Having read both The Song of Achilles and Circe by Madeline Miller, I have decided I am a STAND (like a serious fan). Her writing is…full of pathos. Beautiful. Mysterious. Haunting. So when I saw that Tika has Galatea on her online shop, I had to get it.
Random fact: I think of Dido’s Lament by Purcell every time I read a Madeline Miller book.
Alright so Galatea was also the first book I (ehem) annotated! At first I wanted to annotate something longer, but I had just finished A Conjuring of Light (after binging the trilogy) and I needed something small, short, to the point, and full of female power to help me get over the hang up of the Darker Shades of Magic series. Galatea did so wonderfully.
Beware the smooth surface
Galatea’s creator hubby is truly an ass. From the beginning my comment was KILL HIM NOW. STAB. DIE YOU PIG. And I’m so glad that was indeed what happened. Of course, since its Madeline Miller, things happened in a more beautiful way. Even death. But it remains: Galatea did her husband in. Go stone girl. Their death was evoking (sinking into the sea) and as a diver I’m not gonna look at any sunken underwater statue in the same way again.
Of a special feature is the author’s note on this short story, in which she dissects Ovid’s original tale of Pygmalion (Galatea’s husband). As the author says, in Ovid’s original telling, the woman doesn’t even get a name. Here Madeline Miller backhands him when she doesn’t give Galatea’s husband a name. Take that!
Alright, I’m so excited for Madeline Miller’s retelling of Persephone!
