Ithaca

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I’ve never read a story that has Penelope feeling ambivalence or anything but a deep and lasting love and passion for her husband. Ithaca is a vibrant and fresh revival; Telemachus's struggles are illuminated through the use of his own voice. But no one man is strong enough to claim the throne outright, and with Pirates plundering her shores, Penelope goes to the only people she can truly trust. When the others are dead and gone, when Clytemnestra’s body is burnt and Penelope has breathed her last, only Elektra will remain, the last woman to carry my fire. We know, of course, that Penelope is holding down the palace in Ithaca, fending off suitors left and right.

So yes, it's about war, too, and what war does to the women left behind, stuck in a culture that tells them they can do nothing even when there is no one else left to do it.

She’s far from made sympathetic by the author, she’s every bit as tempestuous and powerful as she is in a lot of stories. It would then only shift the narrative from the men to the gods, and not to the women that have already been unheard for so long. How could she protect her island and her people when not only did she have no army, but the idea of women being in charge was seen as ridiculous? A complete change in style and genre from the usual dystopian fiction for the marvellous Claire North, however Ithaca still boasts her exquisite quality of writing and wicked sense of humour.

On the one hand, I love any chance to revisit these stories I love, especially if told in a way that gives me a new perspective. Alie won the Landfall Essay Competition in 2017, and in 2018 gained an MA in Creative Writing from the Institute of Modern Letters at Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington. But the stories that will live for ever are of the lost ones, the fearful ones, who through bitter hardship and despair find hope, find strength – find their way home.

Having read Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad recently and loving it, I had hoped to hear more about Penelope and her maids and the events in Ithaca during Odysseus’s absence from Penelope’s perspective. We regard them as one might regard a rash – hopeful that it does not spread further – and then move on. What I wasn’t really prepared for was the lack of a solid plot and how true to Greek myth this world is. In each essay another circuit closes, bringing a jolt of understanding – and heart-stopping, heart-starting wonder.