Elektra Review

The House of Atreus is cursed. A bloodline tainted by a generational cycle of violence and vengeance. This is the story of three women, their fates inextricably tied to this curse, and the fickle nature of men and gods.

Clytemnestra

The sister of Helen, wife of Agamemnon - her hopes of averting the curse are dashed when her sister is taken to Troy by the feckless Paris. Her husband raises a great army against them, and determines to win, whatever the cost.

Cassandra

Princess of Troy, and cursed by Apollo to see the future but never to be believed when she speaks of it. She is powerless in her knowledge that the city will fall.

Elektra

The youngest daughter of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon, Elektra is horrified by the bloodletting of her kin. But, can she escape the curse, or is her own destiny also bound by violence?

General Impressions

I'm really interested in Greek myths and classical books and really interested in any kind of book that meets both of those and gives voice to the women that history silenced so I was all in for Elektra.

I started this book really looking forward to seeing what these women added to the story that has been known for millennia. The men themselves are absent for most of it, their feelings and thoughts unknown, their actions retold through women's viewpoints which I loved since that was exactly the treatment women got from their end. The book is told by three different women across several decades: Cassandra the Trojan princess, Clytemnestra, Agamemnon's wife, and Elektra, their third daughter. (writing these names is an Olympic sport).

This book reminded me a lot of Cersei from GoT and her speech to Sansa in which she advises her to love no one but her children, only because, in that, they have no choice. Being barred from most society and decisions as women, most of these characters' lives surround around marriage: what husband their fathers will pick, the decisions they will make and the hope that they will treat them kindly and all that is left to them is getting pregnant and caring for their children, for a few years before the cycle repeats itself with another generation. That is of course until war happens and life is suspended.

Unlike the men, who own land and armies, women are traded in marriage and often have to live in the place in which they were born and their entire family so they don't belong to a place, they belong to their father or husband to be traded as they see fit to cement alliances. When they are around these men, all of them are ignored, doubted and spoken over. But when war happens and the men are gone, they get a chance to make something of themselves in their absence for better or worse. Of course that doesn't mean they didn't have personalities, wants and needs before the war, but after it started, they found themselves in turns free to speak and forced to be silent. These women don't matter until they make themselves matter and that is enough to make them villains: Clytemnestra with her rage over her husband's crime, Cassandra by not being silent about her knowledge and Elektra's refusal to follow her mother blindly.

As the book went on and what I liked the most about it was that these women were in precarious, dangerous situations, without good options and as they either were broken by their circumstances or chose to resist no matter the consequences, I found it harder and harder to sympathise while still rooting for them, particularly Clytemnestra, the one with the most agency in this story and my absolute fave. Rather than breaking the cycle in which they were raised, mother and daughter just became each other's oppressors and enemies. It was also really interesting to see what happens when you don't treat children as people with their own minds, only as blind followers.

Conclusions

This was such a faithful Greek retelling not only because of the settings, plot and magical realism aspect but because these characters were damned by their circumstances and damned themselves through their inability to let go of what they had been taught, refusing to learn from the lessons of their ancestors. There was no justice, no evolution, only bloodshed and death to be repeated again and again till the very end.

Thank you to Wildfire and Headline for this proof.

Rating: 3/5