Eye (149)

by Marianne Micros

Myth, folklore, and magic permeate the stories in Marianne Micros' collection Eye. Set in ancient and modern Greece, and in contemporary Europe and North America, these tales tell of evil-eye curses, women healers, ghosts, a changeling, and people struggling to retain or gain power in a world of changing beliefs. Here you will find stories of a nymph transformed into a heifer, a young soldier who returns home to discover that his brother is a changeling, a betrayed woman lost in a labyrinth, a wise woman whose position is threatened by modern technology. Some stories show that people still seek refuge in myth and folk beliefs; the ways of the past continue to influence the present. The paving of a village does not destroy the power of the evil eye or the ability to repel it. A temple in honour of the old gods comes again to the surface. An unfinished musical composition for piano magically completes itself whenever it is played. Magic is not dead but rises again in unexpected ways.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction

140 pages, Paperback

Published September 1, 2018

Reviews

[Aspasiiya · Rating 2 out of 5]

Barely managed to finish, skimmed through the second part. Probably not my cup of tea, a couple of stories were actually okay.

[Miki · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked Marianne Micros' short story collection Eye but didn't love it. They were welll-written but lacked something for me. My favourites were "The Changeling's Brother," "Eye," "No Man," "The Sacrifice," and "The Cave of Lust."

I feel that Micros' writing is good but fear that, unfortunately, I'm likely to forget many/most of the stories in this collection.

[Physical, borrowed from library]

[Valerie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was provided a digital advance reader copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I suppose you could say the cover of this book… caught my eye. After reading it, I’m not quite sure what to make of it. Eye is a loosely thematic collection of short stories that mostly center around, you guessed it, the eye. About as strong is the focus on Greece: its myths, its history, and its superstitions, most prominently the “evil eye.” The author is a retired English professor of Greek heritage, and both of these facts come through in her writing.

The first half of the book includes stories that take place on various Greek islands, most of them about the evil eye, the advent of modernity in rural Greece, or both. The similarities between the stories make them tend to run together, especially when the same handful of names is recycled across stories. It’s unclear whether the author intended some characters to be present in different stories or if she simply wanted to emphasize how common these names are.

With so many stories in similar settings with similar topics, it becomes clear that some are weaker than others, less fleshed out, scraps that could easily have been excised from the collection. “No Man” is a decent introduction to the concept of the evil eye, so I understand why Micros chose to place it at the beginning, but as a story, it falls flat compared to the eerie tone that was likely intended. “The Midwife” and “Thirteen” are likewise unimpressive, and “Paved” is just difficult to read.

Read the rest on my blog!

[Mary · Rating 1 out of 5]

this book had me questioning whether I was stupid or the book was just nonsense

Switch between first and third person, multiple pov

[Ian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Marianne Micros, retired English professor with an interest in ancient religion and folklore, has written an intriguing collection of stories that explores the connections between magic and everyday life. Readers will immediately notice the prominence given to Greek mythology in these stories. In the first, “No Man,” a boy who finds the head of Orpheus and who looks into its eyes, is endowed with the power to see into the future. “One Hundred Eyes” is a retelling of the myth of Io, one of the mortal lovers of Zeus, who was transformed into a cow. “The Minotaur” brings the Greek myths into the present day: an unmarried, unemployed woman distracts herself by attending open houses and pretending to be in the market for a house to buy. One property (owned by a retired Classics professor) features a back garden complete with gazebo, maze and statues of mythological figures. While the agent is occupied with another client, the woman sneaks into the garden and, becoming caught up in the story of Ariadne, Theseus and the minotaur, and losing herself in the maze, undergoes a strange hallucinatory spiritual awakening. Other stories depict human characters grappling with curses, ghosts and creatures from folklore, such as changelings. For the most part, Micros sets her stories in a contemporary or near contemporary world, which gives the incongruous presence of spirits, healers and the “evil eye” a heightened and compelling eeriness. In the end, the collection comes across as a sort of experiment, with some parts more successful than others. Recommended for readers interested in alternative approaches to the short story. Eye was shortlisted for the 22nd Danuta Gleed Literary Award.

[Joelle Egan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The fourteen stories contained in Marianne Micros’ collection, eye, touch on ideas of Greek culture, mythology, superstition and lore as they relate to a modern sensibility. Each entry references “eyes” in various ways, both literal and metaphorical. Some of the themes that run throughout:
• Predictions and omens of death- The fear it produces despite a strong belief in an afterlife
• Older generation’s rigid adherence to traditions vs. younger generation’s reluctant abandonment of them
• Women as the perpetuators of culture through their roles as mother, midwife, herbalist, mourner and storyteller
• Loss of connection to the natural world and the consequences that result
Micros is most successful in those stories that show the personal struggle between faith and a desire to evolve, as in “Paved” and “Invention of Pantyhose: An Autobiography.” These stories also happen to be the most interesting in terms of style and form. Some readers might be put off by the amount of repetition in the collection and the cynical portrayal of religion and its implied hypocrisy. Eye would be particularly appealing to those familiar with or interested in Greek lore and beliefs.
Thanks to Guernica and NetGalley for an ARC of this book in exchange for an objective review.

[Amanda Hale · Rating 4 out of 5]

Marianne Micros, obviously of Greek background herself, has written an intriguing collection of stories that explore the myth, folklore, and magic that once underlay Greek village life. This book was a deserving finalist for the 2019 Governor General's award for fiction. The writing itself is spare and to the point, a style that allows the strangeness of the content to permeate the reader's mind more easily, and allows space for the imagination to soar above the down-to-earth prose. The stories come from Micros' own lifelong fascination with Greek customs and old-world cultures. They are captivating and transforming.

[sk · Rating 3 out of 5]

These short stories seem simple, but are full of messages about the use of women’s bodies, spiritualism, and a harkening back to humbler times untouched by capitalism and industrial practices. From ancient Greece to English folktale to modern America, these messages hold a mirror connecting different points of history and different cultural ways of knowing.

My favourite story was One Hundred Eyes, but in general I liked most of these stories. Though slow-paced and with meaning that you have to look for, they offer interesting perspectives of womanhood, youth and old age, violation, cultural pride, the persistance of the land, purity, myth, and spirituality. I liked it!

[Carla · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book of short stories was nominated for the 2019 Governor General’s Award for Fiction so I decided to read it for that reason and because the description stated that myth, folklore, and magic permeated the stories in Marianne Micros' collection. What I discovered explained a lot of the often hard to understand actions and activities of my Greek friends and neighbours as well as adding to what I learned when I took a Classical and Cultural tour of Greece in the early 90s. Micros’ stories are well written, interesting and unusual.

[Aspasía Bissas · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm Canadian born of Greek parents and this book spoke to me. If you're looking for simple, entertaining stories, then Eye isn't for you. It's challenging. It requires the reader to think, to have empathy, to employ their imagination. The writing is sparse but evocative--you can tell the author is a poet first. One criticism: the publisher clearly skimped on proofreading.

[Pavlo Aleinykov · Rating 2 out of 5]

Не зайшло...

[Sashko Liutyj · Rating 4 out of 5]

короткі історії про бабок-знахарок.
хароше.

[Margarita · Rating 2 out of 5]

A collection of short stories centered on Greek culture and mythology. They feel very similar to one another thematically; some better developed over others.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eye by Marianne Micros is a beautiful, enchanting, true book published by Guernica Editions about Greek folklore, customs, traditions and the so-called old-world. In the past people were more connected with the natural world and they believed in witches, fairies, the enchanted world, and the sphere connected with the unknown often spoused or the devil and creatures associated to him, or fairies.
This book is dedicated to Alice, the mother's author dead at the age of 91. She was an healer and someone in grade to repel the evil eye.
Let's start by here: why this title?

It was tradition, also in our land, to think that someone could curse with his/her eyes someone from the beginning (but people could be cursed also once adults) and so this baby would have always had a special eye, the evil eye; or someone, wishing him all the bad of this world, would have seen modified his/her future; in this case you searched for a healer in grade to see if it was true; they used water and oil and if the answer was positive the healer would have broken this curse with special prayers, herbs and lotions.
In this sense the first tale, involving a kid affected by this dangerous eye will reveal hidden answers able to be known just if the person had that terrible eye.
In other tales we will discover the love of a mother for a magical creature, an intruder of the magical world in their family, while her son was back after 20 years of absence. The answer will be drastic.
Another short tale will focus on a girl transformed in a cow by Hera because jealous of the attention that Zeus, a great play-boy, (with all the respect) dedicated her.
In other tales we will meet difficult realities, painful ones, sometimes, existences surrounded by mystery and superstition but every tale is magical, pure magical, trust me.
Go for it if you love these kind of books and stories. The stories, are narrated with the language and style of a story-teller; plus I love this book so badly because part of these stories are part of our folklore as well.

Highly recommended.

I thank NetGalley and Guernica Editions for the ebook.

Anna Maria Polidori

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a long-time English professor at the University of Guelph, Marianne Micros taught folktales among other things, and this influence is clear in her short story collection Eye, recently published by Guernica Editions. Also evident is the influence of her Greek mother, to whom the book is dedicated.

For these are short stories that weave folktales and mythology together with contemporary life. We start with a young boy seeing visions of the future after discovering the head of Orpheus on a beach, and in later stories we meet Ariadne in a labyrinth, Io transformed into a cow, and others.

There are also non-Greek legends and folktales. One of my favourite stories was The Changeling’s Brother, inspired by an English folktale about changelings—fairy children secretly substituted for human ones. In Micros’s version, Johnnie comes home from war to discover that his younger brother Willy, whom he last saw 20 years ago, is still a baby. What’s worse, he is “not the cooing, giggling, chubby brother I remember but some creature with a withered old face and wrinkled body. Pale, then, whining.”

Johnnie’s mother refuses to accept that anything is wrong with her 20-year-old baby, insisting that “He’s just a weak one, Johnnie. He’s always been like this.” At first, it seems as if this will be a straightforward confrontation between Johnnie and his mother, until we discover that Johnnie’s own motives are more complicated, thanks to an experience he had in the woods when he was sixteen, being invited to dance by a fairy woman with long golden hair who has haunted his dreams ever since. The story’s conclusion involves another substitution, but not the one we might have expected. It’s a clever twist on an old tale, which is what you could say about the collection in general.

In the dedication for Eye, Micros discloses that her mother was “a natural healer, who know how to repel the evil eye.” These healers appear regularly in the stories, either as the main character or as subsidiary ones. They are midwives, healers, nurses, brewers of potions, givers of advice. The modern world is intruding on theirs—this is a central theme of the title story, Eye—but the traditional healers still play an important role. They are guardians of a heritage that, like the legends passed down for thousands of years, serves an important purpose that is not diminished by our recent delusion of scientific omniscience.

By setting most of these stories in the present day, Micros creates a sense of all these traditional legends still existing in our contemporary world whether we admit it or not, whether we notice them or not. I don’t want to say that she makes them relevant, because I don’t think that things needs to be recent to be relevant. But reading Eye by Marianne Micros is a satisfying and thought-provoking experience. You get a sense of the melding of different cultures and different eras in a new form.