The myth

 'I won't buy any more books until I've made a good dent in the TBR collection on top of the bookshelf,' I promised.

'Except the book-club book,' he reminded me, winking.

'Of course. That goes without saying. Of course I'll buy the book-club book.'

'And anything that comes out that you can't live without?'

'Well, obviously.'

'What about the books that people have recommended?'

'No. I'm definitely going to hold back on those.'

I was doing well. Honestly! The pile might not have shrunk much but it wasn't growing. I was reading more than I was adding to the stack. Not buying recommended books but noting them on my phone meant that the mental load of books I might not live long enough to read was expanding but at least they weren't threatening to topple the bookshelf. Over the Easter holidays, I spent a good couple of hours putting all these lists into one place. Some books had been recommended several times and were on more than one list but one book appeared on eleven lists. 

I told myself that it was a sign and that if I saw it in a bookshop I would buy it. For some people that might take a long time but as a bookshop is my safe haven; the place I go to breathe when I'm out and world is overwhelming, I was expecting it to be a day or two. The scent of books and a gentle caress of their perfect spines brings me back to a place I can cope with. Obviously, if I'm having a really bad day, the angst of there not being enough time to read all the books can make even a bookshop feel unsafe but this is rare. So, as I go into a book shop most days I didn't think it would be long before the most recommended on my list was in my grubby little mitts but it was never there.

On Thursday, I started a book from the pile. one I had bought in 2019 when it was on the Women's prize list. Circe. It was one I had picked up and put down more times than seemed reasonable. The feminist retelling of Greek myths is a relatively new genre that has excited the book world. It is something I should have been interested in but I held back. 

Greek myths push my buttons for two reasons.

The first is that they are inherently misogynistic. They are written to keep women in their place. Cautionary tales about what happens to you if you tell the truth, talk about anything or dare to be more intelligent than the men. They are designed to make women fearful. The idea that we can embrace these stories to make feminist literature grates.

My second problem comes from posh people. Don’t they wang on about Greek myths? The way they talk, you’d think they believe they were actually real, rather than stories about the most dysfunctional families you can imagine. And then they laugh at you if you mispronounce the names, which often are a collection of random vowels.  

It all started when I was skipping PE lessons to hide in the library. I was flicking through the Beano, which is true literary genius but I felt the guilt. If I wasn’t going to run round a field and have my shins bashed in by a vindictive hockey teacher then at least I should be using my brain, so I picked up the Iliad and I quite liked it. As a war story it wasn’t quite as good as Sharpe, which I’d borrowed from my dad but it did have some bonkers gods and the poetic nature of it was something I enjoyed. The bloody gore of eye gouging on the battlefield was worse than any X-rated film that I was still banned from watching. However, it did start with a woman being sold into sex slavery and after a plague caused her to be swapped for another woman, we were supposed to believe that that one (that I called Brian’s - because pronunciation) liked it. The pages and pages of names were also a bit of a turn-off.  

Armed with my new knowledge I went to play (and by play, I mean, to lie on a bed and sing into a hairbrush while OMD played in the background) with a friend who I had met through playing the flute. They had a huge house and bookshelves to die for. It wasn’t quite the stack of Reader’s Digest we had in our bathroom and they had a whole set of the Encyclopaedia Brittanica. I read along the spines. 

The Feud of Diomedes and Aphrodite jumped out at me. 

‘The fee-ud of Deeo-meds and A- fro-dight, I read about that in the Iliad,’ I said excitedly.

The family erupted. The dad snorted his tea through his nose. The mum placed three dainty fingers to her lips and hiccoughed. My friend’s brother said, ‘Don’t they teach you anything at that school?’ My friend, quietly whispered the correct pronunciation but the damage was done. I felt stupid; put in my place. So, I decided that Greek myths weren’t for me. 

Recently, however, I listened to Natalie Hayne’s Stoneblind on audio at the same time as I read the proof copy I had been given but never read. I thought it was brilliant and having the audio at the same time helped me not worry about the names. It was the first time I didn’t feel that someone who liked Greek myths was ‘up-themselves’.

Circe, Seer-say not circle with the l missing, was not as enjoyable, even with audio help. I spent the whole time wondering if I could stop. I was reminded of braying poshos and wondered why the ‘tele’ is said differently for Telegonus and Telemachus. It hasn’t cured me of my dislike of Greek mythology. 

I fell into the bookshop, feeling the panic of a book I hadn’t enjoyed. The panic of knowing I was too stupid, too poor, too uneducated to understand these ‘very important’ works. The myth that a bookshop would comfort me was the only one that mattered.

It is the only myth that is true. They had the recommended book that was on eleven lists. Of course I bought it. It was meant to be. My reward for slogging all the way to the end.