Still halfway trough Margaret Atwood's tale of Penelope, I decided to stay in Bronze Age Greece some more and re-visit my old friend Marion Zimmer Bradley who wrote her version of Trojan war as told from perspective of famous Cassandra. Of course, I read Cassandra's story long time ago in the book by German writer Christa Wolf but this one is completely different, because for the start, Zimmer Bradley decides that Cassandra actually survived the war and now lives quietly surrounded with grandchildren who all gather around the fire when travelling minstrel musician starts to sing his odes to Trojan war - old Cassandra is angry at him, no this are all lies, this is not how it happened - and from there on we dive into her life story that paints completely different picture.
Its interesting and inevitable to compare Atwood and Zimmer Bradley as they both write stories set in the same age and geographic frame. Both describe something that happened thousands of years ago, the stories so distant and far away that nowadays are remembered only trough the mist of mythology. Both sarcastically comment on myths and conclude that reality was far more mundane (Odyssey did not encounter one eyed giant but one eyed tavern keeper, sirens were nothing more than prostitutes, etc) and both point at the strong women who had to comply with men having all the power but only outwardly. Atwood's Penelope is clever, manipulative and capable but she needs to act as weak woman in order that her husband feels powerful. Even at the very end, when Penelope finally lies in bed with her long lost husband, she is aware that both of them lied so much to everybody that who knows would they lie to each other? "Then he told me how much he’d missed me, and how he’d been filled with longing for me even when enfolded in the white arms of goddesses; and I told him how very many tears I’d shed while waiting twenty years for his return, and how tediously faithful I’d been, and how I would never have even so much as thought of betraying his gigantic bed with its wondrous bedpost by sleeping in it with any other man.The two of us were – by our own admission – proficient and shameless liars of long standing. It’s a wonder either one of us believed a word the other said. But we did. Or so we told each other."
Zimmer Bradley is completely different kind of writer, though - if Atwood style is almost hallucinatory, dreamy and white as Elgin Marbles, Zimmer Bradley paints the picture with bold, fierce and colourful strokes. This is not to say that one is better than another, just simply to point they both have completely different qualities. Oranges and Apples. Atwood makes you swoon when she describes how ghosts of Penelope and Helene walk around Hades, Zimmer Bradley keeps you awake long into the night as she describes Cassandra's life, brutal reality of Greek cities and (right now) Amazon warriors who fiercely and proudly live their lives somewhere far away in the mountains. So far Gods show up just sporadically but we know they are different and very powerful than ordinary mortals, although they appear in human form (but there is always something wrong about that, we simply feel they are Gods). Cassandra's twin brother is still shepherd fostered far away from Troy but we know he would grow up into Paris and ultimately bring disaster to the city. It is not really the story - we are all familiar with it - but the way Zimmer Bradley tells it, that makes it so hugely enjoyable and interesting. It makes me wonder why did I wait so long to start reading it, because I was sure that it would appeal to me (her "The Mists of Avalon" is beloved classic worth re-visiting). The book is dedicated to the memory of Mary Renault and I guess Renault (in her time famous and influential writer of historical novels) must be my next choice.
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