Alcestis

Way back in the day, the ancient Greeks understood Alcestis as, quite literally, the perfect wife: In the story, when the time comes for her husband to die, she offers to go in his place. Three days later, Herakles travels to the Underworld and wrestles Death to bring her home. She has a kid or two, and that's basically all those ancient Greeks got to hear from Alcestis. Luckily for us, we get to hear a lot more about Alcestis, thanks to Katharine Beutner and her debut novel, Alcestis. Beutner is like a god, taking the stick figure the Greeks gave her and turning it into a flesh-and-blood woman, one who not only loves but also hates and fears and grieves. We see Alcestis's childhood and adolescence, the fear she feels for her father and the love she has for her sister. We see her courted by and subsequently married to Admetus, a man who adores his wife but loves the god Apollo. But most exciting, we see her in the Underworld, falling into a volatile, love-hate relationship with its queen, Persephone, and an even more complicated relationship with its king, Hades. But Alcestis isn't really the star here. The star is Beutner herself. After all, it is she, not Alcestis, who brings Alcestis to life. It is through her luscious, almost hedonistic writing that Alcestis, the Greek landscape, and its mythology come alive. The prose is physical, grounded in observable reality, but the descriptions never drag or drown or suffocate. The book acts like a verbal teleportation device, because the details are so effortlessly pulled and beautifully drawn that it's almost impossible not to see and feel and taste Greece, from the celebratory feasts to the parched air to the touch of a sister or a lover. But it is not writing alone that makes Alcestis stand out; it's also the world Beutner creates, a world so real that it's hard to believe Beutner didn't live it herself. Sometimes we forget that what we call `mythology' was religion for the Greeks. It's hard for us to shake the images of mythology popularized by modern culture (I'm looking at you, Disney's Hercules), but Beutner's integration and normalization of mythology into the narrative here is spectacular. She does this mostly through Alcestis's voice. If she feels a breeze, she makes an aside about the local wind god. If the waves rush up the beach and splash her, it's Poseidon's blessing. To explain her grief after her sister's death, Alcestis invokes (and retcons) the Narcissus myth. Of course, Beutner doesn't stop with religion. She integrates virtually every facet of life in Greece, from the dress to the cuisine to the treatment of women, into the story, and she refuses to shy away or judge any of it. It is so easy to think a retelling of the Alcestis myth will be an indictment of the horrible way the Greeks treated their women, and Beutner certainly brings that to light here. Her Alcestis is subversive and revolutionary and liberating. But Beutner never accuses or judges the culture itself, never rai

Alcestis is a wonderful first novel from Katharine Beutner, and the only reason I mention it as a first is just because it amazes me that someone can be this good right out of the starting gate. Alcestis' husband, the mortal lover of Apollo has been granted the boon of one refusal to death providing someone steps forward to take his place. Death comes, no one steps forward. Sensing the shame that would befall her husband if no one died for him, Alcestis steps forward. Hermes takes her to the underworld. In the telling of the myth we aren't told of her time with Hades and Persephone, and that is what's at the center of this retelling. I'm not going to give anything away, but the imagining of the underworld with its shades and sovereigns is wonderfully written. I've read a number of "retellings" of various myths, and the common strategy seems to be to approach them with a high degree of irony, even burlesque, and to treat the gods and goddesses like actors in a soap opera. It's amusing at first, and then tiresome. I think the strategy stems from a modern inability to give the gods their due; and I think it's a form of hubris - an overbearing pride in being human, modern, and sophisticated. But, at least for westerners, the Greeks made us, and it doesn't do to mock our parents. Katharine Beutner (who, by the way, seems to have the perfect education for this work - a BA in the classics and an MA in creative writing) has the courage to take Alcestis' story head on, enriching it, and enriching us. This is an easy, bur fascinating and lovely read with some high moments of fantasy, that may have been written with a young audience in mind, but it gave this old guy a few wonderful hours in ancient Greece, and the drifting world that lies above, below, around, and beyond our every day.

This book amazed me. And really, I didn't expect much: it was advertised as a retelling of the Alcestis myth (perfect wife goes to underworld in place of husband) as written by a twenty-something grad student in Austin. I thought it might be mildly interesting and readable. Imagine my shock when almost immediately upon starting, I was swept totally into the ancient world. The writing was so good that it was literally transparent in places, and it was as though I were actually living that life. The story opens at the birth of Alcestis. We see her at various times during her early years, and are especially moved at the death of a favorite sister. Alcestis really cannot stop grieving. As she moves into her teen years and then marriage, we feel we know her very well. Well, this story is so well known that there is no spoiler to say that she indeed goes to the underworld in place of her husband. But that is where the story truly begins in so many ways (and where a spoiler must be avoided here!). In the myth we don't really know anything that happens to her before Hercules comes to her rescue. But this 3-day period is a major part of this novel, as Alcestis searches for her lost sister and confronts the gods of the underworld. When I finished this book at 5:00 this morning (yes, I read it through), I desperately hoped that this author has many more such wonders ahead of her. It is really a great feeling to be at the birth of such a possible publishing life!

The ancient Greeks held up Alcestis as a model of wifely devotion. Her husband, Admetus, was spared from death on the condition that someone else die in his place. When Admetus' relatives and friends refused, Alcestis volunteered herself and made the journey to the underworld, but was later rescued by Heracles. In her debut novel, a poignant literary fantasy, Katharine Beutner fleshes out the figure of Alcestis, and gives her a backstory that helps explain her willingness to sacrifice herself. Beutner's Alcestis has always lived in the shadow of death, starting with her mother's death in childbirth. Then, as a child, Alcestis loses her favorite sister, Hippothoe, to asthma. When her father remarries, Alcestis forges a bond with her new stepmother and later with her half-sisters, but she still misses Hippothoe terribly and sneaks out of the palace to visit her grave whenever she can. Later, Alcestis marries her cousin Admetus, but their wedding night is marred by a near-fatal encounter with poisonous snakes. Admetus is spooked, and between that and his love for the god Apollo, he's a little distant from his wife. Yet Alcestis has never seen any reason to hope for more from a marriage. Beutner paints a vivid picture of a world where women have few rights. This is not done in a heavy-handed way; Beutner's portrayal of ancient Greek misogyny is all the more horrifying because of the matter-of-fact way it is presented. A wedding celebration that continues in its merry dancing even when an unmistakable scream pierces through the music; a father praying for his newborn child but never bothering to name the wife who just bore the child, and pointedly not mentioning to the gods that the baby is female; these things serve to remind us that Alcestis' world is not our own. And Alcestis is a product of her times. She knows she is considered property to be handed from one man to another, and she doesn't like it, but she doesn't develop an anachronistic grrl-power attitude. This is also a world where gods walk among men and women. Alcestis herself is the granddaughter of Poseidon, whom she has met only once: "Mostly I remembered Poseidon's thick sea-clogged smell, and the way his black hair lay dull and damp against his skull, and the pattern of drips he'd left on the floors, like stories marked out in the stars." Gods drift in and out of human lives, siring children and breaking hearts, not knowing (or not caring) what havoc they wreak. When Alcestis descends into the underworld, she too is swept into a divine love affair, but an unusual one; she becomes the plaything of the goddess Persephone. Persephone is not likable, but I think that's the whole point. You can love gods, and fear them, but you don't do anything so cozy and mundane as like them. I also think, though I may be stretching, that Persephone's mercurial personality may be a reflection on the nature of storytelling. Persephone is sometimes said to have been claimed by Hades against her will,

This falls into the fantasy genre, I think. I normally read historical fiction, but my interest in Greek mythology caused me to pick this up. I have kept my personal tastes in mind while writing this review. The first half of this novel is wonderful. Readers meet Alcestis, grand daughter of Poseidon, god of the sea. Alcestis's mother died birthing her and her father is a cruel man who really has nothing to do with his daughters. Therefore, Alcestis grows attached to her sisters, and one in particular, Hippothoe. When Hippothoe dies of what nowdays would be called an asthma attack, Alcestis must overcome her grief and while doing so, she comes of age for marriage. A persistant suitor wins her hand thanks to the god Apollo. Alcestis marries and discovers her husband and Apollo, the sun god, have more than a mere god and mortal relationship. An even bigger surprise is in store for her tho when Hermes comes to take her husband to the Underworld (land of the dead) and Alcestis goes in his place. The second half takes place in the Underworld, the land of three headed dogs and gates with minds of the their own. Here, Alcestis begins a cat and mouse game with Persophone, goddess of the Underworld. They begin a lusty and often hateful relationship. What I did not like about the last half of the book is everyone begins speaking in riddles. It takes poor Alcestis forever to find her dead sister. Or will she find her at all? A good debut.