Recently some of the founding tales of Western literature have been given a new twist by retelling them from the perspective of their most peripheral characters – the women. Think Pat Barker’s The Silence of the Girls and The Women of Troy, or Madeline Miller’s Circe. Jennifer Saint’s Elektra is part of this realignment.
Saint takes three of the women who played major roles in the stories of the Trojan War and its aftermath – Clytemnestra, wife of Agamemnon and sister of Helen of Troy; Cassandra, daughter of Priam, king of Troy, and fated by Apollo to be able to see the future but never to be believed and Elektra, youngest daughter of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon. The three feature in Homer and in later ancient Greek writing, but are not centred. So, Saint seeks to reverse that.
The novel shows how women in classical times were pawns in the marriage market, used to cement alliances and expected to accept their fate, be it good or bad. But they had feelings, and were often catalysts in the events that unfolded.
Saint gives each of her characters a voice, telling their stories, which mesh and intertwine. I was not sure why she titled the novel Elektra, except that by the end, and this is hardly a spoiler, she was the only woman left standing. However, as the story progresses, all three become more and more embittered, with Clytemnestra and Elektra driven by their need for revenge. War, as it does today, took a heavy toll on women.
In some ways Cassandra is the most sympathetic in Saint’s telling, while Helen, though here a minor character, is the most fascinating. The reader begins to long to understand what makes her tick, why she is the way she is. Maybe it’s time for a retelling of her tale as well.
Even for those who know the outcome of the stories of the three protagonists, the novel comes to a tense, gory and stomach-churning climax. But so do the works of Homer and other male writers on the Trojan war. They concentrated on the men and the battles and the unhappy aftermath. Here the focus has changed. It would be encouraging to think that the world has changed, that women can now take centre stage in more than myth. Sadly, not yet, but fiction is a good way to help to change attitudes. - Margaret von Klemperer
Elektra is published by Wildfire ISBN: 1472273915
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