August 24, 2026 • 43 mins
In this classic, Anney and Samantha delve into Madeline Miller's 2018 novel Circe. Join us for discussion of goddesses, witches, myths and feminism. And turning men into pigs.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Anny and Samantha.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
I'm welcome to stuff I never told you productuly iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
I try not to do this too often where we
bring back a ton of classics on entertainment because it
feels like we're sort of shifting what the podcast is
just being.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
An entertainment podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
But there's just a lot of stuff going on right
now in the world of entertainment. So I thought I
would bring back this one. This book club we did
on Circe Who if you don't remember, and the book
is Turns Turns Men into Pigs.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Yes it was.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
I remember it being a really fun read, but it
was a longer, a longer book than what we normally choose.
But I thought i'd bring it back because the Odyssey
in theaters right now, and there is so much discussion
about the depiction of women in it, but and seriously
(01:10):
is one of the big ones because they kind of
from what I understand, I haven't seen it, but I
believe she's more in line with this depiction as sort
of the vengeful witch as opposed to how she.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Was in the original Odyssey.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Of that being said, as we know of as a
lot of us I've seen well a lot of talk
about what particular.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Version of the Odyssey you're reading.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
Because people translate it in different ways. So I just
thought this would be an interesting one to bring back
as all of that discussion is happening. Please enjoy this
classic episode.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Hey, this is Annymantha, and welcome to stuff. But I've
never told your protection of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
It is time for our first book club of twenty
twenty one, and my question today for you, Samantha is
were you into Greek mythology I.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Was a kid.
Speaker 4 (02:25):
I was.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
I really was really big into all of that. I
had the encyclopedia stuff, you know how they had the
story version of all of that. Oh, and I would
read those all the times growing up. Of course, I've
kind of forgotten them since then, so I kind of
confused the names because there are similar stories obviously with
different names. So I have a moment of like who.
(02:50):
But I did really enjoy it. As in fact, recently
which I love to see, we saw pretty much a
battle of Xena Warrior Princess versus Hercules, and I'm pretty
sure seen I want slash Lucy Lawless in.
Speaker 5 (03:03):
Their Twitter fight.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
So I just want to put that out there.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
You gotta put that out there.
Speaker 5 (03:09):
I'm just gonna put that.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
What do you think, Well, if you had been a
goddess would have been the goddess.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Of uh, some type of mischieff probably like I definitely
would not have been like the beauty or the loved one.
It's definitely as to cost some kind of mayhem every
now and again. Like I'm I'm absolutely sure how you
have put my dog Peaches in your dn D as
the mischievous, kind hearted but really disastrous uh character in
(03:38):
your thing. I'm pretty sure I would be somewhere along
those lines, which is why I love it.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Yeah, I could see that. I could see you that
for sure.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Because of course nothing really mean.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
Spirited, right Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no, Yeah,
I was. I was huge into Greek mythology. I also
had those uh like books with the like images and
I would trace them out and paint them and I'd
hang them on my wall.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
That was the kind of kid I was.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Y And then I loved this show called Young Hercules,
which I'll said it before. I was on the Ryan
Gosling train before anyone else, because I was a nine
year old writing him a very very embarrassing fan letter
that I hope never made it to him, so that
the eyes were dotted with heart, Samantha. It was a disgrace.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
But you can't get that show anywhere. And I taped
them all like I would get it came on at
three pm, I'd.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
Like run in and tape them. And so now I'm like,
could I like turn to profit? Could I upload these?
Because I got all taped.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
I was gonna say, daddy withheld, because you know, not
all VHS's are in a great condition for viewing.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Well.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
I did.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
The most recent time I watched them was in college,
and there was some they were still you know, skipping around,
and the commercials are still there obviously, but sometimes I
would like fast forward through them, you know, and it
would record that, Uh, it's all a pretty good shape.
I don't have a VCR anymore, though, so I can't
test it. Yeah, this is the issue.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
You need to get. Well, we need a VCR obviously. Yeah.
I'm having flashbacks of me doing the same thing. I
think I did that with Green and of Green Gables,
except it wasn't commercials. It was just a long winded GPB.
Here in the Georgia, they're fundraising because it's one of
the only say it and I would pause, try and
make it the perfect succinct movie.
Speaker 5 (05:40):
I failed. I'm pretty sure.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
I love it. I did that stuff to it. All
of our young girl listeners are like.
Speaker 5 (05:47):
What you no, don't worry about it.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
As a kid, we rented our VCR from the Curtis Mathis.
Speaker 5 (05:54):
That's how old I am.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
I've been rewatching some old Seinfeld episodes and it's been
the technology it has been given me a chuckle.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
But okay.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
Today we were talking about Madeline Miller's twenty eighteen novel Circe,
which a few of you have recommended, and I actually
I really really enjoyed it, so thank you for the recommendation.
And this is a follow up to her previous book,
The Song of Achilles, and she like knows her stuff.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
She has an ma in classic, so uh.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
The book gives the witch from the Greek myth the
Odyssey Circe, a backstory that spans for thousands of years.
And it was really fun for me because I've obviously,
I imagine like most of us, I've read the Odyssey,
but it was a long time ago, so like I
would say, I recognize like half the.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Characters, but I knew all of them.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
I was like, I know, I don't get the power
of this moment, but I know that you're a character,
and I should.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Know what this means. Yep, feel the same way.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
Yeah, And Miller said she got the idea because as
a kid she heard about like this witch you could
turn men into pigs, and she was so excited to
read it, and then the Odyssey it's like fifteen lines
and she was so disappointed.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
So she was like, I'm going to give her a story.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
And yeah, if you need a reminder, that is Cyrus's
role in the Odyssey. She was this witch that turned
Odysseus's men into pigs. But he challenged her and kind
of tricked her with hermes, and she changed them back.
And then her and Odysseus become lovers for a while,
and then she helps them when they leave. Oh and
(07:37):
probably quick disclaimer, we did look up the Greek pronunciations
for things, but it might be a bit.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Of a mess and apologies in her vasis.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
So Miller's work in this book flushes out Circe's story,
everything that brings her to that moment in the Odyssey
and carries her after it, and it reimagines many of
these heroic acts that we've heard in Greek mythology as
orchestrations of Circe or like Circe had something to do
with it. And this character is long inspired writers from
(08:08):
Ovid to James Joyce to Margaret Atwood. Which is actually
a theme in this story that that the men of
these Greek myths told these stories. They they made themselves
heroes in them, and then it was men who passed
those stories on and because of that they were these
men were painted as heroes when more often than not,
(08:30):
you're kind of like, well, it seems like the lady
here or.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
You have saved your life or sacrifice herself for you,
so that seems.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Hmm, yeah, maybe you should mention that, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
And yeah, there are a lot of cameos from famous
Greek mythological characters like Daedalus, Icarus, Jason, Odsius, Hermes, Artemis, Achilles, Paris, Helen, Apollo, Agamemnon, Athena.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Just it was a delight.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
And this book Ads of Now is getting an eight
part HBO mini series anyway.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Yeah, so we wanted to start with obviously the plot,
so the story follows, circe a nymph, or uprised nymphs
were called, but that is not really how the world
saw us. We are an endless feast laid out upon
a table, beautiful and renewing, and so very bad at
getting away, great lines.
Speaker 5 (09:24):
So very bad at getting away. Just a little bit
of almost.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
And she is the daughter of the god of the
Sun and one of the most powerful titans, Helios and
the nymph Percy. She is a witch who can use
plants and words to cast spells. Her family is not
kind to her. They treat her as a lesser. They
describe her voice as frail, the voice of the mortal,
obviously that she's weak and the weakest of the circles.
(09:49):
She's not as beautiful, so therefore she's completely cast aside.
Circey is one of many of Helio's children, including her
cruel sister Passafehi and her brother and the younger brother
that she helped raise eighties. Her family is not kinder,
like we said before, and at one point Helios, her
father burns her in punishment, and throughout the book we
(10:10):
see most we see multiple instances of their cruelty uh
and their desire for power.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
I still love it.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
I love Pacifa sounds like being pacified, and she's like
the officer of us. And in early formative memory, seriously
meets Prometheus just after he has disobeyed Zeus by helping
mortals by showing them fire. So it's the night before
he is to begin his sentence, chained to a rock
(10:38):
for all eternity, each day his liver devoured by an eagle,
only for the liver to regenerate overnight and the whole
process to start all over again, which sounds absolutely miserable.
Seriously witnesses him being whipped, and after everyone else leaves,
including the furies, who also make a cameo, Uh, seriously
brings him nectar even though it is forbidden, and the
(10:59):
two have this six change you aided mortals. I said,
that is why you are punished. It is Will you
tell me what is a mortal?
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Like?
Speaker 3 (11:07):
It was a child's question, but he nodded gravely. There
is no single answer. They are each different. The only
thing they share is death. You know the word, I
know it, I said, but I do not understand. No
God can their bodies crumble and pass into earth? Their
souls turn to cold smoke and fly to the underworld.
There they eat nothing and drink nothing, and feel no warmth.
Everything they reach for slips from their grasp. A chill
(11:29):
shivered across my skin? How do they bear it? As
best they can?
Speaker 1 (11:33):
As best they can? So. While Circe is not powerful
in the traditional goddess sense, she discovers she has a
talent for witchcraft, which we all love. And this is
something she discovers in the Mortal Realm, where she falls
in love with a young fisherman named Glaucos. She uses
her magic to turn them into a god, but finds
that becoming god has made him shallow and cruel. Surprise, surprise,
(11:56):
he shows Sarce no gratitude and pretty much tosses her
away she uses to give her any attention. She also
uses her magic to transform a nymph and a romantic
rival for Glaucos, named Scilla, into a monster to match
her inner personality. Well damn, Silla becomes a behemoth twelve
tentacles and six mouths, guarding a straight in the ocean,
(12:17):
taking six or twelve men from any boat that tends passage.
This is something that haunts Cerce over the years. The
death of the mortals caused by circe spells and the
mindless monster. She's reduced Scilla too.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
Yeah, and Silla was I forgot about Scilla so that
I had to look up, Like, yeah, it's the backstory there.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
I'm not gonna lie because when I read, I just
move on. I kind of didn't give us like a
chick glance other than okay, great monster character next.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
Yeah, So I love this. I love the story behind it.
Zeus feels threatened by Circe's power like King of the
Gods is like.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
No lady could have this power?
Speaker 3 (12:55):
Uh, and commands her father to exile her. Of course
he does, so he does to a small ice slated
island named Aya. So I couldn't find a pronization for that.
That's just get I like it on my part, so
apologies if I'm way off.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Here.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
Circe tames animals like lions and wolves. She grows plants
and herbs. She works on her magic. She learns how
to be independent, to braid her hair back and tie
her skirts up so they wouldn't catch on twigs. She
like learns how to carve and so and all kinds
of things. While there, she encounters many famous figures from
Greek mythology. One of the first to appear is Dadalus,
(13:36):
who arrives via boat to summon her to attend to
her sister's birth, and Circe is furious about this, but
also wants to take the rare chance to break her exile,
as first she knows it could be here her only chance.
This journey, of course, required that they pass Silah. Dadalus's
crew had already lost men on the way to the island,
(13:57):
but with magic and with her wit is able to
protect the rest of the career. This is also something
that really annoys Sircey because she feels like her sister
totally did that on purpose, that they had to go
that way and sent the boat that way because she knew, like,
you created this monster, here you go. So when they arrive,
Circe learns that her sister, who is married to Minos,
(14:19):
the king of Crete, has sired a monster with one
of her and Circe's father's sacred white bulls. With Circe's help,
she gives birth to the minotaur. Circe has a heated
confrontation with her sister where sister lays bare how she
sees the world and the golden cages of men that
(14:39):
they both inhabit, the horrors and injustices they both had
to navigate because of the men in their lives, and
how she thought she and Sarce were alike, and how
she was disappointed actually that they weren't close there as children,
which I really loved that whole exchange and the argument
shakes CIRs like the fact that her sister says that
they have something in is like, oh.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Yeah, this is that I don't like this. So Circe
learns that Daedalus and his son Chris are in prison.
In Daedalus and Sarce have sex, obviously, with Circe's help,
he builds a mazed to trap the Minotaur, a creature
meant to frighten the citizens of Crete and keep them
under control. Now, Daedalus also gives Sarce with a beautiful
loom that she takes with her back to her island,
(15:23):
and later Circe learns that Icris died during their escape attempt,
flying too close to the sun and destroying his wings,
and Daedalus dies soon after from heartbreak.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
Supposedly, yeah, one of the next people to visit her
island is Medea, her brother i e T's daughter, and
her husband Jason. Medea begs Circe for a ritual to
wash them clean of blood and crime, and they kind
of do this before revealing who they are, so Circe does,
but she learns the story of what brought them there,
(15:55):
that in order to protect Jason, Medea had helped him
accomplish several including stealing the Golden fleece, and as they
fled her very angry father, she dismembered her brother and
tossed him into the sea, knowing her father would have
to stop in his pursuit to perform the rites for.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Her deceased brother.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
Searcy tries to convince Medea that Jason Is people will
not welcome her, that she will regret going with them,
that Medea should stay with her, but Medea lais and
to Circe, essentially calling her lonely and pathetic and trapped.
Desperately trying to keep Medea trapped next to her. She
also reveals the depth of it ET's cruelty, perhaps the
(16:40):
only family member Sercey had a close relation to at
one time, telling Circe that he hates women. Medea leaves
with Jason the next day, and later Circe finds out
that an enraged Medea killed her and Jason's children after
Jason betrayed her, unwilling to let any one have them
(17:00):
but her, and then returned to the realm of the gods.
Speaker 4 (17:05):
Uh yeah she lived along then Yeah yeah who uh
And during all of this, by the way, Circe learned
most of this information from Hermes, whom she had an
on and off affair with for over one hundred years,
So like she would learn about Daedalus from him or
(17:26):
Medea from him.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
But he treated her like a game and she grew
to detest him before ending.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
Mean, she didn't really like him either, but yeah, they didn't.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Seem to like each other. It was just sort of
a thing that.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
You're here, I'm here, okay, okay. Sure. So Circe's cut
by Media's words, and she starts to open her island
to lost sailors looking for food and rests. On one
such occasion, the captain rapes her when he finds out
she's alone on the island, and before the other men
can do likewise, she kills the captain and turns the
rest into pigs. She is so consumed with rage and vengeance,
(18:03):
she turns any man who comes her island into a pig.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
Yes, so here we arrive at the big Odyssey.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Yes, turning them into pigs thing.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
So this doesn't change her turning men who visit her
island at the pigs until the arrival of Odysseus after
Circe transformed his crew into pigs. Odysseus arrives, and he
convinces her to transform his men back and allow them
to stay for several months. Listening to that without reading
the book, you might be like, but hell though, But
(18:34):
then they kind of like immediately hit it off and
had a conversation about it. So Circe and Odysseus become lovers,
and he keeps lengthening his stay longer and longer, like
maybe I'll just stay another month, maybe I'll stay in
the winter.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
And this is despite the fact that Odysseus is, in
his words, happily married and the father to a son
he hasn't seen in many years, and he speaks.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
Fondly of them.
Speaker 3 (18:59):
Eventually, Apolo gives Circe a prophecy about Odysseus, but grudgingly
she shares it with him, and he and his men
return home, and just as he's leaving, ciriusly realizes she
is pregnant with his child old Row. Yeah, here's what CEUs,
he thinks when she hears the stories and poems of
her meeting with Odysseus later quote, I was not surprised
(19:20):
by the portrait of myself the proud, which undone before
the hero's sword, kneeling and begging for mercy. Humbling women
seems to me a chief pastime for poets, as if
there can be no story unless we crawl and weep.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
That speaks volumes, and the experience of giving birth is tumultuous.
Is a tumultuous one that circe undertakes alone, and when
she realizes something is preventing her child from being born,
she cuts it from her stomach usual magic. She learns
that the godess Athena is determined to kill her son
Telegonus to prevent something he does in the future. Sarcey
(19:55):
does not back down and instead uses extremely powerful and
taxing magic toward the island so that no god or
goddess can set foot on her island.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
Right and raising Telegonis proves to be a very arduous task.
He is an angry, difficult child that shapes at her
protection like he's always trying to run away and she's
always like, oh, you're staying right here by my side, never,
and he's constantly looking to the horizon for adventure. As
he grows a little older, he does he mellows out.
(20:25):
He becomes a sweet, curious child, but there's still that
thirst to go to go somewhere, and Circe tells him
these really sanitized tales of his father's adventures, which he
just eats up and anything that isn't flattering, even in
the slightest bit. He corrects her, telling her his father
was noble and.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Or heroic, he could never do anything wrong.
Speaker 3 (20:49):
When he's fifteen, Circe learns that, with the help of Hermes,
which she's not happy about it at all, Telegonis has
been constructing a boat in order to sail to the
Kingdom of the Cut to meet his father Odysseus.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
Circe tries very hard.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
Convince him not to, reminding him of Athena's determination to
kill him that he'll be leaving the protection of the island,
but despite her terror, Telegonus is determined and naive, so
she weaves spells around and protection spells, and she marches
to the darkest, coldest, deepest depths of the waters to
confront one of its deadliest creatures, challenging it for its
(21:27):
goddess killing tail. It offers to give it to her
if she would touch the poison and condemn herself to
a life of eternal pain. She does so, but to
her shock, the pain does not come. The creature informs
her no one has ever passed the test before, and
commands her to cut off the tail.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
She has won she can take the prize. She does so.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
She feels very uncomfortable, but she does do it, and
she fashions the tail into a goddess killing spear, although
it could really kill just about anything, that she gives
to her son.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
It's a spear, Yes, they can. He leaves, but returns
shortly after with Odysseus's wife Penelope and his son Telemachus.
Turns out Odysseus went mad without war to distract him,
killing subjects and any who would dare defy him. Surprise surprise.
When Telgonus arrived, he mistook him for an attacker, and
Telegonius accidentally killed him with the spear oops. As Odysseus died,
(22:26):
Telegonus told him he was his son, and instead of
staying on in Ithaca, Penelope and Telemachus wanted to accompany
him to the island of his mother and of the
lover the Odysseus had told him about. Circe is immediately
suspicious that they want to kill her son, but after
confronting them separately, she learns of odysseus poor treatment of
his family, of his deterioration on Ithaca that impacted Telegonus
(22:50):
and Penelope too, and Circe also learns that Athena intends
to have Telemachus take Odysseus's place as her champion, and
that's why Penelope brought him there so she could have
time to repair their relationship, and Sarcey agrees to give
them a few months only after ensuring an oh of
protection from Athena for her son, which is appropriate. Time
(23:11):
passes and Sarcey drops the protection. Athena offers Telemachus a
chance to build a kingdom and rule, but he turns
it down, so Athena turns to Telegonus is dead and
he accepts even though it hurts, and she's scared, even
though it hurts her, and she's scared, Sarcey lets him go.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
Yeah, And if you're curious, like uh, Athena was trying
to prevent the death of Odysseus, who was her champion,
and so she saw Telegonus was going to kill him
with the spear that her Circe made to protect him,
and all he wanted was to meet his dad. But
now that Odysseus is dead, she really doesn't care about
Telegonus are killing him anymore?
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Right?
Speaker 3 (23:50):
She wants Telemachus, But then she flips real quick til
Marcus is like, nah.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
All right, then I'll go to tele.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
So after Telegana sleeves, Circe confronts her father and blackmails
him to lift her exile. When he tells her not
to bring shame to the family, she tells him to
count her out of it. He's like, you are the
least of my four children, and she's like, well, how
about you just say you have three.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Children and just leave me out of the whole thing.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
She teaches Penelope the basics of witchcraft and then journeys
with tell Macchus. First to Scilla, where she uses a
potion to turn her to stone and and her misery
and her reign of terror. Then to the beach where
she first found the plants that allowed her to turn
Glaucos into a god, also her first foray into witchcraft.
Really she picks them. Her and Telmachus become lovers, which
(24:42):
was probably the biggest surprise in the whole thing to me,
and they return to the island where Penelope has really
taken to this witch thing and houses all wayward nip
daughters that this was a bunch of thing, that a
task that was put on Circe, but she shunned it.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
And refused to do it.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
After a while, Andelopie has picked it back up. Sirs
plants one of the flowers on the island to see
if it might grow, and then she imbibes the west,
wishing to become a mortal. She sees a vision of
a future with Telemachus where they love each other and
have two daughters, that they travel, which is something they've
always wanted to do. They go to seed Telegonus and
(25:20):
that one day she dies, and that is the end.
And here here's the quote overhead the constellation's dip and wheel.
My divinity shines in me like the last rays of
the sun before they drown in the sea. I thought
once that gods are the opposite of death, but I
see now they are more dead than anything, for they
are unchanging and can hold nothing in their hands. All
(25:43):
my life, I've been moving forward, and now I am here.
I have a mortal's voice. Let me have the rest.
I lift the brimming bowl to my lips and drink.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
Boom. Yeah's another Creek Also tragedy.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
A tragic tragedy, as they say, there were certainly tragic moments,
but yeah, it was pretty powerful overall. But now let's
talk about some themes. But first let's pause for a
quick break for word from our sponsor.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Am We're sponsor yup, and it's time for themes. So
let's go ahead and jump into the power and obviously heroes.
So recurring theme throughout is the idea of heroes and
the people behind them and their stories. Again we talked
about with Greek myths. There's many A heroes, many A villains.
Again and again we learn that they are complex people
with flaws. More than the gloss over legends we read
(26:50):
growing up and more often than not, there was a
woman or many women behind them.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
Yeah, and you see this especially with Odseus when we
learn about him through the lens of those who knew him.
So Telegonis had this beautiful, perfect story as head of
who his father was, the one in the stories we've
all read, and this is his mother was telling him
these stories. But Telemachus, who had grew up with him,
well no he hadn't grown up with him, but he
had seen him when he returned, had this really unflinching,
(27:20):
violent reality that he saw, as does circ although for
her she interpreted it somewhat differently, coming from the world
of gods and goddesses, and her interpretation changes when she
hears the pain it caused Telemachus, which.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
Was a really interesting thing.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
So through them we see a more complex character who
did have these amazing qualities but also was quite quite flawed.
This character who needed these adventures, these one time experiences,
as seriously calls them, to be like the first, to
be as close to immortality as possible, to be the
hero in these stories and is absolutely willing to hurt
(27:59):
others to achieve it and paint that as a heroic act.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
And another thing woman throughout is power and what it
can look like, abuse of power and the limitations on
how people can achieve it, especially for women. Many of
the powerful women in the book are limited by the
men in their lives and punish if they transgress seriously.
Was banished by our father after our Power's frightened the Zeus,
her sister, tells of the depths of pain and sacrifice
(28:23):
she's made to hold on to power and to please
the cruel men in her life. Power in the thirst
of it drives these violent, crueland or thoughtless gods and
goddesses and many of the heroes in their orbit right.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
And another big theme in this book is loneliness and immortality,
and I thought, I thought the author did a really
good job of that because it would be difficult to
write for someone who just has such a different perspective
on what it is to be alive and not to
have that fear. And I think the biggest for me,
(28:59):
the biggest point of that where it was like, oh wow,
this would be very strange experience for a goddess is
when she gave birth and she's like, oh my god, anything.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
Could kill this child, Like she didn't really have to
worry about that.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
But so let's talk about loneliness first, especially as it
does pertain to immortality. Circe spends centuries alone and isolated,
and it leads her to make choices. She later regrets
her affair with Hermes, when she once treasured his slights
as crumbs, letting down her guard around men that led
(29:33):
to her rape, her absolute determination not to let her
son leave her side. Her immortality also influences how she
sees people, and throughout the book we see her mature
and age over centuries and what I thought was a
really fascinating way because she has just such a longer
arc of time than we do, like we see her
(29:56):
counsel media and telegonis, for example, on mistakes that she
made in her youth only should be ignored, of course,
and the mortality of those she loves terrifies her and
saddens her. And yeah, you see that when her first
her child is born and everything becomes really dangerous, everything
is one heart beat less taking him away from her.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
On top of the loneliness, there's a layer of betrayal
and abandonment, especially by the men in Sertuce's life, whether
it's her father, her brother, her lover, and this is
often after Sarce puts these men first. Male relationships take
precedent over sisterly relationships or mother daughter of relationships. For instance,
Cirrusly spends much of her time with her family, trying
(30:41):
to please her father to care for her younger brother,
and when she gets older, she learns that her sister
wanted a relationship with her surprise. Although it's understandable why
cirrus is shied away from her, yeah, because you know,
they kind of hated each other. This is something that
changes as seriously ages, and at the end she rejects
her father, we evaluate her younger brother and comes to
(31:03):
see at least a little bit of herself in the
women Throughout. Many women who start as antagonists ends as
something more.
Speaker 3 (31:12):
Right, and that brings us to attitudes towards women that
we see in these books. In this book, the women
are almost always the ones that are punished or the
women lash out against men or women as a way
to feel like they aren't in prison, there's a way
to feel like they have some kind of power or agency.
(31:33):
Women are seen as pawns for the men to dole
out and chain in one way or another. There's a
lot of slut shaming too, and also a lot of
judging of Circe is basically a weird witch spinster. L
Another thing we see a lot of is women fighting women,
and I mean, like even in the beginning with Circe
and Scylla, which Circe does kind of by the end
(31:56):
of the book, that's like one of her final acts
is the book end that she goes and tries to
make that right. And most of the women who do
succeed in this world do so through cruelty, like Circe's sister,
are kind of by like Circe's sister, I just found
her so fascinating because she kind of she didn't really succeed,
(32:18):
but she was as close as I imagine you can
get in this like really male dominated world. And that's
why she was so cruel and cut you to the bone,
because she had to play the game and she was
miserable for like she said, she talked about all the
pains she went through and the sacrifices she made, but
she was also like, yeah, pretty terrible, and yes, these
(32:44):
women were often cruel to other women.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
And I remember I wrote this.
Speaker 3 (32:50):
Down on a notepad when I was reading it and
I just wanted to put it in here because there's
definitely a vibe of lady, get married or you are
nothing and if no one wants to marry you, you're nothing.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Wow. It was pretty powerful. I mean throughout the.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
Entire book, all the women are definitely pandering. Two men
that hired heroic man.
Speaker 3 (33:12):
Really again, they were the ones probably behind the whole thing,
and take.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
Care less if they were there or not. So going
back to that hero worship thing, we see so many
men taking credit for women's work and making themselves the
hero of the story. Is particularly exemplified in the marriage
between Jason and Medea, after Medea had used magic to
save him again and again and pretty much got that
(33:38):
golden fleece for him. Yet when he tells the story,
he's obviously the hero, and people remember him as the
hero and pass that story on.
Speaker 5 (33:47):
It's written.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
She Medea was silent alone moment one of Jason let
him be a hero. You are something else?
Speaker 5 (33:55):
And what is that?
Speaker 2 (33:57):
In my mind?
Speaker 1 (33:57):
I saw us already our husband together over the purple
flowers of Aconite, the black roots of Molly. I would
rescue her from her tainted pass, of which I said
with unbound power, who need answer to none but herself.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
But Medea says me, and we're holding off about that
more or later. Then there's the fact that Cirrus lies
to her son about the acts of his father DC
used to protect the child's image of him. And it
really emphasizes, at least to me, that's saying behind every
gay man, there is a woman. There's also many instances
(34:33):
of women making sacrifices that go ignored for love, only
to be discarded are otherwise punished. Also in that example
with Media and Jason, Jason, even at this early stage,
was clearly scared of Medea like in her power, and
was already kind of trying to distance himself even though
she'd gotten him that fleece pretty much. Here's another quote.
(34:57):
The nymphs wafted around me. There's smothered laughter drifted down
on the halls. At least I told myself it was
not their brothers who would have bragged and fought and
hunted down my wolves. But of course there was never
a real danger. Sons were not punished.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
So there are so many tales of keeping wives in chains,
of torturing them, of pretty much disposing of them keeping
powerful women tamed in golden cages, making these smaller promises
of false power, of men afraid of powerful women, keeping
knowledge of magic to themselves, or punishing women for it
seriously specifically to an island by ourself. And when describing
(35:35):
her niece, the Demi goddess Medea, now that I knew
who she was, such meekness looked absurd on her, like
a great eagle trying to hunch down to fit inside
a sparrow's nest.
Speaker 3 (35:47):
Yeah, yeah, I loved that quote, which brings us to
something we talk about a lot on this show, Women
Getting But first let's pause for one more quick break
for words. I'm a sponsor, and we're back, Thank you sponsor.
(36:16):
And yes, we are back with women getting revenge because
there are so many instances of it and revenge in general,
but specifically in this case, women getting revenge. Uh, You've
got Circe's sister cursing her husband for cheating by turning
his sperm into stinging insects that killed.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
The women who slept with Which sounds.
Speaker 1 (36:37):
Or which is really funny that it killed the woman
instead of him? I guess it.
Speaker 3 (36:40):
Yes again again, women punishing other women and seeing disposable
women is disposable. Then of course there's Searcy killing and
burning the man who raped her and turning his crew
into pigs. After that, she punishes any man who come
to her island with the same which she turns into pigs,
especially when they learned she's a one alone and they
(37:02):
do not care that she is a goddess. Yeah, she'll
she has like this whole wine set up. She puts
some drug into wine and says the magic word fall asleep,
turn into pigs. And she doesn't stop doing this until Odysseus,
and later admits to herself that she almost lost herself
to cold fury that she was turning men into pigs indiscriminately.
(37:24):
And that is another recurrent theme in the book Regret,
And that's one of my favorite quotes is do not
take my regret from me.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
M M.
Speaker 2 (37:32):
I like that.
Speaker 1 (37:33):
So here's another quote, mistress. It was later again, when
will your husband be home? We would toast such fine hospitality,
I laughed, Oh, I do not have a husband. He
smiled back. Of course, he said, you're too young to
be married. Then it is your father. We must think.
It was full dark outside and the room glowed warm
and bright. My father was far away, I said, I
(37:54):
waited for them to ask who he was a liplighter.
That would be a good gest, I smelled myself. And
perhaps there's some other hosts we should think, an uncle,
a brother, if you would thank your host, I said,
thank me. This house is mine alone. And at that
word the air changed the room.
Speaker 3 (38:12):
Yeah, so this was a really like terrifying because he
was trying to find.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
Out there's a man's probing.
Speaker 5 (38:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (38:18):
Yeah, so that after that seriously is raped by the
captain and then kills him and turns the crew into pigs.
And then we see much later. Here's another quote, Mistress.
The leader would say, do not tell me that such
a beauty as yourself dwells all alone? Oh yes, I
(38:40):
would answer, quite alone, he would smile. He could not
help it. There was never any fear in him. Why
should there be. He had already noted for himself that
there was no man's cloak hanging by the door, no
hunter's bow, no shepherd's staff, no sign of brothers or
fathers or sons. No vengeance would follow after. If I
were valuable to anyone, I would not be allowed to
live alone. Yeah, and that's something that really hurts her too,
(39:06):
is her father surely knew that this was going to happen,
and did happen and did not come. Even though she
is a powerful witch, she is a woman alone in
the world and has to use techniques of self defense
that all women can recognize.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
That.
Speaker 3 (39:21):
That's something else I liked about this book is even
though it's like gods and goddesses, there are these themes
that you're like, no I can relate.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
To her right oh man. Obviously. Another thing that we
have talked about many a times is motherhood, specifically single motherhood,
which is a big part of this book. When Circe
gives birth, she is alone and terrified, more terrified than
she has ever been. She can feel a goddess trying
(39:49):
to hold her baby back to kill it, but she
fights harder than she has ever fought, and after the
baby is born, despite being a difficult baby that cries
and fights, she realizes she would do anything to protect him,
and she does. With her magic, she is able to
keep Athena out. She walks to the darkest stepths of
the ocean and accepts the deal given to her for
unending pain in exchange for the god killing weapon to
(40:11):
protect her son, the weapon that would later kill the
father Odysseus when Telegani's journeys to meet him, causing her
son great pain. And she describes raising her son as
the most difficult of her life. That she's always exhausted,
which I was about right, and her waking hours consumed
with worry and work and letting him go is one
(40:32):
of the hardest things she has ever had to do. Oh,
and she finds so much strength in motherhood. She learns
even she doesn't know just how powerful she is and
just what she can do.
Speaker 3 (40:43):
Yeah, and I loved that too, of her trying to
figure out again she's not mortal. So she's like, oh,
I got to make all these diapers. This isn't enough diapers.
Speaker 2 (40:51):
Oh my god, it's longer again, it's still fear.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
Oh no.
Speaker 3 (40:57):
So I wanted to end on this cue, which I loved.
It is a common saying that women are delicate creatures, flowers, eggs,
anything that may be crushed in a moment's carelessness.
Speaker 2 (41:08):
If I had ever believed it, I no longer did.
Speaker 3 (41:12):
And this is what Circe thinks after talking to a
DC's wife Penelope and Yeah, that whole scene really drives
home out terrifying being a parent can be in this
single motherhood and the strength of women in these stories,
which I loved because yeah, when you read those Greek myths,
(41:34):
they are mostly about like the male heroes and then
the duplicitous like female goddesses messing with things or the
like really attractive young lady that caused.
Speaker 2 (41:47):
A war or something.
Speaker 3 (41:48):
Right, So it was good to get this different take
fleshed out conflicts female characters.
Speaker 1 (41:55):
I loved it, right, they are usually side characters who
just give birth to babies, have gods who oftentimes didn't
have a choice, and being impregnated so.
Speaker 2 (42:07):
Either killed or osta size.
Speaker 1 (42:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (42:13):
Yeah, so I highly recommend it, and we would love
your recommendations for what on next book club pick should be. Yes,
you can send those to our email, which is Stuff
Media Mom Stuff at iHeartMedia dot com. You can also
find us on Instagram at stephone Never Told You or
on Twitter at Momstoff Podcast. Thanks as always to our
(42:35):
super producer Andrew Howard. Oh, thanks Andrew, and thanks to
you for listening. Steffane Never Told You his protection of
iHeartRadio for more podcasts from iHeartRadio visits, iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hey, this is Anny and Samantha.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
I'm welcome to stuff I never told you productuly iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
I try not to do this too often where we
bring back a ton of classics on entertainment because it
feels like we're sort of shifting what the podcast is
just being.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
An entertainment podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
But there's just a lot of stuff going on right
now in the world of entertainment. So I thought I
would bring back this one. This book club we did
on Circe Who if you don't remember, and the book
is Turns Turns Men into Pigs.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Yes it was.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
I remember it being a really fun read, but it
was a longer, a longer book than what we normally choose.
But I thought i'd bring it back because the Odyssey
in theaters right now, and there is so much discussion
about the depiction of women in it, but and seriously
(01:10):
is one of the big ones because they kind of
from what I understand, I haven't seen it, but I
believe she's more in line with this depiction as sort
of the vengeful witch as opposed to how she.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Was in the original Odyssey.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Of that being said, as we know of as a
lot of us I've seen well a lot of talk
about what particular.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Version of the Odyssey you're reading.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
Because people translate it in different ways. So I just
thought this would be an interesting one to bring back
as all of that discussion is happening. Please enjoy this
classic episode.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Hey, this is Annymantha, and welcome to stuff. But I've
never told your protection of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
It is time for our first book club of twenty
twenty one, and my question today for you, Samantha is
were you into Greek mythology I.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Was a kid.
Speaker 4 (02:25):
I was.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
I really was really big into all of that. I
had the encyclopedia stuff, you know how they had the
story version of all of that. Oh, and I would
read those all the times growing up. Of course, I've
kind of forgotten them since then, so I kind of
confused the names because there are similar stories obviously with
different names. So I have a moment of like who.
(02:50):
But I did really enjoy it. As in fact, recently
which I love to see, we saw pretty much a
battle of Xena Warrior Princess versus Hercules, and I'm pretty
sure seen I want slash Lucy Lawless in.
Speaker 5 (03:03):
Their Twitter fight.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
So I just want to put that out there.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
You gotta put that out there.
Speaker 5 (03:09):
I'm just gonna put that.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
What do you think, Well, if you had been a
goddess would have been the goddess.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Of uh, some type of mischieff probably like I definitely
would not have been like the beauty or the loved one.
It's definitely as to cost some kind of mayhem every
now and again. Like I'm I'm absolutely sure how you
have put my dog Peaches in your dn D as
the mischievous, kind hearted but really disastrous uh character in
(03:38):
your thing. I'm pretty sure I would be somewhere along
those lines, which is why I love it.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Yeah, I could see that. I could see you that
for sure.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Because of course nothing really mean.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
Spirited, right Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no, Yeah,
I was. I was huge into Greek mythology. I also
had those uh like books with the like images and
I would trace them out and paint them and I'd
hang them on my wall.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
That was the kind of kid I was.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Y And then I loved this show called Young Hercules,
which I'll said it before. I was on the Ryan
Gosling train before anyone else, because I was a nine
year old writing him a very very embarrassing fan letter
that I hope never made it to him, so that
the eyes were dotted with heart, Samantha. It was a disgrace.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
But you can't get that show anywhere. And I taped
them all like I would get it came on at
three pm, I'd.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
Like run in and tape them. And so now I'm like,
could I like turn to profit? Could I upload these?
Because I got all taped.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
I was gonna say, daddy withheld, because you know, not
all VHS's are in a great condition for viewing.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Well.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
I did.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
The most recent time I watched them was in college,
and there was some they were still you know, skipping around,
and the commercials are still there obviously, but sometimes I
would like fast forward through them, you know, and it
would record that, Uh, it's all a pretty good shape.
I don't have a VCR anymore, though, so I can't
test it. Yeah, this is the issue.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
You need to get. Well, we need a VCR obviously. Yeah.
I'm having flashbacks of me doing the same thing. I
think I did that with Green and of Green Gables,
except it wasn't commercials. It was just a long winded GPB.
Here in the Georgia, they're fundraising because it's one of
the only say it and I would pause, try and
make it the perfect succinct movie.
Speaker 5 (05:40):
I failed. I'm pretty sure.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
I love it. I did that stuff to it. All
of our young girl listeners are like.
Speaker 5 (05:47):
What you no, don't worry about it.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
As a kid, we rented our VCR from the Curtis Mathis.
Speaker 5 (05:54):
That's how old I am.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
I've been rewatching some old Seinfeld episodes and it's been
the technology it has been given me a chuckle.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
But okay.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
Today we were talking about Madeline Miller's twenty eighteen novel Circe,
which a few of you have recommended, and I actually
I really really enjoyed it, so thank you for the recommendation.
And this is a follow up to her previous book,
The Song of Achilles, and she like knows her stuff.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
She has an ma in classic, so uh.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
The book gives the witch from the Greek myth the
Odyssey Circe, a backstory that spans for thousands of years.
And it was really fun for me because I've obviously,
I imagine like most of us, I've read the Odyssey,
but it was a long time ago, so like I
would say, I recognize like half the.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Characters, but I knew all of them.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
I was like, I know, I don't get the power
of this moment, but I know that you're a character,
and I should.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Know what this means. Yep, feel the same way.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
Yeah, And Miller said she got the idea because as
a kid she heard about like this witch you could
turn men into pigs, and she was so excited to
read it, and then the Odyssey it's like fifteen lines
and she was so disappointed.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
So she was like, I'm going to give her a story.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
And yeah, if you need a reminder, that is Cyrus's
role in the Odyssey. She was this witch that turned
Odysseus's men into pigs. But he challenged her and kind
of tricked her with hermes, and she changed them back.
And then her and Odysseus become lovers for a while,
and then she helps them when they leave. Oh and
(07:37):
probably quick disclaimer, we did look up the Greek pronunciations
for things, but it might be a bit.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Of a mess and apologies in her vasis.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
So Miller's work in this book flushes out Circe's story,
everything that brings her to that moment in the Odyssey
and carries her after it, and it reimagines many of
these heroic acts that we've heard in Greek mythology as
orchestrations of Circe or like Circe had something to do
with it. And this character is long inspired writers from
(08:08):
Ovid to James Joyce to Margaret Atwood. Which is actually
a theme in this story that that the men of
these Greek myths told these stories. They they made themselves
heroes in them, and then it was men who passed
those stories on and because of that they were these
men were painted as heroes when more often than not,
(08:30):
you're kind of like, well, it seems like the lady
here or.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
You have saved your life or sacrifice herself for you,
so that seems.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Hmm, yeah, maybe you should mention that, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
And yeah, there are a lot of cameos from famous
Greek mythological characters like Daedalus, Icarus, Jason, Odsius, Hermes, Artemis, Achilles, Paris, Helen, Apollo, Agamemnon, Athena.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Just it was a delight.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
And this book Ads of Now is getting an eight
part HBO mini series anyway.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Yeah, so we wanted to start with obviously the plot,
so the story follows, circe a nymph, or uprised nymphs
were called, but that is not really how the world
saw us. We are an endless feast laid out upon
a table, beautiful and renewing, and so very bad at
getting away, great lines.
Speaker 5 (09:24):
So very bad at getting away. Just a little bit
of almost.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
And she is the daughter of the god of the
Sun and one of the most powerful titans, Helios and
the nymph Percy. She is a witch who can use
plants and words to cast spells. Her family is not
kind to her. They treat her as a lesser. They
describe her voice as frail, the voice of the mortal,
obviously that she's weak and the weakest of the circles.
(09:49):
She's not as beautiful, so therefore she's completely cast aside.
Circey is one of many of Helio's children, including her
cruel sister Passafehi and her brother and the younger brother
that she helped raise eighties. Her family is not kinder,
like we said before, and at one point Helios, her
father burns her in punishment, and throughout the book we
(10:10):
see most we see multiple instances of their cruelty uh
and their desire for power.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
I still love it.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
I love Pacifa sounds like being pacified, and she's like
the officer of us. And in early formative memory, seriously
meets Prometheus just after he has disobeyed Zeus by helping
mortals by showing them fire. So it's the night before
he is to begin his sentence, chained to a rock
(10:38):
for all eternity, each day his liver devoured by an eagle,
only for the liver to regenerate overnight and the whole
process to start all over again, which sounds absolutely miserable.
Seriously witnesses him being whipped, and after everyone else leaves,
including the furies, who also make a cameo, Uh, seriously
brings him nectar even though it is forbidden, and the
(10:59):
two have this six change you aided mortals. I said,
that is why you are punished. It is Will you
tell me what is a mortal?
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Like?
Speaker 3 (11:07):
It was a child's question, but he nodded gravely. There
is no single answer. They are each different. The only
thing they share is death. You know the word, I
know it, I said, but I do not understand. No
God can their bodies crumble and pass into earth? Their
souls turn to cold smoke and fly to the underworld.
There they eat nothing and drink nothing, and feel no warmth.
Everything they reach for slips from their grasp. A chill
(11:29):
shivered across my skin? How do they bear it? As
best they can?
Speaker 1 (11:33):
As best they can? So. While Circe is not powerful
in the traditional goddess sense, she discovers she has a
talent for witchcraft, which we all love. And this is
something she discovers in the Mortal Realm, where she falls
in love with a young fisherman named Glaucos. She uses
her magic to turn them into a god, but finds
that becoming god has made him shallow and cruel. Surprise, surprise,
(11:56):
he shows Sarce no gratitude and pretty much tosses her
away she uses to give her any attention. She also
uses her magic to transform a nymph and a romantic
rival for Glaucos, named Scilla, into a monster to match
her inner personality. Well damn, Silla becomes a behemoth twelve
tentacles and six mouths, guarding a straight in the ocean,
(12:17):
taking six or twelve men from any boat that tends passage.
This is something that haunts Cerce over the years. The
death of the mortals caused by circe spells and the
mindless monster. She's reduced Scilla too.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
Yeah, and Silla was I forgot about Scilla so that
I had to look up, Like, yeah, it's the backstory there.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
I'm not gonna lie because when I read, I just
move on. I kind of didn't give us like a
chick glance other than okay, great monster character next.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
Yeah, So I love this. I love the story behind it.
Zeus feels threatened by Circe's power like King of the
Gods is like.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
No lady could have this power?
Speaker 3 (12:55):
Uh, and commands her father to exile her. Of course
he does, so he does to a small ice slated
island named Aya. So I couldn't find a pronization for that.
That's just get I like it on my part, so
apologies if I'm way off.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Here.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
Circe tames animals like lions and wolves. She grows plants
and herbs. She works on her magic. She learns how
to be independent, to braid her hair back and tie
her skirts up so they wouldn't catch on twigs. She
like learns how to carve and so and all kinds
of things. While there, she encounters many famous figures from
Greek mythology. One of the first to appear is Dadalus,
(13:36):
who arrives via boat to summon her to attend to
her sister's birth, and Circe is furious about this, but
also wants to take the rare chance to break her exile,
as first she knows it could be here her only chance.
This journey, of course, required that they pass Silah. Dadalus's
crew had already lost men on the way to the island,
(13:57):
but with magic and with her wit is able to
protect the rest of the career. This is also something
that really annoys Sircey because she feels like her sister
totally did that on purpose, that they had to go
that way and sent the boat that way because she knew, like,
you created this monster, here you go. So when they arrive,
Circe learns that her sister, who is married to Minos,
(14:19):
the king of Crete, has sired a monster with one
of her and Circe's father's sacred white bulls. With Circe's help,
she gives birth to the minotaur. Circe has a heated
confrontation with her sister where sister lays bare how she
sees the world and the golden cages of men that
(14:39):
they both inhabit, the horrors and injustices they both had
to navigate because of the men in their lives, and
how she thought she and Sarce were alike, and how
she was disappointed actually that they weren't close there as children,
which I really loved that whole exchange and the argument
shakes CIRs like the fact that her sister says that
they have something in is like, oh.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Yeah, this is that I don't like this. So Circe
learns that Daedalus and his son Chris are in prison.
In Daedalus and Sarce have sex, obviously, with Circe's help,
he builds a mazed to trap the Minotaur, a creature
meant to frighten the citizens of Crete and keep them
under control. Now, Daedalus also gives Sarce with a beautiful
loom that she takes with her back to her island,
(15:23):
and later Circe learns that Icris died during their escape attempt,
flying too close to the sun and destroying his wings,
and Daedalus dies soon after from heartbreak.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
Supposedly, yeah, one of the next people to visit her
island is Medea, her brother i e T's daughter, and
her husband Jason. Medea begs Circe for a ritual to
wash them clean of blood and crime, and they kind
of do this before revealing who they are, so Circe does,
but she learns the story of what brought them there,
(15:55):
that in order to protect Jason, Medea had helped him
accomplish several including stealing the Golden fleece, and as they
fled her very angry father, she dismembered her brother and
tossed him into the sea, knowing her father would have
to stop in his pursuit to perform the rites for.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Her deceased brother.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
Searcy tries to convince Medea that Jason Is people will
not welcome her, that she will regret going with them,
that Medea should stay with her, but Medea lais and
to Circe, essentially calling her lonely and pathetic and trapped.
Desperately trying to keep Medea trapped next to her. She
also reveals the depth of it ET's cruelty, perhaps the
(16:40):
only family member Sercey had a close relation to at
one time, telling Circe that he hates women. Medea leaves
with Jason the next day, and later Circe finds out
that an enraged Medea killed her and Jason's children after
Jason betrayed her, unwilling to let any one have them
(17:00):
but her, and then returned to the realm of the gods.
Speaker 4 (17:05):
Uh yeah she lived along then Yeah yeah who uh
And during all of this, by the way, Circe learned
most of this information from Hermes, whom she had an
on and off affair with for over one hundred years,
So like she would learn about Daedalus from him or
(17:26):
Medea from him.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
But he treated her like a game and she grew
to detest him before ending.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
Mean, she didn't really like him either, but yeah, they didn't.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Seem to like each other. It was just sort of
a thing that.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
You're here, I'm here, okay, okay. Sure. So Circe's cut
by Media's words, and she starts to open her island
to lost sailors looking for food and rests. On one
such occasion, the captain rapes her when he finds out
she's alone on the island, and before the other men
can do likewise, she kills the captain and turns the
rest into pigs. She is so consumed with rage and vengeance,
(18:03):
she turns any man who comes her island into a pig.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
Yes, so here we arrive at the big Odyssey.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Yes, turning them into pigs thing.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
So this doesn't change her turning men who visit her
island at the pigs until the arrival of Odysseus after
Circe transformed his crew into pigs. Odysseus arrives, and he
convinces her to transform his men back and allow them
to stay for several months. Listening to that without reading
the book, you might be like, but hell though, But
(18:34):
then they kind of like immediately hit it off and
had a conversation about it. So Circe and Odysseus become lovers,
and he keeps lengthening his stay longer and longer, like
maybe I'll just stay another month, maybe I'll stay in
the winter.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
And this is despite the fact that Odysseus is, in
his words, happily married and the father to a son
he hasn't seen in many years, and he speaks.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
Fondly of them.
Speaker 3 (18:59):
Eventually, Apolo gives Circe a prophecy about Odysseus, but grudgingly
she shares it with him, and he and his men
return home, and just as he's leaving, ciriusly realizes she
is pregnant with his child old Row. Yeah, here's what CEUs,
he thinks when she hears the stories and poems of
her meeting with Odysseus later quote, I was not surprised
(19:20):
by the portrait of myself the proud, which undone before
the hero's sword, kneeling and begging for mercy. Humbling women
seems to me a chief pastime for poets, as if
there can be no story unless we crawl and weep.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
That speaks volumes, and the experience of giving birth is tumultuous.
Is a tumultuous one that circe undertakes alone, and when
she realizes something is preventing her child from being born,
she cuts it from her stomach usual magic. She learns
that the godess Athena is determined to kill her son
Telegonus to prevent something he does in the future. Sarcey
(19:55):
does not back down and instead uses extremely powerful and
taxing magic toward the island so that no god or
goddess can set foot on her island.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
Right and raising Telegonis proves to be a very arduous task.
He is an angry, difficult child that shapes at her
protection like he's always trying to run away and she's
always like, oh, you're staying right here by my side, never,
and he's constantly looking to the horizon for adventure. As
he grows a little older, he does he mellows out.
(20:25):
He becomes a sweet, curious child, but there's still that
thirst to go to go somewhere, and Circe tells him
these really sanitized tales of his father's adventures, which he
just eats up and anything that isn't flattering, even in
the slightest bit. He corrects her, telling her his father
was noble and.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Or heroic, he could never do anything wrong.
Speaker 3 (20:49):
When he's fifteen, Circe learns that, with the help of Hermes,
which she's not happy about it at all, Telegonis has
been constructing a boat in order to sail to the
Kingdom of the Cut to meet his father Odysseus.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
Circe tries very hard.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
Convince him not to, reminding him of Athena's determination to
kill him that he'll be leaving the protection of the island,
but despite her terror, Telegonus is determined and naive, so
she weaves spells around and protection spells, and she marches
to the darkest, coldest, deepest depths of the waters to
confront one of its deadliest creatures, challenging it for its
(21:27):
goddess killing tail. It offers to give it to her
if she would touch the poison and condemn herself to
a life of eternal pain. She does so, but to
her shock, the pain does not come. The creature informs
her no one has ever passed the test before, and
commands her to cut off the tail.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
She has won she can take the prize. She does so.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
She feels very uncomfortable, but she does do it, and
she fashions the tail into a goddess killing spear, although
it could really kill just about anything, that she gives
to her son.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
It's a spear, Yes, they can. He leaves, but returns
shortly after with Odysseus's wife Penelope and his son Telemachus.
Turns out Odysseus went mad without war to distract him,
killing subjects and any who would dare defy him. Surprise surprise.
When Telgonus arrived, he mistook him for an attacker, and
Telegonius accidentally killed him with the spear oops. As Odysseus died,
(22:26):
Telegonus told him he was his son, and instead of
staying on in Ithaca, Penelope and Telemachus wanted to accompany
him to the island of his mother and of the
lover the Odysseus had told him about. Circe is immediately
suspicious that they want to kill her son, but after
confronting them separately, she learns of odysseus poor treatment of
his family, of his deterioration on Ithaca that impacted Telegonus
(22:50):
and Penelope too, and Circe also learns that Athena intends
to have Telemachus take Odysseus's place as her champion, and
that's why Penelope brought him there so she could have
time to repair their relationship, and Sarcey agrees to give
them a few months only after ensuring an oh of
protection from Athena for her son, which is appropriate. Time
(23:11):
passes and Sarcey drops the protection. Athena offers Telemachus a
chance to build a kingdom and rule, but he turns
it down, so Athena turns to Telegonus is dead and
he accepts even though it hurts, and she's scared, even
though it hurts her, and she's scared, Sarcey lets him go.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
Yeah, And if you're curious, like uh, Athena was trying
to prevent the death of Odysseus, who was her champion,
and so she saw Telegonus was going to kill him
with the spear that her Circe made to protect him,
and all he wanted was to meet his dad. But
now that Odysseus is dead, she really doesn't care about
Telegonus are killing him anymore?
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Right?
Speaker 3 (23:50):
She wants Telemachus, But then she flips real quick til
Marcus is like, nah.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
All right, then I'll go to tele.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
So after Telegana sleeves, Circe confronts her father and blackmails
him to lift her exile. When he tells her not
to bring shame to the family, she tells him to
count her out of it. He's like, you are the
least of my four children, and she's like, well, how
about you just say you have three.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Children and just leave me out of the whole thing.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
She teaches Penelope the basics of witchcraft and then journeys
with tell Macchus. First to Scilla, where she uses a
potion to turn her to stone and and her misery
and her reign of terror. Then to the beach where
she first found the plants that allowed her to turn
Glaucos into a god, also her first foray into witchcraft.
Really she picks them. Her and Telmachus become lovers, which
(24:42):
was probably the biggest surprise in the whole thing to me,
and they return to the island where Penelope has really
taken to this witch thing and houses all wayward nip
daughters that this was a bunch of thing, that a
task that was put on Circe, but she shunned it.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
And refused to do it.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
After a while, Andelopie has picked it back up. Sirs
plants one of the flowers on the island to see
if it might grow, and then she imbibes the west,
wishing to become a mortal. She sees a vision of
a future with Telemachus where they love each other and
have two daughters, that they travel, which is something they've
always wanted to do. They go to seed Telegonus and
(25:20):
that one day she dies, and that is the end.
And here here's the quote overhead the constellation's dip and wheel.
My divinity shines in me like the last rays of
the sun before they drown in the sea. I thought
once that gods are the opposite of death, but I
see now they are more dead than anything, for they
are unchanging and can hold nothing in their hands. All
(25:43):
my life, I've been moving forward, and now I am here.
I have a mortal's voice. Let me have the rest.
I lift the brimming bowl to my lips and drink.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
Boom. Yeah's another Creek Also tragedy.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
A tragic tragedy, as they say, there were certainly tragic moments,
but yeah, it was pretty powerful overall. But now let's
talk about some themes. But first let's pause for a
quick break for word from our sponsor.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Am We're sponsor yup, and it's time for themes. So
let's go ahead and jump into the power and obviously heroes.
So recurring theme throughout is the idea of heroes and
the people behind them and their stories. Again we talked
about with Greek myths. There's many A heroes, many A villains.
Again and again we learn that they are complex people
with flaws. More than the gloss over legends we read
(26:50):
growing up and more often than not, there was a
woman or many women behind them.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
Yeah, and you see this especially with Odseus when we
learn about him through the lens of those who knew him.
So Telegonis had this beautiful, perfect story as head of
who his father was, the one in the stories we've
all read, and this is his mother was telling him
these stories. But Telemachus, who had grew up with him,
well no he hadn't grown up with him, but he
had seen him when he returned, had this really unflinching,
(27:20):
violent reality that he saw, as does circ although for
her she interpreted it somewhat differently, coming from the world
of gods and goddesses, and her interpretation changes when she
hears the pain it caused Telemachus, which.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
Was a really interesting thing.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
So through them we see a more complex character who
did have these amazing qualities but also was quite quite flawed.
This character who needed these adventures, these one time experiences,
as seriously calls them, to be like the first, to
be as close to immortality as possible, to be the
hero in these stories and is absolutely willing to hurt
(27:59):
others to achieve it and paint that as a heroic act.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
And another thing woman throughout is power and what it
can look like, abuse of power and the limitations on
how people can achieve it, especially for women. Many of
the powerful women in the book are limited by the
men in their lives and punish if they transgress seriously.
Was banished by our father after our Power's frightened the Zeus,
her sister, tells of the depths of pain and sacrifice
(28:23):
she's made to hold on to power and to please
the cruel men in her life. Power in the thirst
of it drives these violent, crueland or thoughtless gods and
goddesses and many of the heroes in their orbit right.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
And another big theme in this book is loneliness and immortality,
and I thought, I thought the author did a really
good job of that because it would be difficult to
write for someone who just has such a different perspective
on what it is to be alive and not to
have that fear. And I think the biggest for me,
(28:59):
the biggest point of that where it was like, oh wow,
this would be very strange experience for a goddess is
when she gave birth and she's like, oh my god, anything.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
Could kill this child, Like she didn't really have to
worry about that.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
But so let's talk about loneliness first, especially as it
does pertain to immortality. Circe spends centuries alone and isolated,
and it leads her to make choices. She later regrets
her affair with Hermes, when she once treasured his slights
as crumbs, letting down her guard around men that led
(29:33):
to her rape, her absolute determination not to let her
son leave her side. Her immortality also influences how she
sees people, and throughout the book we see her mature
and age over centuries and what I thought was a
really fascinating way because she has just such a longer
arc of time than we do, like we see her
(29:56):
counsel media and telegonis, for example, on mistakes that she
made in her youth only should be ignored, of course,
and the mortality of those she loves terrifies her and
saddens her. And yeah, you see that when her first
her child is born and everything becomes really dangerous, everything
is one heart beat less taking him away from her.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
On top of the loneliness, there's a layer of betrayal
and abandonment, especially by the men in Sertuce's life, whether
it's her father, her brother, her lover, and this is
often after Sarce puts these men first. Male relationships take
precedent over sisterly relationships or mother daughter of relationships. For instance,
Cirrusly spends much of her time with her family, trying
(30:41):
to please her father to care for her younger brother,
and when she gets older, she learns that her sister
wanted a relationship with her surprise. Although it's understandable why
cirrus is shied away from her, yeah, because you know,
they kind of hated each other. This is something that
changes as seriously ages, and at the end she rejects
her father, we evaluate her younger brother and comes to
(31:03):
see at least a little bit of herself in the
women Throughout. Many women who start as antagonists ends as
something more.
Speaker 3 (31:12):
Right, and that brings us to attitudes towards women that
we see in these books. In this book, the women
are almost always the ones that are punished or the
women lash out against men or women as a way
to feel like they aren't in prison, there's a way
to feel like they have some kind of power or agency.
(31:33):
Women are seen as pawns for the men to dole
out and chain in one way or another. There's a
lot of slut shaming too, and also a lot of
judging of Circe is basically a weird witch spinster. L
Another thing we see a lot of is women fighting women,
and I mean, like even in the beginning with Circe
and Scylla, which Circe does kind of by the end
(31:56):
of the book, that's like one of her final acts
is the book end that she goes and tries to
make that right. And most of the women who do
succeed in this world do so through cruelty, like Circe's sister,
are kind of by like Circe's sister, I just found
her so fascinating because she kind of she didn't really succeed,
(32:18):
but she was as close as I imagine you can
get in this like really male dominated world. And that's
why she was so cruel and cut you to the bone,
because she had to play the game and she was
miserable for like she said, she talked about all the
pains she went through and the sacrifices she made, but
she was also like, yeah, pretty terrible, and yes, these
(32:44):
women were often cruel to other women.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
And I remember I wrote this.
Speaker 3 (32:50):
Down on a notepad when I was reading it and
I just wanted to put it in here because there's
definitely a vibe of lady, get married or you are
nothing and if no one wants to marry you, you're nothing.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Wow. It was pretty powerful. I mean throughout the.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
Entire book, all the women are definitely pandering. Two men
that hired heroic man.
Speaker 3 (33:12):
Really again, they were the ones probably behind the whole thing,
and take.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
Care less if they were there or not. So going
back to that hero worship thing, we see so many
men taking credit for women's work and making themselves the
hero of the story. Is particularly exemplified in the marriage
between Jason and Medea, after Medea had used magic to
save him again and again and pretty much got that
(33:38):
golden fleece for him. Yet when he tells the story,
he's obviously the hero, and people remember him as the
hero and pass that story on.
Speaker 5 (33:47):
It's written.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
She Medea was silent alone moment one of Jason let
him be a hero. You are something else?
Speaker 5 (33:55):
And what is that?
Speaker 2 (33:57):
In my mind?
Speaker 1 (33:57):
I saw us already our husband together over the purple
flowers of Aconite, the black roots of Molly. I would
rescue her from her tainted pass, of which I said
with unbound power, who need answer to none but herself.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
But Medea says me, and we're holding off about that
more or later. Then there's the fact that Cirrus lies
to her son about the acts of his father DC
used to protect the child's image of him. And it
really emphasizes, at least to me, that's saying behind every
gay man, there is a woman. There's also many instances
(34:33):
of women making sacrifices that go ignored for love, only
to be discarded are otherwise punished. Also in that example
with Media and Jason, Jason, even at this early stage,
was clearly scared of Medea like in her power, and
was already kind of trying to distance himself even though
she'd gotten him that fleece pretty much. Here's another quote.
(34:57):
The nymphs wafted around me. There's smothered laughter drifted down
on the halls. At least I told myself it was
not their brothers who would have bragged and fought and
hunted down my wolves. But of course there was never
a real danger. Sons were not punished.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
So there are so many tales of keeping wives in chains,
of torturing them, of pretty much disposing of them keeping
powerful women tamed in golden cages, making these smaller promises
of false power, of men afraid of powerful women, keeping
knowledge of magic to themselves, or punishing women for it
seriously specifically to an island by ourself. And when describing
(35:35):
her niece, the Demi goddess Medea, now that I knew
who she was, such meekness looked absurd on her, like
a great eagle trying to hunch down to fit inside
a sparrow's nest.
Speaker 3 (35:47):
Yeah, yeah, I loved that quote, which brings us to
something we talk about a lot on this show, Women
Getting But first let's pause for one more quick break
for words. I'm a sponsor, and we're back, Thank you sponsor.
(36:16):
And yes, we are back with women getting revenge because
there are so many instances of it and revenge in general,
but specifically in this case, women getting revenge. Uh, You've
got Circe's sister cursing her husband for cheating by turning
his sperm into stinging insects that killed.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
The women who slept with Which sounds.
Speaker 1 (36:37):
Or which is really funny that it killed the woman
instead of him? I guess it.
Speaker 3 (36:40):
Yes again again, women punishing other women and seeing disposable
women is disposable. Then of course there's Searcy killing and
burning the man who raped her and turning his crew
into pigs. After that, she punishes any man who come
to her island with the same which she turns into pigs,
especially when they learned she's a one alone and they
(37:02):
do not care that she is a goddess. Yeah, she'll
she has like this whole wine set up. She puts
some drug into wine and says the magic word fall asleep,
turn into pigs. And she doesn't stop doing this until Odysseus,
and later admits to herself that she almost lost herself
to cold fury that she was turning men into pigs indiscriminately.
(37:24):
And that is another recurrent theme in the book Regret,
And that's one of my favorite quotes is do not
take my regret from me.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
M M.
Speaker 2 (37:32):
I like that.
Speaker 1 (37:33):
So here's another quote, mistress. It was later again, when
will your husband be home? We would toast such fine hospitality,
I laughed, Oh, I do not have a husband. He
smiled back. Of course, he said, you're too young to
be married. Then it is your father. We must think.
It was full dark outside and the room glowed warm
and bright. My father was far away, I said, I
(37:54):
waited for them to ask who he was a liplighter.
That would be a good gest, I smelled myself. And
perhaps there's some other hosts we should think, an uncle,
a brother, if you would thank your host, I said,
thank me. This house is mine alone. And at that
word the air changed the room.
Speaker 3 (38:12):
Yeah, so this was a really like terrifying because he
was trying to find.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
Out there's a man's probing.
Speaker 5 (38:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (38:18):
Yeah, so that after that seriously is raped by the
captain and then kills him and turns the crew into pigs.
And then we see much later. Here's another quote, Mistress.
The leader would say, do not tell me that such
a beauty as yourself dwells all alone? Oh yes, I
(38:40):
would answer, quite alone, he would smile. He could not
help it. There was never any fear in him. Why
should there be. He had already noted for himself that
there was no man's cloak hanging by the door, no
hunter's bow, no shepherd's staff, no sign of brothers or
fathers or sons. No vengeance would follow after. If I
were valuable to anyone, I would not be allowed to
live alone. Yeah, and that's something that really hurts her too,
(39:06):
is her father surely knew that this was going to happen,
and did happen and did not come. Even though she
is a powerful witch, she is a woman alone in
the world and has to use techniques of self defense
that all women can recognize.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
That.
Speaker 3 (39:21):
That's something else I liked about this book is even
though it's like gods and goddesses, there are these themes
that you're like, no I can relate.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
To her right oh man. Obviously. Another thing that we
have talked about many a times is motherhood, specifically single motherhood,
which is a big part of this book. When Circe
gives birth, she is alone and terrified, more terrified than
she has ever been. She can feel a goddess trying
(39:49):
to hold her baby back to kill it, but she
fights harder than she has ever fought, and after the
baby is born, despite being a difficult baby that cries
and fights, she realizes she would do anything to protect him,
and she does. With her magic, she is able to
keep Athena out. She walks to the darkest stepths of
the ocean and accepts the deal given to her for
unending pain in exchange for the god killing weapon to
(40:11):
protect her son, the weapon that would later kill the
father Odysseus when Telegani's journeys to meet him, causing her
son great pain. And she describes raising her son as
the most difficult of her life. That she's always exhausted,
which I was about right, and her waking hours consumed
with worry and work and letting him go is one
(40:32):
of the hardest things she has ever had to do. Oh,
and she finds so much strength in motherhood. She learns
even she doesn't know just how powerful she is and
just what she can do.
Speaker 3 (40:43):
Yeah, and I loved that too, of her trying to
figure out again she's not mortal. So she's like, oh,
I got to make all these diapers. This isn't enough diapers.
Speaker 2 (40:51):
Oh my god, it's longer again, it's still fear.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
Oh no.
Speaker 3 (40:57):
So I wanted to end on this cue, which I loved.
It is a common saying that women are delicate creatures, flowers, eggs,
anything that may be crushed in a moment's carelessness.
Speaker 2 (41:08):
If I had ever believed it, I no longer did.
Speaker 3 (41:12):
And this is what Circe thinks after talking to a
DC's wife Penelope and Yeah, that whole scene really drives
home out terrifying being a parent can be in this
single motherhood and the strength of women in these stories,
which I loved because yeah, when you read those Greek myths,
(41:34):
they are mostly about like the male heroes and then
the duplicitous like female goddesses messing with things or the
like really attractive young lady that caused.
Speaker 2 (41:47):
A war or something.
Speaker 3 (41:48):
Right, So it was good to get this different take
fleshed out conflicts female characters.
Speaker 1 (41:55):
I loved it, right, they are usually side characters who
just give birth to babies, have gods who oftentimes didn't
have a choice, and being impregnated so.
Speaker 2 (42:07):
Either killed or osta size.
Speaker 1 (42:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (42:13):
Yeah, so I highly recommend it, and we would love
your recommendations for what on next book club pick should be. Yes,
you can send those to our email, which is Stuff
Media Mom Stuff at iHeartMedia dot com. You can also
find us on Instagram at stephone Never Told You or
on Twitter at Momstoff Podcast. Thanks as always to our
(42:35):
super producer Andrew Howard. Oh, thanks Andrew, and thanks to
you for listening. Steffane Never Told You his protection of
iHeartRadio for more podcasts from iHeartRadio visits, iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts,
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