Book Review: "Medea" by Rosie Hewlett

”And I also know how they will tell his story. It is the same for any woman who defies their place in this world. Jason will be the hero, and you? They’ll either make you his adoring, lovesick damsel or they’ll make you the villain. Those are the only roles they feel comfortable with us occupying.”

- Medea by Rosie Hewlett

It is probably high time that I read yet another Greek Mythology retelling. When it comes to these, my go-to books are usually the ones that are as big as physically possible (you really want to be getting lost in that retelling all night). When it comes to authors, I think many of us respect and love the works of Mary Renault and her contemporaries: Jennifer Saint, Madeline Miller, Constanza Casati and the more recent Phoenicia Rogerson. Rosie Hewlett is about to become one of those women who are now becoming quite the myths themselves as they pen the lives of forgotten women from the age old storybooks. It really is a woman's genre, written by women for women and honestly - I cannot get enough of it. I never thought I would enjoy something that seemed so based in something else, so pastiche and yet here I am basically gobbling them up.

Medea centres on the woman we all know as she who married Jason of the Argonauts and then savagely killed her children. However, we know little else about her from myth except for the fact that (in the same style as Clytemnestra), she is presented as a villain. In Rosie Hewlett's story, she has an entire backstory in which she is practically abused by those who are supposed to care for her whilst she grows up. She becomes a figure of despondency and sadness. Then she meets Jason.

Jason is a manipulative and vile man who though I may have said he is 'nothing like the way he is in the original story', when I really think about it he is presented exactly the way he is in the original story. Bossy, abrupt, arrogant and psychologically abusive, this selfish man takes Medea by the hand and makes her life feel so small in comparison to his own. The rage builds from within and it is our thanks that Jason does not yet know how strong and terrifying Medea can be.

One thing I loved about this book is that it is clearly a type of 'good for her' story, but its not the same one we se normally. In this, we have a woman who is clearly villainous with her witchcraft bestowed by Hecate and taught to her by Circe and her husband's behaviour would turn any woman villain witch or not. Her villainy though, much like Clytemnestra, does not dull the fact that this story is about her and how she had to do what was necessary to ensure her own survival. And so, it asks those age old questions that we continue to ask ourselves: how far would you go to ensure your own survival and would this mean discarding people who got in your way in the most horrific way you can think of?

Another thing I enjoyed about this book is the way it was written. You really feel an aura of Medea's supernatural attributes when you read it and yet, every character has their own aura in the writing. One of these characters is the airy, poetic and romantic Orpheus of the Eurydice Myth. Orpheus is always a great character to include in your Greek Mythology retelling because he is such a tragic figure. I encountered him as well in 'Herc' by Phoenicia Rogerson and there was the same thing - a poetic and romantic tragic hero who speaks with an almost musical quality.

All in all, I found this book to be one of the better Greek Mythology retellings and so, I will definitely be looking out for more books by the same author. If you like Greek Mythology retellings as well, then can I highly recommend some of the ones I have mentioned in the introduction, for they are pretty amazing. Let's all gear up for this new wild craze of literature that is upon us.