Elektra by Jennifer Saint
Rating: 5/5 👩
Genres: Ancient Greece, Retelling, Mythology, Trojan War, Historical Fiction.
The endless obsession with the events preceding, happening during and following the great Trojan War .. another jewel added to the trove .. many great writers like Pat Barker, Margaret Atwood etc already espousing the causes of women of the Trojan story .. here, Jennifer Saint gives voice to not one but three women and shows us the war and its aftermath from the angle of womem associated with Agamemnon. One of them is his wife Clytemnestra who is bent on avenging her daughter's death, the second is his daughter who is bent on avenging her father's murder and the third is mad Trojan princess Cassandra whom he takes for his war spoil.
Agamemnon rallies every fighting age and capable youth from the lands of Greece to fight against Troy when Helen eloped with Paris causing intense disrepute to her husband and Agamemnon's brother Menelaus. He doesn't do it to win her back only .. he aims to become the best man of all greeks. Before setting out for the war, to have a fair wind for their sails, he offers his eldest daughter of fourteen in sacrifice to the gods. Bereaved and left to plotting and scheming for over 10 years, his wife murders him in cold blood upon his return. She also kills Cassandra whom he brings with him taking her to be his new mistress. Eventually, her own children Elektra and Orestes kill her and her lackey husband Ageisthus .. who takes the throne after Agamemnon's death and has trailed her for over a decade before that driving her to her act.
This is a line of the story that I haven't seen much touched upon before. Perhaps because Agamemnon is a very flawed character..totally selfish and looking after his own glory and grandeur that he doesn't give a second thought to his daughter or family. Also where we have exemplary wives like Penelope who spent two decades warding off suitors that would have gladly taken her hand in marriage .. we have Clytemnestra sharing her bed with a stranger(a man although not of low birth, but definitely very cowardly and unmasculine in all respects) right after her husband leaves for War and giving birth to a boy child. That too with someone who harbors a long term grudge against her husband and family. She loses all sanity and sense of things .. focused on one event of her child's brutal death .. shuts herself off from her other children and offers herself completely to the lord of Vengeance.
It's good prose and wonderful narrative of a mythological story. Worth a read for sure 👍 👌
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