetic than story. So, while Wallace's plan to parallel the many facets of an absentee father with the vagaries of Greek myth could have been promising, it is let down by a mixture of ambitious fanfic meets grad school pretensions.
1 sympathy star because I’m sure this was an earnest effort on the author’s part.
[I paid for this book in full, of my own volition, with money I earned by selling my labour.]
Herculine, the titular character, is an adorkable, polyamorous, hereditarily brilliant UC Berkeley Classics student. She is imbued with these 3 traits and not one more. Her story struggles to life following the death of her father, a man whom she loved and whom she takes after but of whom she knows very little.
After discovering some very poor verse in even poorer French, Herculine's quest to uncover the mystery of her father leads her into the world of 1940s French lesbian revolutionaries. How? Excellent question. Based on the third of the novel that I managed to work through, Wallace uses poetic references to Greek myth to stitch together such times / themes / places as a teenager's complicated dorm life and an unhappily-married lesbian's abandonment of her child to fight against the rising tide of fascism.
It does not work. This book suffers the worst excesses of an unfocused teen romance AND the rote reliance on setting-rather-than-story that is the hallmark of the WWII-era novel - which means both sides of this genius plan crumble away from the independently weak "poetic" centre. Any novel that uses foreign languages for ~effect~ and does not have the decency to ensure correct translations betrays a greater interest in aesthetic than story. So, while Wallace's plan to parallel the many facets of an absentee father with the vagaries of Greek myth could have been promising, it is let down by a mixture of ambitious fanfic meets grad school pretensions.
1 sympathy star because I’m sure this was an earnest effort on the author’s part.
[I paid for this book in full, of my own volition, with money I earned by selling my labour.]
February 5, 2017
Herculine: A Mythic Romance is a multi-faceted story told through time, myths, and love stories. I loved how the story unfolded through the past and into the present through varying perspectives from World War II to modern-day Berkeley. Diana Wallace creates vivid characters and scenes that bring the French Resistance and ancient Greek mythology to life as the main character, Herculine, discovers family secrets through late 20th Century research. From the culture of the Paris Sapphistes in Vichy France to Herculine's gender bending relationships throughout the story, there is also a thread of sexual exploration in this novel that I found fascinating.
As Herculine makes sense of her world and family history through researching 12 cryptic poems written by her grandmother in WWII Paris, she comes to grips with herself, the loss of her father, and comes to a greater understanding of the world. I loved how the modern part of the story was set in the later 80's and early 90's before Google and Wikipedia changed research forever. Herculine's love for libraries and the kind of real research scholars conduct is almost historical in itself. Dianna Wallace does an amazing job of weaving many threads into a perfect tapestry of a rich life. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who loves libraries, World War II stories, books like Marge Piercy's Gone to Soldiers, and mythology.
[I received a complimentary copy of the novel from the author in exchange for an honest review.]
As Herculine makes sense of her world and family history through researching 12 cryptic poems written by her grandmother in WWII Paris, she comes to grips with herself, the loss of her father, and comes to a greater understanding of the world. I loved how the modern part of the story was set in the later 80's and early 90's before Google and Wikipedia changed research forever. Herculine's love for libraries and the kind of real research scholars conduct is almost historical in itself. Dianna Wallace does an amazing job of weaving many threads into a perfect tapestry of a rich life. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who loves libraries, World War II stories, books like Marge Piercy's Gone to Soldiers, and mythology.
[I received a complimentary copy of the novel from the author in exchange for an honest review.]
February 20, 2017
I thought this book was beautifully written, carefully crafted, and intricately structured, weaving a mesmerizing, many layered tale of passion, history, poetry, and mythology. Really impressive in terms of the intellectual level of engagement demanded of the reader too. I read it about six months ago, but I keep thinking about it! Highly recommended.
March 2, 2016
I really enjoyed this book. Great combination of prose and poetry. It made me want to delve into more Mythology and WE II history. I received this book in a giveaway.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews