Three!
Since I had written a much-cited book about Medusa almost a quarter of a century ago (Medusa: Solving the Mystery of the Gorgon – Oxford University Press 2000), people in my writing groups pointed out to me that there was a new retelling of the story out this summer. I located and read Shadow of Perseus by British Classical Scholar (BA and MA) Claire Heywood. Then I stumbled upon another book that just came out and retold the story – Stone Blind by British Classical Scholar Natalie Haynes. Both Ms. Haynes and Ms. Heywood have already published other retellings of Greek Myth. Haynes apparently has a show, Natalie Haynes Stands up for the Classics
Then just today I was in a bookstore and saw yet another book that just came out about Medusa – Medusa’s Sisters by Lauren J.A. Bear. She’s and English and Humanities teacher who lives in the Pacific Northwest. But she’s young and female, like the others. This one I haven’t bought yet, because I’m still finishing up a stack of books.
Why now? I wrote in one of the later chapters of my book that Medusa had become a popular symbol of female .power and rage. I suspect this is in part because she has such a striking and different appearance. Greek myth is full of striking male images – the Cyclops, Centaurs, Pan and satyrs, and so on – but all female figures tend to look alike. Medusa and the other gorgons are singularly different. Plus they have the ability to turn people to stone. Gorgons showed up on a lot of covers of feminist books and magazines (not to mention general books on mythology – an awful lot of the ones I own have medusa or her head on the cover). But that was a quarter of a century ago. Why a crop of three books about her now?
The Me Too movement, my wife suggested. That makes sense. It’s a hot topic – it’s arguably an important part of the Barbie movie – and snaky-haired petrifying gorgons are the perfect figures for it. Medusa was heavily sinned against, if you accept the Ovidian story of Medusa’s becoming a Gorgon by being raped by Poseidon in Athena’s temple, and then, as victim, being Gorgonized by Athena.
All of these tell the story from the Gorgon’s point of view. And if that’s the case, Perseus has to be the chief villain. He doesn’t come off very well in these books – he’s practically a homicidal maniac in Heywood, and a petulant spoiled brat in Haynes. Both of them credit Perseus’ insular upbringing for his lack of knowledge about the world and lack of sophistication. Of course, that alone won’t explain it – plenty of people of limited direct experience have turned out just fine, but they either have mentors or books to bring the world to them. Perseus, in these, has nothing. And he comes off as very unheroic.
And, of course, if your gorgons are your POV characters, that means they have personalities and selves and minds, and killing such beings simply because you consider them monsters makes you a monster yourself. Perseus in the original myths faced real monsters – there’s never a suggestion that the gorgons had minds or culture or anything but killing rage.
Heywood tells a naturalistic story, with no magic and no gods. Haynes is more traditional, with gods who are even more flighty than they’re usually depicted, and who humiliate and belittle Perseus every chance they get (which doesn’t help). I haven’t read Bear’s book yet, but she appears to have magic and gods in her account, too.
All of this is interesting, and part of the life of the Myth. We keep recycling the myths to suit the needs or the moods of the moment. Before this we had two versions of Clash of the Titans, pretty traditional tellings filtered through a modern male-hero0-fantasy lens that served as showcases for new special effects technology. Harryhausen’s 1981 version replaced Athena as Perseus’ guide and protector with Zeus. The remake kept Zeus as the patron and added a most un-Greek battle between Zeus and Hades (just as there was in Disney’s Hercules). Even Rick Riordan’s book The Lightning Thief (and the movie based on it) kept pretty much that viewpoint – the Gorgon is a monster who could be killed without moral qualms, and Perseus (and Percy – which, we learn, is short for “Perseus”) is the undoubted hero in the classic style. These new books flip all that on its head, make Perseus the villain and Medusa the much-wronged heroine.