House of Names: A Novel

by Colm Tóibín

A powerful retelling of a classic Greek tragedy, a breathtaking story of a family at war with itself reimagined by one of the world's greatest living storytellers.

"They cut her hair before they dragged her to the place of sacrifice. Her mouth was gagged to stop her cursing her father, her cowardly, two-tongued father. Nonetheless, they heard her muffled screams."

On the day of his daughter's wedding, Agamemnon orders her sacrifice. His daughter is led to her death, and Agamemnon leads his army into battle, where he is rewarded with glorious victory.

Three years later, he returns home and finds his murderous action has set the entire family -- mother, brother, sister -- on a path of intimate violence, as they enter a world of hushed commands and soundless journeys through the palace's dungeons and bedchambers. As his wife, Clytemnestra, seeks his death, his daughter, Electra, is the silent observer to the family's game of innocence while his son, Orestes, is sent into bewildering, frightening exile where survival is far from certain. Out of their desolating loss, Electra and Orestes must find a way to right these wrongs of the past, even if it means committing themselves to a terrible, barbarous act.

House of Names is a story of intense longing and shocking betrayal. It is a work of great beauty, and daring, from one of the world's finest living writers."

Genres: Mythology, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Fantasy, Greek Mythology, Retellings, Historical

272 pages, Hardcover

First published May 9, 2017

About the author

Colm Tóibín FRSL, is an Irish novelist, short story writer, essayist, playwright, journalist, critic, and poet. Tóibín is currently Irene and Sidney B. Silverman Professor of the Humanities at Columbia University in Manhattan and succeeded Martin Amis as professor of creative writing at the University of Manchester.

Reviews

[Always Pouting · Rating 3 out of 5]

A retelling of a Greek tragedy, Agamemnon tricks his wife and daughter into coming to the war front by telling them that he wants to marry Iphigenia, his daughter, to one of his soldiers. When Clytemnestra, Agamemnon's wife, and Iphigenia arrive though they quickly find out that Iphigenia is actually there to be sacrificed to the gods to ensure victory. Agamemnon though hesitant to do so relents and Iphigenia is killed while Clytemnestra is locked in an underground pit to stop any attempts at intervention. Clytemnestra decides to murder Agamemnon to avenge her daughter, and without confiding in anyone else goes back home to plan. Electra, their other daughter, who was running everything in Agamemnon's absence is shocked by her sister's death but doesn't seem to hold Agamemnon responsible in the way that Clytemnestra does. Both Electra and Orestes, their youngest child and son, get mixed up in their mothers scheming as she allies herself with an old enemy of Agamemnon.

Though the writing was wonderful I really didn't enjoy the story. It's not really Toibin's fault but I tend to not enjoy the Greek plays. I think contemporary writing and media tend to ruin older literature and plays for me because so much of what is produced today is of better quality and so I expect way more than what I end up getting. I was just bored the whole time I was reading about Orestes and his journey home, I honestly did not care about Orestes at all. I was pretty into the part where Clytemnestra is plotting revenge though. Not sure that that says anything good about me as a person but after Agamemnon is killed I pretty much lost interest in the plot. Also Electra is really god damn annoying and the plot kept going back between her and Orestes and so I just spent the whole time irritated or bored. I hate the classics honestly and no matter what I do nothing makes them any more enjoyable unless I start comparing them to writing that came even earlier. This one was a 3.5 stars for me.

[Paromjit · Rating 3 out of 5]

Colm Tobin revisits the recurrent subject of the mother in his novels in this reimagining of the Ancient Greek tragedy of the House of Atreus told in four parts. The mother here is the despised and cursed Clytemnestra, whose damning historical reputation he counters by making her more human and understandable. The retelling departs from the original where the characters actions are directed as the gods will and instead result more from natural human emotions and misjudgment. This is a story that dwells on the themes of betrayal, loss, grief, corruption, power, failure, loneliness and repression. It is told through the perspective of Clytemnestra, her son and daughter, Orestes and Electra, and the ghost of Clytemnestra.

Agamemnon betrays and sacrifices his daughter, Iphigenia, on her wedding day to win the Trojan war. Clytemnestra is griefstricken and seeks to assuage her desperate loss by dreaming of and planning the murder of Agamemnon. She is now the power in the land and she is aided by her lover, Aegisthus. Agamemnon returns with his precious other woman, deemed the spoils of war. Clytemnestra murders him by knifing him in the throat. Things begin to get out of hand and Orestes returns from exile. In a departure from the original story, the character of Orestes is significantly more low key and submissive, reliant on his friend, Leander, and subject to the machinations of his sister, Electra. He looks to avenge his father and kills his mother who returns as a ghost.

Where Tobin excels is in his depiction of the character of Clytemnestra who comes alive effortlessly through his prose. The language he deploys is often sublime, expressive, and vivid. He creates a doom laden picture of palace intrigue and an unsettling atmosphere. However, the narrative feels uneven and chequered in the reinterpretation of this story. The role he gives Orestes is much weaker and less authentic than that of the larger than life Clytemnestra. Tobin just does the mother figure so much better. However, overall I enjoyed reading this novel of this dysfunctional blood soaked family history. It is a timeless tale whose echoes can be heard throughout our human history time and time again. Thanks to Penguin for an ARC.

[jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

an interesting take on an old tale of betrayal and revenge.

im not sure i would consider this a retelling, as much of the story is CTs own imagination. perhaps ‘loosely inspired by aeschylus’ trilogy’ might be a more accurate description. and although ive not read those plays, i had no trouble following along with the story.

but what prevented me from really loving this was the disconnect and emotional void i felt with two out of the three POVs. i honestly couldnt care less about clytemnestra or electra. although i found electra to be more developed by comparison, both women bored me. i really enjoyed orestes sections - i found his story to more interesting as its much more plot based and not as introspective as the others.

overall, not a bad story. not my favourite writing style, but i appreciate CTs speculation about what happened to a family after a brutal consequence of the trojan war.

↠ 3 stars

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 4 out of 5]

It has been forever and a day, back to my school days, since I have read anything concerning mythology, the gods and the ancient Greeks. To be honest, if it wasn't written by this author I probably would have passed on reading. So I can in no way pretend to be an expert nor even make any educated thoughts on its comparisons to the original. I can say that I surprised myself by how much I became engaged and enjoyed the telling of this story.

Tobin sets his story at a time when the power of the God's is waning. Before this happens Agmemmnon sacrifices his own daughter so that the God's would be pleased and allow his ships to sail and also allow he and his men to prevail in the battle of Troy. Clytemnestra, is of corse beyond furious and plots her revenge. So sets the stage for betrayal, grasping of power, murder, lies, subterfuge and much plotting. The Story is told by the three main characters, Clytemnestra, her remaining daughter Electra and Orestes, whoever life will take a different path before they are all bought together again. Leander who we never hear from directly is my favorie character. He seems to be the only one with any integrity. So there is infighting, and plotting from within and without.

As I was reading I couldn't help but compare this to Henry VIII and his reign and also to what is happening in different countries with various tribes and their ethnic cleansing, and the various religions each who thinks their God is the only one. So I found that this tale has a timelessness to it, a tale for the ages.

ARC from publisher.

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Everything old is new again, or so goes the thought process when there's a retelling or reimagining of or reengaging with a classic text. As a writer, dipping into a well of classic material must be exciting, filled with rich characters and deep moral, human questions that transcend space and time. But as a reader, it can be a bit sticky going to wade into this world of retellings, especially if one is a lover of the source material. You hope they get it right, stick the landing, tell their own tale while reminding how much you loved (or hated, or were challenged by) the old one. And even though I lean on the purist side and tend to wonder afterwards if a retelling was necessary, I seemingly never fail to read these reimaginings in spite of my varied reactions. Fortunately for me, though Colm Toibin may not improve upon the epic language and poetry that covers the fall of the House of Atreus from the likes of Aeschylus, Euripidies, and Sophocles, his House of Names toes the line between retelling the major motivations and machinations that create the vicious cycle of vengeance amidst the Atreides, and bringing some fresh, clean, modern prose and perspective to an ancient tale of family, power, and violence. I would probably give this 3.5 stars, but round up to 4 because I did find it successful overall: I was engaged with Toibin's versions of Clytemnestra especially as well as Electra (Orestes to a lesser extent), and I was looking for my copy of Edith Hamilton's Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes and wondering if I should dust off my high school copies of Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, and Iphigenia in Aulis.

I went out and looked at the sky. And all I had then to help me was the leftover language of prayer. What had once been powerful and added meaning to everything was now desolate, strange, with its own sad, brittle power, with its memory, locked in its rhythms, of a vivid past when our words rose up and found completion. Now our words are trapped in time, they are filled with limits, they are mere distractions; they are as fleeting and monotonous as breath. They keep us alive, and maybe that is something, at least for the moment, for which we should be grateful. There is nothing else.

Toibin's Clytemnestra is our main view point for the majority of the book, covering the main action of the Atredies of the Ancient Greek. It's no spoiler - in the blurb and assumed you know going in - that pretty much everyone dies, and most at the hands of or with tacit approval by family. Toibin though gives a well-rounded portrait of Clytemnestra, a woman who murders her husband and his prized princess/slave/concubine out of vengeance for the murder of her daughter, slain to appease gods Clytemnestra no longer truly believes in or believes care for the fates and actions of humankind. Clytemnestra is not necessarily given the same treatment in modern culture that say Medea is as a tragic figure pushed into acts of evil, but Toibin is able to humanize her, and seeing from her perspective how her voice is literally silenced as her daughter is put to death, we gain some empathy and respect as she claws back into strength and power and plots her vengeance, though our sympathy strains as she does more evil to others of Argos, whether in some madness or coldness of heart. Toibin rightly jumps perspectives to Electra or Orestes as we fully wrestle with the complexities of Clytemnestra's character and actions, and the perceived rightness or wrongness of the varying cases of filicide, mariticide, and matricide we encounter. But rather than the interventions of the gods from Aeschylus and company, Toibin emphasizes the human element, the mortal flaws and desires and feelings that push and pull these Atreides into their appointed positions in tragedy history.

Among the gods now there is no one who offers me assistance or oversees my actions or knows my mind. There is no one among the gods to whom I appeal. I live alone in the shivering, solitary knowledge that the time of the gods has passed.

Our appeal to the gods is the same as the appeal a star makes in the sky above us before it falls, it is a sound we cannot hear, a sound to which, even if we did hear it, we would be fully indifferent.

There's a timeliness and an urgency to Toibin's retelling of this classic tragedy, as in the 21st century it's easier than ever to see and confront the unspeakable evils that man inflicts upon one another, between strangers, between family members, between members of tribes similar and dissimilar. It's a dark tale of old and of new, only reaching a sort of detente in the plays of Aeschylus after justice is finally achieved, Orestes is tried, and the cycle of (and importance of) vengeance is broken to give way to the rule of law. Here, things end more ambiguously, just as in the modern era faith in the rule of law and the ideals of blind justice are somewhat compromised, and every now and again evil and horror rear their heads and prompt instinctual reactions to call for an eye for an eye or some older code of retribution, perhaps less ideal but in some ways more satisfying. Toibin's characters receive no real peace for all their machinations and murders: they're an original cautionary tale, and Clytemnestra's silence, Orestes' uncertainty, Electra's increasing marginalization all speak to a mixed outcome when trying to right wrongs along the path of vengeance. And Toibin is not afraid to tangle directly with the Ancient Greek tragedians: he gives Iphigenia her speech seemingly reconciling her to her fate, but subverts the idea that "better a single man should see the light than ten thousand women" and her happy submission to benefit Hellas with her instead cursing and fighting to the last to live, and Clytemnestra needing to be physically restrained and removed from getting to her daughter and cursing the men who would lay hands upon her. There is no miraculous rescue of Artemis inserted after the fact; though ghosts and spirits appear in Toibin's Argos, there is little real strength or character after death for any of the Atreides.

"We live in a strange time," Electra said. "A time when the gods are fading. Some of us still see them but there are times when we don't. Their power is waning. Soon it will be a different world. It will be ruled by the light of day. Soon it will be a world barely worth inhabiting."

House of Names is not a life affirming read: it's a retold, classic tragedy, still hitting the same beats that echo off the dark places in all of us, perhaps resonating in a new way as part of a 21st century audience. But it worked overall for me, in terms of considering the work on its own merits and contemplating its relevance in the modern era, and inspiring me to revisit the various source materials that still capture so well the beauty in human behavior, though base, frail, morally right or wrong.

-received ARC on edelweiss thanks to Scribner and Simon & Schuster

[Adina ( catching up..very slowly) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I recently had a conversation with a GR friend about which books are harder to review. She said that the ones you love and I opted for the ones for which you feel nothing. After reading The House of Names I stick to my choice. It is difficult to find my words when there is not much to say. I am infuriated to feel so non emotional towards this novel because it started so well. I could feel the tension in Clytemnestra’s story and the writing was exquisite. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The House of Names is a retelling of the Greek tragedy of the House of Atreus, drawing its inspiration from Aeschylus's trilogy Oresteia. You might want to read the original first to have a better idea of the starting point. I had no prior knowledge of the classic tale and I had no problem to follow the story. However, I made some research so I could compare the two versions. Would my experience with this novel have been different if I had read more classics? Probably.

Agamemnon is told by the gods that he needs to sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia in order to win the war. Although reluctant, he agrees to do so. Clytemnestra, his wife cannot come to terms with the sacrifice and kills her husband after careful planning together with her lover, Aegytus , when Agamemnon returns victorious from the war. In order to protect the other two children (Orestes and Electra) she asks her lover to take them away when the crime takes place. Electra is locked in the dungeon and Orestes is taken prisoner away from the castle form where he escapes. When Orestes returns home after years spend in exile he is convinced by his sister to kill her mother in revenge for their father death.

The story is told from three POV, Clytemnestra, Oreste and Electra. The novel starts strong, letting us inside the mind of the avenging mother. The account was powerful, chilling, I could feel her hurt and anger for the sacrifice of her daughter. I felt for her and empathized with her resolve to revenge, what she thought to be a useless murder. The second part, the account of Orestes, was written in the 3rd person and the prose became impersonal, flat and superficial. I did not care anymore. I felt like facts were presented but without any feelings involved. When we come back to the 1st person account of Electra I was already bored and her perspective did not manage to resurrect my initial appreciation for Tóibín’s writing.

There were some difference between the classic story and this retelling. The gods were not physically present, only spoken of and the focus was intended to be on the internal battles and the human emotions of the characters. I wrote “intended”because the aspect was not developed enough. I really do not understand why the author chose to write Orestes’ POV in 3rd person. Was it because in the end he was a pawn in the women hand’s? Was it because he was less important? Was it a stylistic decision? Whatever the reason, it did not work out well, in my opinion. Another theme that I would have liked to be further developed was the relationship with the Gods. There were some memorable passages in the first part regarding Clytemnestra’s loss of faith and it was hinted later that her greatest crime was not consulting with the Gods when deciding to kill his husband but I wanted more.

* „Among the gods now there is no one who offers me assistance or oversees my actions or knows my mind. There is no one among the gods to whom I appeal. I live alone in the shivering, solitary knowledge that the time of the gods has passed. ”

The House of Names is the first novel I read by Colm Toibin. I believe he is a talented writer and the novel was a quick and enjoyable read most of the time. However, I wanted more soul, less detachment.
I received this copy from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review
*The quote is taken from an ARC and it might suffer modifications in the final version.

[Gabrielle (Reading Rampage) · Rating 3 out of 5]

“I have been acquainted with the smell of death.”


I have a lifelong love for Greek mythology and the endless way they are told and retold. The tragedies are amazing in their bombastic brutality: so much blood is spilled for the gods, for honor, and probably just for fun at a certain point. Colm Toibin’s amazing prose and razor-sharp insight take the already very intense story of the Oresteia and turns it into a personal and visceral tale of loss, betrayal, revenge and justice (whatever that means).

If you are unfamiliar with the original tale, it’s pretty simple and barbaric: Agamemnon, the King of Mycenae, is told that to get favorable winds and divine strengths for the soldiers he is taking with him to fight in the Trojan War, he must sacrifice the life of his eldest daughter, Iphigenia. His wife Clytemnestra spends the duration of the war plotting her revenge with her lover Aegisthus. While to her, this murder is justice and retribution, it will turn her other children, Orestes and Electra, who loved and idolized their father, against her, and they will hatch their own plan for revenge.

Using this as the bones of his novel, Toibin adds layers to the tale told by Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripedes: he uses the voice of Clytemnestra and Electra, as well as a third-person narration of the story of Orestes to explore the myth. I have to say that this switch in perspectives is where the book lost points for me. Toibin made Clytemnestra’s voice so strong, distinctive and passionate, that everything afterwards sounded a bit underwhelming. I kept expecting those other POVs to ramp up to the same intensity the book opened with but the never seemed to get there.

I remember feeling something similar reading his “Testament of Mary” (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... the idea is so good but something doesn’t quite seem to gel in the delivery, despite very good writing – especially in the Orestes chapters, which had great potential (rage and hormone fuelled teenage boy revenge rampage, come on!).

Still worth the read, but a bit underwhelming for me.

[Ellen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Colm Toibin is a brilliant writer with great range. House of Names is as far from Brooklyn which is as far from The Master as you can imagine. A retelling of the Greek tragedy of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, the book begins with the sacrifice of their daughter Iphigenia and Clytemnestra's vow of vengeance. The story is told by three of the names of this house of tragedy: Clytemnestra, her other daughter, Electra, and her son, Orestes.

The sections narrated by Clytemnestra are the most powerful. Driven by rage, Clytemnestra plots her revenge without knowing the cost it will take from her being. Electra, the neglected daughter is as powerful in her way as Clytemnestra and only poor Orestes, although brave and bright, is left adrift in the political turmoil unleashed by Clytemnestra's actions. His sections were, I suppose as befits his character, less powerful but then I don't know if I could have been able to tolerate an entire book told in the white heat voice of Clytemnestra.

The story may be old but the emotions as portrayed by Toibin are as fresh as today. Loss, fear, pain, rage, are all vividly present in this book. I was completely on Clytemnestra's side as she told her story; it was only after witnessing the effects on her children and those around her, only as I heard their stories, that my reaction changed. Toibin portrays a mother's grief in almost unbearable clarity, as he does with the many other episodes of grief in this tragic story.

I felt exhausted when I finished this novel but in the best of ways. I had been taken on an emotional journey. No matter that I already knew the characters and the plot (more or less, the story has several versions), Toibin made the narrative as gripping as any contemporary tale. And the prose in which he tells it is masterfully crafted. As the pace intensifies towards the end, so does the beauty of the writing. And the motifs of names, gently brought in at the beginning, whip the air and fill the pages of the ending pages.

I want to thank NetGalley, Scribner Publishers, and Colm Toibin for the opportunity to read this novel. The opinions I express are entirely my own.

[Trevor · Rating 5 out of 5]

This must have come out at about the same time that Stephen Fry’s Mythos was published. I’ve enjoyed both books, but this one is the better of the two. It is such a strange tale and one that will haunt you long after you are finished. It is a story of obligations – to family, nation and the gods – and how these obligations can contradict each other and how what you must do is often conveyed in silence. How hard it is for those closest to you to tell you what it is that you must do or who you must become.

This is a book told through the perspectives of multiple characters and so it is a story that can only ever be partially told. The initial murder of a daughter is a civic responsibility to ensure a change to a favourable wind to take a father to Troy. His murder by his wife is in revenge for the death of her daughter. A murder that is nearly prevented by his returning with Cassandra as his lover. She who foresees the future but is never believed in her prophecies. The plotting of revenge is complicated by everyone suspecting everyone else. There is no longer any loyalty in the kingdom and so everyone is a potential enemy. The walls themselves have ears. Any act of contrition is viewed with suspicion and remembered. Trust is punished by murder. Lovers are dragged from mounds of bodies of their family, covered in the blood of their family, shivering and afraid that they will be next.

To defeat the heartless, first you must become heartless too. And in so becoming, all those you would otherwise turn to for advice immediately turn away from you. They ask of you the simplest of obligations – to marry, to keep watch, to visit their parents. Acts of kindness are brutally repaid. Songs of devotion, heard once, are sung over dead bodies. Those sent to ensure your safe return are slaughtered by you as you seek to return through villages that have become graveyards, or worse.

The gods themselves have no role here – they make no entrances. This is a world of the living and the dead, where the dead whisper in the hallways in the night and the living struggle to interpret what they hear and what they are truly being asked to do. Hamlet unable to leave his mother to heaven. There is always a knife in a loose stone, ready for her back, ready for her throat, ready for revenge.

This is stunningly beautiful in the simplicity of the writing, in the sharpness of the prose. The story rushes at you and you realise why these stories have haunted humanity for 3000 years. Why the names echo down those years: Electra, Orestes, Leander, Clytemnestra, Agamemnon. In this house, in these hallways, in these tombs – the names echo forever.

[Roger Brunyate · Rating 4 out of 5]

House of Whispers, House of Murder


François Perrier: The Sacrifice of Iphigenia (detail)

The basic story, of course, is that of Aeschylus' Oresteia: a chain of killings, each in revenge for the other. King Agamemnon of Argos, the leader of the Greeks, prevented by contrary winds from setting sail for Troy. sacrifices his eldest daughter, Iphigenia, to appease the gods. Years pass before Agamemnon returns, only to be killed in revenge by his wife Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus. Years pass again, during which Agamemnon's son Orestes, who had been kidnapped on the day of his father's murder, grows to manhood. Finally, Orestes returns and, encouraged by his surviving sister Electra, kills Clytemnestra and Aegisthus. For the crime of matricide, he in turn is pursued by the Furies.


Pierre-Narcisse Guérin: Murder of Agamemnon

Homer, Euripides, and Sophocles all tell parts of this story with some variations. I personally am most familiar with the opera by Richard Strauss based on the play by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, which focuses on Electra's vengeance and Orestes' return. Colm Tóibín, telling it in his own way, acknowledges the classical sources, but says that much of his plot and many of his characters are solely the products of his imagination. After a brilliant retelling of the first two killings (those of Iphigenia and Agamemnon), he then diverges from the originals to look closely at Orestes during his years of exile. We see him first as a captive in a kind of prison-school, then watch him escape with two other boys called Lysander and Mitros, then see the three living as fugitives in the house of an old woman on a deserted sea coast. A parallel chapter focuses on Electra, growing up in a household ruled by fear and tyranny. In the last hundred pages, Orestes returns, and though he does indeed kill Clytemnestra, most of the other events follow a different path that is Tóibín's own.


Greek relief: Orestes kills Clytemnestra

So why did Tóibín undertake this? It doesn't seem to be a commission, like the Canongate Myth Series. One can only think that it speaks to several of the author's persistent themes, especially mothers and their sons in search of personal identity. These are found throughout his Wexford novels and stories. They also partially explain his interest in historical themes in his previous standalone novels, Henry James' emotional formation in The Master, and the epitome of all mother-and-son stories, Mary and Jesus in The Testament of Mary . And the first voice we hear is that of the mother, Clytemnestra. At first, it seems that she will be entirely sympathetic; her outrage at being tricked into bringing her daughter as the bride for Achilles only to see her slaughtered is a powerful spur, and Tóibín gives her the same hard-edged treatment he uses for the Virgin Mary, and a similar scorn for the platitudes of religion:

I wish now to stand here and laugh. Hear me tittering and then howling with mirth at the idea that the gods allowed my husband to win his war, that they inspired every plan he worked out and every move he made, that they knew his cloudy moods in the morning and the strange and silly exhilaration he could exude at night, that they listened to his implorings and discussed them in their godly homes, that they watched the murder of my daughter with approval.

This is powerful stuff, and I feel that the first 65 pages, where Tóibín stays closest to his sources, only retelling them from the viewpoint of this angry but realistic woman, are the best in the book—even as we become aware that Clytemnestra is acting for selfish motives also and is as much a tryant as her slain husband.

When Tóibín leaves the mother to follow her son Orestes, the nature of the book changes entirely, losing its mythological resonance and becoming more like a boys' adventure story. There are still excellent descriptions and action scenes, but once the boys manage to escape and find refuge, most of the urgency disappears. Instead, Tóibín develops—with great delicacy, I must say—a growing homoerotic relationship between Orestes and Lysander. So far as I can see, this Lysander is an invented character; Euripides gives Orestes a different companion, Pylades. As there is a strong tradition that the two were lovers, this is not something that Tóibín is grafting on to the story. I found it moving, but not compelling. It also fits in with Tóibín's picture of Orestes returning to Argos as a much more sensitive and confused character than the avenging hero of myth.


Hellenistic: Orestes and Pylades

In the end, it all comes down to Tóibín's treatment of the final act of this drama. I'm used to the rapid denouement of the Strauss opera where the killing of both Clytemnestra and Aegisthus follows almost immediately upon the great recognition scene between Orestes and Electra, so had trouble with the more leisurely pace here. Orestes is back in the palace for some time before he takes his revenge, and when it comes it is almost perfunctory. His relationship with Electra is far from clear-cut, and indeed she is the least fully realized of the major characters. A lot of the last fifty pages is spent tying the loose ends of Tóibín's invented plot concerning Lysander and his family. So far from being pursued by Furies, Orestes is oddly sidelined, so that the novel ends in a rather inconsequential dying fall.

On the other hand, what could the author do? The Oresteia is a work of absolutes: Agamemnon had to sacrifice his daughter; Clytemnestra had to take revenge; his two surviving children had to avenge their father. But the moral swtichbacks are too much for a modern author; I imagine that a lot of the invented plot had to do with making the killings justifiable. One also senses a personal truth behind this: the young man's confused feelings about leaving his family and striking off on his own, together with the isolation of one who finds he cannot easily fit into the stereotypes of others. I only wish Tóibín has found a more compelling way of showing it. 3.5 stars, rounded up.

[Bianca · Rating 3 out of 5]

I should have read the blurb before requesting this on NetGalley, as I'm not a fan of mythology, but I saw Colm Toibin was the author, so I clicked the Request button.

It's unfortunate that the first Toibin book I read was this one, as I just couldn't get into it.

The writing is superb, no doubt about it.

It's the story that is the problem, or my brain not being able, or better said, willing to reconcile the gruesome past with the present realities. I'm sorry to say, I see no point in these mythological stories, reimagined or not, besides being self-indulgent exercises for the authors to showcase their writing prowess.

I have nothing against re-imaginings, re-interpretations, as long as they stand alone on their own feet. I don't think that my disenchantment with this novel had anything to do with my not knowing the original stories.

I did feel the characters' pain, anguish, fear, need for revenge because of Toibin's beautiful writing. It's just that I didn't want to read about a father ordering his daughter's sacrifice so that the gods would blow wind into their sails so they could go to sea and battle others.

The female characters, the mother, Clytemnestra, and her younger daughter, Electra, were much better developed. Their POVs were stronger. Orestes, the son of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon, has a voice in this novel as well. His POV was less affecting.

So, while I can't say this novel was riveting, it worked as an enticement to read something else by Toibin. Have you got any recommendations for me?

I've received this book via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review. Many thanks to the publishers, Scribner, for the opportunity to read and review this novel.

[Brian · Rating 2 out of 5]

“They had each taken the measure of the other and learned the outlines of some foul truth.”

I have to start out by saying I love Colm Tóibín. This is the first book of his I have read that did not make me very happy.
The story is a bit of a mash up with pieces from various versions of one myth in it, and some of it made up by the author. It mainly follows the story of Clytemnestra, and her children Orestes and Electra. The novel alternates between the point of view of those 3 characters. It just did not interest me, but in full honesty, I have always struggled with the Greek and Roman myths. They have almost always bored me. I thought Mr. Tóibín could reverse that for me.
He could not.
With “House of Names”, the story did not keep me reading. The author and my respect for his writing did. I read this novel for the nuggets of Tóibín’s skill with prose that popped up. And there were such moments. A fine example early in the text is when Clytemnestra compares the god’s concerns for the activities of humans with her concern for a leaf falling from a tree. The writing is beautiful and brutal, the thought intriguing and skillfully expressed. It is for moments like those that I read Tóibín.
The last three paragraphs of the book are the type of writing I have come to expect from this author. They are exceptional; I just wish more of the book had been like that.
“House of Names” has disappointed me. It was an okay read, I was just hoping for much better from such an immensely talented writer.

[Lucy Banks · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received a copy of this book from Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

A strange, dispassionate kind of book, but compelling none the less.

An interesting read. Prior to reading this, I had no knowledge of Electra or Orestes, so it was a good introduction to the story (I'm a sucker for anything to do with the ancient Greeks!). The story is told from multiple perspectives, outlining the sacrifice of Orestes' sister by his father, Agamemnon, the murder of Agamemnon (by his wife), and Orestes' exile and return.

It was compelling in that I wanted very much to know what happened next, but there was something about the narrative style that didn't quite work for me. It was expertly written, very concise and very easy to follow (all good things), but felt weirdly removed. None of the actions really resonated at all, they felt very distant. Not dry, you understand. Certainly not uninteresting. Just very disconnected - which was an unusual approach, but didn't quite tick the boxes for me.

Nonetheless, I'd recommend this book to anyone who likes retellings of Ancient Greek stories - and perhaps the style of narration might appeal more to you than it did me - after all, it's all subjective, isn't it? :-)

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

House of Names is Irish writer Colm Toibin's retelling of the story of the house of Atreus - an ancient tale fraught with tragedy and vengeance, most famously depicted in Aeschylus' Oresteia. This is going to be a long and detailed (though spoiler-free) review, because Ancient Greek lit is something of a passion of mine and this was my most anticipated read of 2017.

This is a story that I've loved for years, and have loved enough to read it in multiple iterations by different authors. Which begs the question - why? What exactly does a retelling accomplish? How does an author effectively strike a balance between the old and the new, between honoring a story which has been loved for centuries, and giving it new depth? I think readers go into retellings hoping to see the elements that we loved about the original preserved, but also to see gaps filled in, or to see a new intimacy given to a story originally told with impartiality. This question was on my mind the whole time I was reading this novel - what has Toibin succeeded in adding to this familiar tale?

House of Names begins with the point of view of Clytemnestra, who plots to murder her husband Agamemnon in retaliation for Agamemnon sacrificing their eldest daughter, Iphigenia. Clytemnestra is a character who I find particularly intriguing, and a character who I think has been unfairly maligned in various works of literature through the ages. Toibin's Clytemnestra is everything I could have hoped for: she masquerades vulnerability with a hard exterior, she is motivated by vengeance while being grounded by a love for her family. She's complex and nuanced and Toibin succeeds in humanizing rather than vilifying her. It's a promising start to a novel which I hoped would be told in its entirety from this perspective. It's hard to build on the thematic richness of The Oresteia, which concerns itself with questions of conflicting systems of justice (justice through vengeance vs. justice through law), but one often unexamined thematic thread is that of gender, which permeates the original narrative as Clytemnestra's crimes are viewed through a different lens than Orestes' and Agamemnon's. How better to give this story new depth from a contemporary perspective than to tell it from a female point of view?

But then the narration shifts to Orestes, and things go downhill. As we plod through an unnecessarily long chapter detailing Orestes' kidnap from the palace of Mycenae, I couldn't help but to think: why? Why are we devoting so much of this narrative to Orestes? Clytemnestra is a character who has historically never been given much of a narrative voice. Orestes, on the other hand - there is no dearth of material surrounding Orestes. Homer and Aeschylus and Pindar and Sophocles and Euripides have pretty much got that covered.

But interestingly, Toibin takes this character of Orestes who is traditionally known for his resolve, and renders him rather inert. In Homer's Odyssey, Orestes is consistently held up as a shining example of decisive action to Odysseus' son Telemachus, who is being urged to reclaim his house from the influx of his mother's suitors. In Toibin's House of Names, Orestes is a follower - he doesn't make decisions, but rather, waits for the affirmation of his friend Leander and his sister Electra. Is this an intentional subversion of Orestes' traditionally hyper-masculine narrative? If so, why does Toibin allow Orestes' point of view to overpower his narrative at the expense of Clytemnestra and Electra's perspectives? Wouldn't a more effective subversion be to reduce Orestes' narration, or eliminate it altogether?

Once Orestes' perspective took over, I couldn't help but to feel a certain aimlessness to this story. After the sacrifice of Iphigenia, one of the most poignant and harrowing renderings of that scene that I've ever read, Toibin's narrative begins to be infiltrated by details I no longer recognize. While I have no theoretical objections to authors deviating from the well worn path of canon (some of the best retellings I've read have involved original characters or invented plotlines - Katharine Beutner's Alcestis and David Malouf's Ransom come to mind), I struggle to discern the rationale behind some of Toibin's choices. He omits Pylades and invents a character to essentially fill the role of Pylades - why? He changes the duration of the Trojan War from nine years to five years - why? He does a complete overhaul of Aegisthus' narrative - why? None of this becomes self-evident throughout Toibin's meandering story, and the result is frustrating. The further you read, the more this story's initial poignancy becomes diluted.

Since this review has erred on the side of the critical, I do want to highlight what I thought were particular successes. Toibin's writing is beautiful and visceral. This is only the second Toibin novel I've read after Brooklyn, which I enjoyed well enough while being frustrated by a certain detachment in the narration, but I didn't think that was the case here. This is an inherently brutal story, and Toibin's prose succeeds in adding another layer of darkness and unease, creating a tense and urgent environment. The two chapters which focus on Clytemnestra are superb, and the first-person narration was an excellent choice here.

I would tentatively recommend this to readers who maybe aren't so familiar with the original story that Toibin is attempting to build upon, because this seems to be where the majority of my criticism lies. It's impossible for me to say how this story would stand on its own for one who is entirely unfamiliar with these characters and their fates, but maybe that reader would fare better with the unconventional journey that Toibin takes us on. It's not that I necessarily want to see the events of Aeschylus' Oresteia rehashed in exactly the same fashion, but I felt like Toibin never embraced his unique contemporary perspective to its full potential; the invented details felt extraneous and did nothing to augment the themes present in the original.

This wasn't a bad novel. I'm always critical of the things I love the most.

I received a copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you Scribner, Simon & Schuster, Netgalley, and Colm Toibin.

[Marc Lamot · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have to admit that I don't immediately know what Toibin aimed at with this book. Agreed, he very nicely uses the ancient Greek drama cycle around king Agamemnoon, with the sacrifice of his daughter Iphigenia, the revenge of his wife Clytemnestra, and then the counterrevenge by son Orestes. Toibin complements the familiar narrative material with particular attention to "a journey through the desert" of the young Orestes, his stay with an old woman in a "house full of names", and then the return.

That chapter, which fills the entire middle part of the book, was more like a boy's adventure story (added with a gay-erotic undertone). Even more than in the Greek drama, Orestes is depicted as an innocent character, who actually only plays a secondary role, is kept out of all nasty things, a kind of lamb who naively runs into his accident; all other characters behave double-minded, covert and even downright false. That contrast may be Toibin's own contribution, but what does it add?

Of course, this tragedy remains a fascinating narrative, but Toibin has made it a rather boring affair, with a succession of action scenes that have a particular "and then, and then, and then ..."-cadence. The few scenes that stand out are those in which the inner drama of the characters is highlighted, such as the opening scene. Unfortunately, that was not enough to turn this into a successful novel.

[Hugh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having read two other novels this year which are essentially retellings or reinventions of Greek legends (Circe and The Silence of the Girls), I was keen to see how this slightly earlier novel compares. Tóibín's version of the stories of Clytemnestra, Orestes and Electra is also very impressive.

The focal point of the story changes frequently. Clytemnestra and Electra get to narrate their parts, whereas Orestes has an omniscient third person narrator. Tóibín's account is equally at home describing both the brutal violence and the inner motivations of the characters, making this a deeply human story of a warring family apparently deserted by their gods.

As I said when reviewing Circe recently, my knowledge of the classics is pretty sketchy, but this is a compelling story beautifully told.

[Roman Clodia · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a somewhat disappointing re-imagining, in prose form, of the story of the doomed House of Atreus, drawing primarily on Aeschylus's trilogy. Right from the start, Toibin's prose which in the past I've found delicate and precise, feels here loose and horribly self-conscious. From the opening it jarred: 'I have been acquainted with the smell of death. The sickly, sugary smell that wafts in the wind towards the rooms in this palace' - "sugary"? really? In ancient Mycenae? Honey, for sure, but sugar? More pressingly, I expected some kind of psychological realism in this novelistic treatment but there's no attempt to really make sense of Agamemnon's sacrifice of his daughter: he just does it with no inner life driving him. Clytemnestra, too, is far weaker and foolish in this first part of the story (roughly equivalent to Aeschylus' Agamemnon), quite unlike her standing in the source texts.

The second half of the tale that moves onto Orestes becomes more original: instead of Pylades, Orestes has another 'best friend', Leander. Again there are jarring moments historically such as when Leander and Orestes chat in a room where an aristocratic woman is giving birth - one of those places almost taboo to mythic Greek men.

There are some echoes of later texts here: Clytemnestra's sleepwalking inevitably recalls Lady Macbeth (and Shakespeare is thought to have drawn on Clytemnestra as well as Medea in his characterisation so there's a neatness here) and the scenes where Orestes is called to meet his mother's ghost in the palace passages reminds us of Hamlet and his father's ghost.

The ending is less patterned than in Aeschylus: where the Oresteia ends with a shift from blood-feud and personal vengeance sanctioned by the cthonic Erinyes or Furies to a move towards legal justice and state punishment presided over by Athena, Toibin's end is left more open - perhaps the only thing possible in a more sceptical modern age. All the same, this feels like a bit of a missed opportunity - it lacks the mythic grandeur and stark poetry of Aeschylus but doesn't quite work as a modern retelling with psychologically-convincing characters either.

Thanks to the publisher for an ARC via NetGalley

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

This house used to be full of names…. And so was the house of Agamemnon before the gods demanded a sacrifice of his eldest daughter in exchange for the favorable winds for his stranded army. And then a chain-reaction of blame, revenge and guilt followed, and drove this house to ruin, giving Colm Tóibín (and few others before him) a perfect subject to explore.

When I read my first novel by Tóibín - the “Blackwater lightship” - I was swept away by his ability to get into the character’s heads. In the “House of names” he does just that, he embodies his characters to explore the complexity of their motivations. This time though, while adopting an austere style of a greek tragedy. Those two things combined, should be a literary salto mortale, and yet he manages to land with style - and for that, I feel, he deserves a standing ovation.

Perhaps before I proceed with the rest of my laudation, I should admit that I have a thing for Ancient Greece.... I might mean that I am an easy audience - since I don’t need to be convinced to the beauty of the subject. I might also be a bit biased, or - it might be - that Colm Tóibín is simply is brilliant, and me being a “low hanging fruit” has nothing to do with it?

So if you are a fun of his writing, read it, I am sure you will enjoy it. If you are a fun of classic tragedies, then I am sure this will be a sublime experience. And if you are both, then I don’t understand how you could have survived this far without having read it…. :-)

[Jennifer (Insert Lit Pun)]

Video here, pairing this with The Oresteia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-boc...

:)

[Maria Roxana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Miturile pot fi reinterpretate, ele ne provoacă, ne învață să visăm!
Colm Toibin mi-a fost o companie plăcută în acest weekend, am trăit cu sufletul la gură alături de Electra, de Leandru și de Oreste. Finalul a fost cam abrupt, ori poate așa mi s-a părut mie. Altfel, mie îmi plac miturile, reinterpretate sau nu. Poate și pentru faptul că îmi amintesc de lecturile mele din copilărie.

"Ştiu, cum nu ştie nimeni altcineva, că zeii sunt distanți, că sunt preocupați de altele. Că le pasă de dorinţele şi ciudățeniile oamenilor, în același fel în care mie îmi pasă de frunzele unui copac. Ştiu că frunzele sunt acolo, ca se veştejesc, şi cresc din nou, şi iar se veştejesc, la fel cum oamenii se nasc, trăiesc şi, pe urmă, sunt înlocuiți de alții ca ei. Nu pot să fac nimic pentru ele, nici să le împiedic să se veştejească. N-am eu treabă cu dorințele lor (..)
Nimic nu e stabil, nici o culoare nu rămâne aceeași în această lumină; umbrele se adumbresc şi lucrurile de pe lume se fac una fiecare cu fiecare, așa cum faptele noastre, ale tuturor, se amestecă într-o singură acțiune, şi toate țipetele și gesturile noastre se amestecă într-un singur strigăt, un singur gest. Dimineața, când lumina va fi fost curățată de întuneric, vom vedea iar limpezime şi unicitate. Până atunci însă, locul unde sălăşluieşte memoria mea este unul plin de umbre și ambiguități, consolat de contururi moi, erodate - şi atâta îmi ajunge pentru acum."

[Henk · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well written and crafted, but didn’t hit the heart due to a lack of tension

What was very good in this book is how Colm Tóibín makes you sympathize with all the major players through various points of view. Plotwise I felt the story of House of Names to be thin, in the sense years were easily traversed in single paragraphs and events or the described palace politics never make you feel there is anything really at stake. These kind of events seem to be just mentioned because they need to be there storywise, but the protagonist never feel to be at stake or challenged by any of the other characters when they do nocturnal rounds or break people free for instance.

[Neale · Rating 3 out of 5]

This review contains spoilers.


A few books ago I read The Songs of the Kings by Barry Unsworth which is a retelling of Iphigenia in Aulis. It tells of the sacrifice of Iphigenia by her father King Agamemnon which takes place before Homer’s Iliad. This book House of Names is what results from the sacrifice, when Agamemnon returns home from the Trojan War. Toibin has used various sources here, Aeschylus’ The Oresteia, Sophocles’ Electra.

This novel opens with so much promise. The sacrifice of Iphigenia is brutally descriptive. There are no dramatic acts of self-sacrifice, this is a brutal savage act brought upon not only Iphigenia, but her mother Clytemnestra as well. After three days in a hole in the ground Clytemnestra returns home. She then has five, I don’t know what happened to the other four, years to plot the murder of her husband Agamemnon and add another chapter in the fall of the House of Atreus. Why Toibin changes the duration of the war is baffling.

Clytemnestra is the first narrator, and with her steering the ship, the book is quite brilliant. The problem is, and really you would think that this would be the novel’s strength, when it switches to Orestes perspective.

This is where the narrative starts to fail for me. Toibin attempts to invent a narrative for Agamemnon’s son Orestes. In all the myths and plays by the ancient writers, there is a period of years that Orestes just drops off the map. He is there for the sacrifice and then we don’t hear anything about him for years until he returns to avenge his father.
There is so much potential here for Toibin to delve into Orestes character and psyche. How he feels after witnessing his sisters tragic sacrifice, let him talk to the reader in first person. Give him some dramatic adventures that we have come to expect from Greek Mythology. However, for some reason he leads the reader into a quagmire of boredom and banality. Orestes time is spent endlessly walking to an unknown destination, guided by guards who will not tell him anything. A silent kidnapping that Orestes fails to notice. I know that Toibin is going for a more realistic telling, the gods never make an appearance at all, but this main part of the narrative just feels too real. Realism does not have to mean boredom. Orestes in contrast to the myths, feels flat. An ersatz copy.

Then we have the parts narrated by Clytemnestra and Electra in the first person which are hauntingly beautiful, especially the part narrated by Clytemnestra’s ghost.

“There will come a time when the shadows fold in on me. I know that. But I am awake now or almost awake. I remember some things – outlines come to me, and the faint sound of voices. What linger most are traces, traces of people, presences, sounds. Mostly I walk among the shades, but sometimes a hint of someone comes close, someone whose name I once knew, or whose voice and face were real to me, someone I once loved perhaps. I am not sure.”

For me this novel was a mixture of highs and lows. The opening, exciting, descriptive, a very realistic telling of the sacrifice. Orestes part, long and drawn out, bordering on the tedious. Then the ending beautiful, sublime prose. I feel that if Orestes narrative was written in the same fashion as Clytemnestra and Electra, then this would have been a five star read for me.

[Yiannis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Διάβασε την Ορέστεια του Αισχύλου, την Ιφιγένεια εν Αυλίδι του Ευριπίδη, την Ηλέκτρα του Σοφοκλή και του Ευριπίδη, την Ιλιάδα του Ομήρου και τσουπ μας έδωσε το "Σπίτι με ονόματα"! Το διαβάζεις μονορούφι. Σκέφτεσαι τα προβλήματα της Ιρλανδίας με τη βία και καταλαβαίνεις πως η αρχαία ελληνική τραγωδία είναι εδώ. Ένας μαθητής Δημοτικού το διαβάζει ευκολότατα.

[Dobre Cosmin · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5☆

[Elaine · Rating 2 out of 5]

I so wanted to love this book. These great iconic stories in the hands of one of our finest contemporary writers! But shockingly, it plods. And there is no nuance here, no fresh view. The characters are largely unidimensional, and the stark emotion of the origin stories muted somehow.

I admit to being somewhat confused as to what Toibin's project was. The most innovative part - an invented backstory for our proto-Hamlet Orestes (who Toibin imbues with a strongly Hamletian dithering character) - is surrounded by flat scenes of palace intrigue. Electra and Clytemnestra are both something less than fully realized, ideas more than women, until the last poetic section where Clytemnestra speaks to us from beyond the grave. The early theme -- that the Gods have only recently deserted the Greeks, and that Clytemnestra can see this fundamental change while Agamemnon still believes in their nearness- holds enormous promise but is never fleshed out.

The audiobook narration is fine, although the male narrator's emphasis on the too-oft repeated word "dogs" got under my skin after awhile, and I fancy that I shall remember him saying "dogs" long after I've forgotten the rest of this book.

Oh well. We will always have Aeschylus.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another retelling of a Greek myth – a genre I find difficult on one level given my complete ignorance of Greek mythology (I blame the English education system which outside of private schools entirely abandoned Classics many decades ago), however one which has produced some excellent books – most noticeably the 2018 Women’s Prize winning and incredibly prescient Home Fire, and the potential 2019 Women’s Prize contender Circe as well as Pat Barker’s The Silence of the Girls.

And it is through the latter book – and a recommendation from my Goodreads friend Ang after we had both read it for a new book group that I came to this book, combined with the serendipity that it was available in the used book selection of the hotel I stayed in over half-term (rather standing out among the crime, SAS and chick-lit genre novels).

I have only previously read two Colm Toibin novels – “Brooklyn” (which I found very underwhelming) and “Testament of Mary” which I felt was “Unoriginal, incoherent and unworthwhile”.

And unfortunately this book has not really changed my opinion of him as an author and does not I feel compare at all favorably to the three other Greek-myth novels I mention above.

The book starts with a slight wobble with a very early (and not isolated) anachronism: death is “sugary” sweet in the opening paragraphs. Unlike in Barker’s book these anachronisms are not blatant, deliberate and purposeful but more seem to be unthoughtful use of language.

But in the first person voice of Clytemnestra – her horror and disgust at her husband’s cowardly as well as deceitful murder of their daughter and then her chilling resolve to plan her eventual revenge and to usurp power for herself, Toibin quickly finds a distinctive and powerful voice. Toibin has clearly seen the basic story of the myth – with its spiralling series of murders, each one inspiring another murder, as emblematic of the tit-for-tat atrocities during the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

However when switching to the third person voice of Orestes, I feel that Toibin loses his way. I believe that in Orestes, Toibin is looking to capture the voice of someone young, who witnesses early trauma, is desensitised to violence and is looking for an older figure (in Orestes case – first Leander and then Electra) to guide them and subsequently prepared to unemotionally commit murder to gain their favour. This could perhaps relate to the child soldiers of Africa or teenagers/students inspired by ISIS – Toibin has mentioned the younger of the Boston marathon bombers.

The difficulty I think here is that Orestes exile, effectively off-stage in the Greek myth, becomes the central part of the story and becomes little more than a rather tedious young adult novel transposed into a large chunk of the centre of the novel.

And although when we, and eventually Orestes, return to the palace and to the courtly intrigues – the differing cliques each with their own guards and spies and the interesting juxtaposition of this plotting against an attempt to maintain a façade of normal family life, the early momentum and power of the novel has been lost, never fully to be regained.

[Emma · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars. Maybe.

Clytemnestra is one of my favourite women from Greek Tragedy and one of her monologues in particular is quite possibly my favourite of all the speeches. So...lots of favour going on here. Writing her story is something i've wanted to do for years, so when I saw Toibin had done it I was both pleased and annoyed that he beat me to it. Perhaps that coloured my response to it but I felt that he has fundamentally misunderstood or misrepresented her character. He has made her smaller.

This is the speech she makes after murdering her husband, from line 1372 in Agamemnon:

Much have I said before to serve my need and I shall feel no shame to contradict it now. For how else could one, devising hate against a hated foe [1375] who bears the semblance of a friend, fence the snares of ruin too high to be overleaped? This is the contest of an ancient feud, pondered by me of old, and it has come, however long delayed. I stand where I dealt the blow; my purpose is achieved. [1380] Thus have I done the deed; deny it I will not. Round him, as if to catch a haul of fish, I cast an impassable net—fatal wealth of robe—so that he should neither escape nor ward off doom. Twice I struck him, and with two groans [1385] his limbs relaxed. Once he had fallen, I dealt him yet a third stroke to grace my prayer to the infernal Zeus, the savior of the dead. Fallen thus, he gasped away his life, and as he breathed forth quick spurts of blood, [1390] he struck me with dark drops of gory dew; while I rejoiced no less than the sown earth is gladdened in heaven's refreshing rain at the birthtime of the flower buds.

Since then the case stands thus, old men of Argos, rejoice, if you would rejoice; as for me, I glory in the deed. [1395] And had it been a fitting act to pour libations on the corpse, over him this would have been done justly, more than justly. With so many accursed lies has he filled the mixing-bowl in his own house, and now he has come home and himself drained it to the dregs. {http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/t...}

She exults in her ability to manipulate Agamemnon into a situation in which she can kill him in revenge for murdering their daughter Iphigeneia, a plan she has cultivated for 10 years while he was away at Troy. Regardless of what you think of her argument for justice (I'm with her all the way) or her character, she is portrayed in Aeschylus as intelligent and capable. That's not what we get in Toibin's version, she appears far weaker here.

The sections with Orestes and Electra are even less captivating, with some interesting innovations but rather disjointed overall. While Aeschylus was operating at a time when the psychological motivations for action were only just developing in theatre, I expected more depth in the modern version. Added to that the artificial speech and uneven prose, it made a bloody familial tale of murder and revenge into something a bit dull.


ARC via Netgalley

[BAM doesn’t answer to her real name · Rating 3 out of 5]

A big thank you to Colm Tóibín, Simon and Schuster, and Netgalley for this free copy in exchange for an unbiased review.

I was immediately drawn to this book by the synopsis. I read any retellings or continuations of The Odyssey or The Iliad, my favorite so far being The Song of Achilles. I've also become a fan of Tóibín lately, so I jumped on his new release.

To clear up any confusion this book does not take any inspiration from the ancient texts, which I wish I had known when I started because I was thoroughly upset through most of it. The caveat would have been appreciated at the beginning, not the end.

Therefore taking the story as just that-a story-it was a satisfactory version of events. Orestes seems congested and impotent. He has one breakout moment motivated by his sister, but no action before, no action after. He's more of a feeling character. Leander is the masculine role in the story. Electra, on the other hand, craves to be out from the thumb of her mother so badly and is just too afraid to act. In fact I'm a little confused by her. Once all of her authority figures disappear she expresses outward force. I guess she couldn't break out on her own. There was just too much fear instilled.
Overall I'm pleased to have added this book to my repertoire. You never know what you'll get from Tóibín.

[Titi Coolda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nu mi s-a mai prea întâmplat să fiu într-o asemenea dilemă așa cum mi-a provocat cartea asta. Vocea Clitemnestrei, cu care începe romanul, este desăvârșită în omenescul ei, așa cum nu mai apare în nicio altă scriere (citită/văzută). Enorm mi-a plăcut personajul. E firesc în emoțiile, sentimentele, gândurile și acțiunile sale. Vocea Electrei este și ea perfectă și firească în frustrarea ei de-a fi a doua fiică a casei, trăită la umbra frumoasei Ifigenia. Oreste este personajul slab, ușor influențabil, manipulabil. El nici nu are o voce a lui. El este "povestit". Și aici este problema. Partea cea mai consistentă a cărții, povestea celor 7 ani în care nu se știe nimic despre fiul lui Agamemnon, este construită de Toibin sub forma unui roman picaresc mai propriu stilistic unui capitol din A Song of Ice and Fire decât unei tragedii provocate de patricidul care blestemă peste generații casa Atreu. Deși mi-a plăcut mult abordarea umană (zeii au fost complet excluși din ecuație) mi s-a părut disonantă schimbarea stilistică a poveștii intre capitolele feminine (persoana întâi) și cele ale narațiunii odiseei lui Oreste. Oricum, după cele 2 cărți citite, Toibin rămâne marea descoperire literară a anului.

[Kyriaki · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ίσως 3,5*

Καταρχήν να πω πως δεν είμαι εξοικειωμένη με τα πρωτότυπα έργα στα οποία βασίστηκε ο Tóibín. Ήξερα την ιστορία αλλά δεν έχω διαβάσει ποτέ τα αρχικά κείμενα οπότε δεν ξέρω και κατά πόσο έμεινε πιστός σε αυτά.
Τώρα στο βιβλίο.....όλα ξεκινούν με τη θυσία της Ιφιγένειας από τον Αγαμέμνονα για χάρη του Τρωικού Πολέμου και τα όσα αποτρόπαια επακολούθησαν στον Οίκο των Ατρειδών.
Την ιστορία την παρακολουθούμε από τις πρωτοπρόσωπες αφηγήσεις της Κλυταιμνήστρας και της Ηλέκτρας και την τριτοπρόσωπη του Ορέστη. Αυτή της Κλυταιμνήστρας ήταν ίσως το καλύτερο κομμάτι του βιβλίου! Μια φωνή δυνατή, επιβλητική που δε δέχεται αμφισβήτηση.
Μου άρεσε η γραφή και μου άρεσε που δεν ένιωσα ότι δικαιολογεί τους χαρακτήρες, ούτε όμως ότι τους κατηγορεί για τις πράξεις τους, αλλά αντίθετα ότι τους εξανθρωπίζει.
Γενικά μου άρεσε, μέχρι που έφτασα σχεδόν 100 σελίδες πριν το τέλος και κάπως άρχισα να βαριέμαι. Το τέλος ήταν κάπως άνευρο και σαν να ήθελα περισσότερο συναισθηματική ένταση, κάτι που ομολογώ με απογοήτευσε αρκετά.

Τώρα πια είμαστε όλοι πεινασμένοι. Το φαγητό ίσα που μας ανοίγει την όρεξη, μας ακονίζει τα δόντια· το κρέας μας κάνει ακόμη πιο ακόρεστους -κι άλλο κρέας- πώς είναι ο θάνατος όλο και πιο ακόρεστος -κι άλλον θάνατο. Ούτε κι ο φόνος ξέρει από κορεσμό, πλημμυρίζει την ψυχή με λυσσαλέα απόλαυση, κι ύστερα κάτι σε πιάνει και τη λιμπίζεσαι ολοένα και περισσότερο αυτή την απόλαυση.

P.S. Μου άρεσε πολύ ο τίτλος και τον βρήκα και πολύ ταιριαστό!