The Closed Doors

by Pauline Albanese

UPDATE: considering this is a youthful work and a very short one at that, I've decided to pull it from Createspace and make it available for free in PDF. You can download it here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ww9m...


This is a coming of age story.
This is about closing your eyes,
shedding your skin,
finding yourself,
and touching your soul.

In the Underworld, Persephone looks her Death in the face.

Genres: Plays, Mythology, Poetry, Fantasy, Retellings, Fiction, Theatre

75 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 2, 2015

Reviews

[✨ Helena ✨ · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting Hades and Persephone retelling!!! I liked the play format with writing that almost bordered on poetic. However, I wasn't too keen on the characterisation and there was an abundance of typos. It wasn't bad though! :)

[Marijana☕✨ · Rating 5 out of 5]

*Update posle ponovnog čitanja: Slobodno mogu da kažem da je ovo toliko prelepo da me usred čitanja svaki put uhvati neverica. Very poetic, ali nikada ne prelazi u patetično. Čisti najež i mislim da će mnogo vode proteći rekom Stiks dok se ne pojavi neko ko će kao Pauline psihološki i emotivno razumeti ovaj mit čija su (loša) prepričavanja i više nego aktuelna poslednjih godina.
PS: Sada imam najlepše izdanje na svetu 😍

PERSEPHONE, whispering now
The door isn’t even locked. It was never locked at all.

HADES, whispering now
Tell them you chose to come.

PERSEPHONE
I will tell them I came for me and stayed for you.


Ovo je bilo prelepo! Kakav hidden gem, volela bih da imam fizički primerak ove knjige.
Autorka je možda ovo pisala više kao neku razbibrigu (deluje mi da je hardcore tumblr girl), ali zaista je sjajno. Možda sam i ja videla dubinu gde je nije bilo, ne znam, ali našla sam ovde dosta različitih emocija, psiholoških momenata i poigravanja sa podsvesti.
Nadam se da neće odustati od pisanja, ovu dramu bih gledala istog trena kada bi dobila zasluženu adaptaciju.

[Melanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a tiny sliver of a book, but all the same it's absolutely stunning. It reminds me a little of Deathless compacted: raw and gorgeous prose, a dark edge beneath it, original even though it shouldn't be. Persephone and Hades has been done so many times but this play still manages to feel so unique! I promise it will still stay with you for months and months; certain lines are so perfect, so beautifully constructed and framed, that I don't think I'll ever forget them. My new favourite.

[sugi · Rating 4 out of 5]

good god when the "I only wanted one seed, one seed only: and one more, and again, one more because they're my favourite; it was gluttony, it was happiness" hits... when the "Can you hear the screams when darkness is velvet? ... poetry comes from the guts and is spat out in a cry" and the "I will give you my skeleton, and you will be empress" and the "I haven't made a chimera out of you. I know what you are" and most importantly when the "Do not ask me to beg...Tell them that you weren't hungry, tell them you followed the pomegranate seeds because they tasted like blood, like love" hits...good god!

[lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was lovely, Pauline. I need 400 more pages of it.

[Apoorva · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everything about this weakens me. From "Bring me water or go away" and "I didn't want to" to "The door isn't even locked. It was never locked at all" and "I will tell them I came for me and stayed for you.", this book is an experience. The pain, the heartbreak, the desperation. The "do not make me beg" and "won't they allow me this sole respite?" make me feel for Hades far more than what is okay. I ache for his melancholy. I love him for his strength. It's perfection in less than a 100 pages.

[Amanda Nemer · Rating 5 out of 5]

!!!!!!!!!!!!OMFG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

....................................................................................

review n. 2: always in their chokehold

....................................................................................

review n. 3: some things never change like my love for them

[jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

every single line fucks SO hard

[Nao ♡ · Rating 5 out of 5]

this was short nd sweet nd it made me laugh but also 💔

[TheTaleTellingHeart · Rating 5 out of 5]

First of all:



Second of all:
Where is this wonderful writer? And why aren't they publishing their work?

Third of all:
This was such a lovely surprise, I went into this unkowingly, but judging by the ratings I thought it would be a nice little read, and I came out of this flabbergasted. The writing is superbe, I had to reread lines every so often because I wanted to absorb them into my consciousness. The atmosphere and characterizations felt appropriate for the story, and this truly is now one of my favourite interpretations of this myth.

I can only say that I ardently wish to read more from this author.

[Abi (The Knights Who Say Book) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really thought I'd love this, so it's disappointing that I didn't. But it is really interesting. It's a cross-section of poetry and play, and I really liked how some of that worked. The idea of one act in which you can semi-see one set through the wall behind another set would be awesome on stage.

But the dialogue also felt kind of repetitive and, just two months later, nothing much about it stands out in my memory. In the age of Hadestown, this just does not make the list of my favorite Hades and Persephones. Good, but not incredible.

[monique · Rating 3 out of 5]

not to be that person, but where's the smut (and the characterization and the progression and the-). 3 stars for the king of the dead opening his heart to a whiny persephone. gotta love a powerful man who's not afraid of showing vulnerability.

[Cassie · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's not great. The last line is gold. My biggest problem with it was the fact that persephone bit into a pomegranate, which is just insane to me. The poetry wasn't the best.

[Morgan Nikola-Wren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Okay...the language was SUMPTUOUS! Delicious! I salivated over it. Even the stage directions were poetry!

The ONLY reason I didn't give it five stars is, while I liked the concept of Persephone "going to the Underworld" herself, it wasn't as outright as it should have been. I found myself irritated at Hades telling her that she wanted to be there...while she was screaming that she wanted to be let go. Repeatedly. I get that there are complicated characters who often don't know what they want, but let's portray that somehow else and not with a woman who is being kept somewhere against her will by a guy who keeps insisting that he's NOT keeping her there...even though he takes pleasure in telling her that her mom can't get through to rescue her without dying and that she can't leave.

Still, though, read this book for the words if you're a poetry junkie. There are some GORGEOUS bits, especially when Persepohone is on her own and processing with herself.

[miuccia · Rating 2 out of 5]

2/5 🌟🌟

I want to preface this by saying that I read this while waiting for my results to be released at the hospital and this is a great hospital read! Hahaha

But I honestly feel like I have no right to rate this book two stars, because every reason for these two stars was right there at the start.

I picked this up because I enjoyed reading the author's content on Tumblr. And then I proceeded to rate this two stars because it reads like a Tumblr post.

Maybe I'm just rANDOM like a tumblr girl, but to be honest I expected more of this. It's a very short play, to a point where I don't feel it would be entertaining to watch as a play - it's just a snippet of a larger narrative - and I don't feel it works as a written piece as well. There are some beautiful quotes (few of them), but it could have developed the character's relationships more, and even been more poetic, I guess.

This let me down, but it did so gently, and I'll most likely forget it after a while.

[cass · Rating 5 out of 5]

so good

[Pav · Rating 4 out of 5]

good read ms pinterest

[tara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Deliciously written, Pauline Albanese constructs the anti-love story between Persephone and Hades in a way that makes you forget the way in which it began. It is a modern telling of classic mythology that portrays a young girl's desire for forbidden things, written only by, I can assume, a woman also consumed by forbidden desires. Though, as women, aren't we all? Aren't all of our desires forbidden pomegranates we risk ourselves to consume? Persephone is a beautifully written woman with agency within her desires, however much they consume her. The short play is written delicately and tenderly, obviously a tale the author wrote from the heart, not the mind (as all the best tales are written).

[carlette · Rating 4 out of 5]

From "I will give you my throne." to "I read in you as if you had welcomed me inside of your skin."
There are tears from "The door isn’t even locked. It was never locked at all." to "Do not ask me to beg."
My heart aches in between "Tell them you chose to come." and "I will tell them I came for me and stayed for you."

Perhaps not characteristically correct and yet so sweet. I need more of this all-consuming love.

[Ace · Rating 4 out of 5]

TL;DR: A short play that is true to the character of the originating myth, but one with an alluring dark edge. Doesn't stay long but never out-stays its welcome, with great prose keeping one easily moving pages.

Quick first note: the link the author mentions to a google drive no longer works. However, it can be read for free on Kindle here as part of their Kindle Unlimited program or can be purchased for (at time of writing this review) 3.00.

Quick second note for Hades and Persephone retelling lovers: The characterization of the relationship between Hades and Persephone used in this retelling is much, much closer to the Homeric Hymn than any romance novel: Persephone is taken to the underworld against her will and begins the story as Hades' unwilling captive. The character of Persephone does present as a teenager, similar to the source material. This isn't for everyone and I feel like it should be said straight away.

But -- if you can handle that darker interpretation -- oh baby, this is some good soup. It's short, and spare, and deeply creepy. The story is the same as the traditional: Persephone goes to the underworld and is kept unwillingly by Hades. Persephone in this retelling is a force of nature, and this Hades is not particularly good company: he is stoic, somber, sarcastic. Hades has been promised his new strong-willed bride by his brother, Zeus, and Zeus' misogynistic attitude permates his few scenes. Persephone invokes her mothers name like a knife, but Demeter is far from her...

I wish I knew if this had been staged because the stage directions for this are really neat: two rooms, divided by a semi-transparent room divider. Hades is on the shadow side while Persephone remains in focus, with a door where the two can sometimes interact. And man does she nail a really good conversation!

Take for example the opening meeting in the play between our two leads:

A large, clear room; a subtle luxury. The door is dark wood, the walls are white and taupe. There is no window, no wind, no air. In the centre, a crimson sofa strewn with round pillows, a coffee table littered with withered flowers, a crystal bowl of pomegranates, a mirror. There is a rich rug underfoot, something elegant, something comfortable: they are attempting to win her trust, the bastards.

She’s on the sofa, she’s silent. She’s dark and slight, wearing white. She has cupped her face in her hands. She’s thinking. She stands suddenly, goes to the door, shakes the handle, hits the dark wood; all is still.

She howls with all her might. A long time. Wounded beast.

PERSEPHONE, screaming still, wolfish: You fucking bastards! Let me go! I command you to let me go! I demand that you let me go! Someone will come for me, I’m telling you, someone will come! My mother will have your head! (louder, louder) My mother will cut your throat!

She comes back to the centre, trembling, nervous.

Someone knocks on the door, roughly. She starts and pulls herself together, wipes her snow tears if tears there were, smooths the wrinkles of her white dress, and stands up. She looks at the door. She’s afraid and defiant. She clenches her small, sharp fists.

PERSEPHONE: Bring me water or go away!

There’s a short laugh behind the door. Dry, brief, derisory. A man.

PERSEPHONE: Yeah, right, get lost! I don’t care! I don’t even care!

The door opens and she stands still. Startled deer. The man is high and sombre, with dark hair and dull clothes. He’s thin, a shadow, a skeleton. He towers over her. In his hand he has a rich, golden goblet—scarlet wine. He’s at home: he moves with ease; he dominates.

PERSEPHONE, scornful: Not a moment too soon, it seems. Perhaps you could give me something to drink and tell me what I’m doing here. No, wait, I’ve got a better idea: why don’t you bring me clothes or bring me a basin or just open the bloody door and let me go?

HADES: I brought wine.

PERSEPHONE: I hate wine.

HADES: There’s nothing else. The water is bad here: bodies rot in it.

PERSEPHONE, louder: I want water.

HADES, quieter: It’s still no.

WOW. The quiet malevolence of Hades here, Persephone's bravery in standing-up in a foreign environment, the play in their audio echoing and reversing their power-struggle, the razor-sharp patter between them with just the slightest hint of how creepy this underworld is ("the water is bad here: bodies rot in it") - the writing is very strong, and it grabs you from these early scenes and does not let you go.

I also think in this example you can see the strong stage direction; the dramaturge here has a good eye for details, and for being able to set up characterization in short sentences. My personal favorite is how the author sums up the relationship between Zeus and Hades: They look at each other—they’re brothers and enemies and rivals and accomplices. The relationship between the "main six" sons and daughters of Kronos and Rhea has always been a fascination for me and I feel like this traces all the ways they relate and annoy one another in one sparse sentence.

As far as weaknesses in this work, there is, I think, a bit of a tendency to let Persephone monologue a bit too much, especially in the early scenes. Poor Persephone is carrying all the exposition on her back, and has a bit of a tendency to just tell her story out loud to the audience. This can be a bit much, since a lot of the allure of the work is in the contrasting dialogues between Hades and Persephone. These dialogues take a turn for the poetic, and I suspect how much enjoy that will be made in how much you enjoy blank verse poetry. As an example:

Hades: ....But it is poetry, you know —poetry comes from the guts and is spat out in a cry.

PERSEPHONE: Liar. Poetry is morning dew and wind between my knuckles.

HADES: No. It’s a kiss full of teeth, and a metallic taste on your tongue, the pain under the stomach, there, just there, where you hide your fear and your power.

A couple years ago when I first read this, blank-verse poetry wasn't quite everywhere yet, and now, even I have grown tired of the "girlboss your way/into the sun/for only you/can see your own comet trail" type of aspirational blank verse poetry that fills up the Target shelves. But this is that style done well IMO, and used well: often Hades and Persephone are contrasting their experiences, they ways of being. This stands out to me most strongly in a dialogue where Hades is attempting to pledge his troth to her by offering her his bones (lovingly named them even!), and she is utterly grossed out by such a proposition. Persephone's versions of pleading for him by offering him views of her home are equally foreign to him, things he can't even imagine after centuries of being bound to the underworld.

The story proceeds in a novel way, despite it mostly telling the same story as has always been told - Hades wants to keep her, Persephone isn't sure she wants to be kept, and Demeter is always coming, if at a distance -- with the interplay of how the two slowly come from their individual worlds to something in-between quite well told.

[Naomi · Rating 5 out of 5]

So moody, so gothic, so tense, raw, violent, sensuous, gorgeous. This is how I like my ancient folklore ♡ Pauline, please write more of this and more like this, I shall buy and read it all! If you love the dark / light tension and dichotomy between Hades and his Persephone, this is the book for you.

[Amaryllis · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's quite obvious why some people compare this little book with Deathless from Catherynne M. Valente. I read Deathless last year and this now reminded me a lot of it.
It has a beautiful, wonderful, prosaic writing style. It's the second book I read about greek mythology and it's so wonderful. I love what's going on between Persephone and Hades, even though I don't quite get it. But it's beautiful nonetheless.
I hope Miss Albanese will continue on writing and publishing books.

[Faith · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is very good, but very short. I was left feeling dissatisfied simply because right when I was really getting into it, it ended. I wish the author had continued on and covered the choice for Persephone to stay for a specific time each year.

It was a little too wordy at times. But there are some very memorable lines, and I like this angle, that she and Hades have something in common and that she chooses to stay with him of her own accord.

[Marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 Stars.

I am... almost speechless. But then again, I am rarely out of words.

This was stunning. I need a physical copy in my hands this very minute.

The Closed Doors was very nearly a five star book. The writing, the tension, the myth-- it was all done beautifully. It is written as a play, and I can easily imagine it being performed; I can see the stage and the lighting and the staging, could see it from the very start. And yet, if this was only consumed as a visual art, without reading the material, you would lose part of the story. The reader is meant to read the stage directions, beyond what an actor would take for instruction. The stage directions are such an integral part of the artistry here, and I adore it.

What separated The Closed Doors from 5 stars was simply normal revision issues-- some things worked, some things did not. I think also that it is somewhat underdeveloped; a little bit more of an arc is necessary to fill the space between Hades and Persephone, something more on Hades side.

I am well aware of the discourse surrounding Greek retellings, but I put forth that this is one of the better versions of the complexity of the Hades/Persephone myth. It is still predatory, but it doesn't shy away from the fact, though it frames it in a more romantic light ( a contradictory statement?). Albanese leans into Persephone's youth, but Hades is ambiguous, perhaps attracted to Persephone's youth due to a sense of youth in himself, as it is implied that he is not necessarily as old as other retellings (and the original myth) show.

Alternatively, Hades, not as a person, but simply Persephone's (a young girl) arc as she comes to terms with dying-- the desperation for water, for her mother and for life-- and then accepting it and giving herself to it just as the curtain falls, right before we see her telling her mother she chose it. More metaphorical, and definitely not the self-revealing message that could also be read form this play.

I will be rereading this and truly annotating it-- maybe coming back to this review, maybe not. Read this play. Discuss with me.

[Varshini Iyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I initially found quotes from the book on aesthetically-pleasing-dark-academic-Instagram-accounts which drove me to hunt the book down and get my hands on it in the first place. To be honest, it was a little "overhyped" in that it was very dramatically recommended by different anonymous social media users but I didn't find it worth the hype in its already minimal niche. Oh, don't get me wrong, this is not to disrespect or discredit the play in any way. It was a beautiful read (I read this when I was sick in bed so it was very comforting in that sense) and I really loved how raw and poetic some of the dialogues were. But it didn't have as much of a gush of emotional release from me as much as I thought it would given the reviews I'd read. In conclusion, this play has to be read in one sitting (it's only a little over 70 pages long) with all the poetic elements highlighted for future reference (or mental breakdowns, pick your pick) and your mind just absorbing the pure work of art in its content. This is the kind of premise that should deserve a Netflix special and not your friendly neighbourhood high school cliches, in my opinion.

[MJ · Rating 5 out of 5]

“This is a coming of age story.
This is about closing your eyes,
shedding your skin,
finding yourself,
and touching your soul.”

In 75 pages and 45 minutes, this short four-act play made me bawl my eyes out an innumerable amount of times and left constant tears welled, waiting for their time of release. I absolutely loved this book, and it’s earned itself an immediate favorite.

That being said — is the prose for everyone? Absolutely not. It reads like an extended poem, an abstract play, and I understand that doesn’t suit everyone’s fancy. That being said, it doesn’t change the fact I’d recommend this book a thousand times over regardless. It’s raw, it’s sweet, and something about Persephone’s character reached into my chest and ripped my heart from my ribs. I loved it.

It’s not all doom and gloom, though, as I found Zeus’s characterization hilarious and hilariously on the nose, and although his experiences were scant, they got me to laugh through my tears regardless.

Please. If you do one thing in your life: READ THIS PLAY! I wouldn’t give this hour of my time up for anything in the world.

[Amani · Rating 5 out of 5]

PERSEPHONE
I am not an orchard. I am not Summer. My tears do not resemble rain. The sun is not in my pupil. You have no right to love me as one loves the fantasy of an inaccessible world.

I want a 400 pages book, a trilogy, a whole series of this because it is the best Hades and Persephone retelling that I have EVER read !!
Written as a play with a lot of poetic expressions, this short story tells the myth of Hades and Persephone. Him kidnapping her. Her falling in love with him. The underworld, the pomegranate seeds, the darkness and the innocence. Everything about this is my trope and I can’t get enough of it.
Five stars isn’t enough.

[jess :D · Rating 4 out of 5]

i seriously was watching this in the black box theater in my brain. oh my god. anything persephone / hades will always have an effect on me i can’t believe this is my life. god this was so good. ‘you are lying to yourself if you think i will vanquish your melancholy’ and ‘i have learned a long time ago not to lie to myself’ ohhhh right okay so why would you say that. so beautiful. and don’t start w the ‘stockholm syndrome’ thing because yes i see the captive and innocent persephone storyline as much as i see the destined to be together storyline alright. i choose the latter. and after all of this the ending line hits like a brick!

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Honestly, I loved this. I went into this blind. When I saw this was a play format, I was wary. I've never read something like that.

This play is extremely poetic, and I was hooked on every word. It was a breath of fresh air to see that Hades wasn't this huge, beautiful guy depicted in modern-day retellings. He was vulnerable and beautiful in his own way. Time does pass between Acts, so you don't see the relationship build up, which I was surprised I didn't mind.

It was a very quick blip of a play, but it was beautiful.

[Martha Watts · Rating 5 out of 5]

Haunting and Viscerally Lovely

I was drawn to this when I saw a quote for it and needed more of the deeply evocative and provocative language. I was delighted to see that the rest of the story was the same level of poetic, earthy prose, and was struck dumb with goosebumps by the end.