nytimes book review circe

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The original nasty woman is a goddess for our times

The archaeological evidence is sketchy, but the first pussy hat was probably knitted by Circe. Among nasty women, the witch of Aeaea has held a place of prominence since Homer first sang of her wiles. For most of us, that was a long time ago — 700 B.C. or freshman English — but popular interest in “The Odyssey” picked up last fall when Emily Wilson published the first English translation by a woman. Wilson, a classicist at the University of Pennsylvania, described Circe as “the goddess who speaks in human tongues” and reminded us that what makes this enchantress particularly dangerous is that she is as beautiful as she is powerful.

That combination of qualities has excited male desire and dread at least since Athena sprang from the head of Zeus. On papyrus or Twitter , from Olympus to Hollywood , we have a roster of handy slurs and strategies to keep women caught between Scylla and Charybdis: either frigid or slutty, unnaturally masculine or preternaturally sexless, Lady Macbeth or Mother Mary.

Now, into that ancient battle — reinvigorated in our own era by the #MeToo movement — comes an absorbing new novel by Madeline Miller called “ Circe .” In his 1726 translation of “The Odyssey,” Alexander Pope claimed that Circe possessed an “adamantine heart,” but Miller finds the goddess’s affections wounded, complicated and capable of extraordinary sympathy. And to anyone who thinks that women can be shamed into silence, this witch has just one thing to say: “That’ll do, pig.”

Miller is something of a literary sorceress herself. As a 39-year-old Latin teacher, she created an international sensation in 2011 with her debut novel, a stirring reimagining of “The Iliad” called “The Song of Achilles.” It’s a pleasure to see that same transformative power directed at Circe, the woman who waylaid Odysseus and his men as they sailed home to Ithaca.

The first English translation of ‘The Odyssey’ by a woman was worth the wait

“When I was born, the name for what I was did not exist,” Circe begins at the start of a story that will carry us across millennia. Although she writes in prose, Miller hews to the poetic timber of the epic, with a rich, imaginative style commensurate to the realm of immortal beings sparked with mortal sass. Circe’s father, Helios, lives in a palace of “polished obsidian . . . the stone floors smoothed by centuries of divine feet.” She describes a royal court just beyond the edge of physical possibility: “The whole world was made of gold. The light came from everywhere at once, his yellow skin, his lambent eyes, the bronze flashing of his hair. His flesh was hot as a brazier, and I pressed as close as he would let me, like a lizard to noonday rocks.”

In this fully re-created childhood, Miller finds the roots of Circe’s later personality and isolation. Mocked by her far more majestic family, Circe is a kind of Titanic Jane Eyre, sensitive and miserable, but nursing an iron will. (She also develops an acerbic sense of humor: Her father, she tells us, is “a harp with only one string, and the note it played was himself.”) Although her relatives disparage her, Circe cultivates the occult arts that will one day shock them. “I had begun to know what fear was,” she tells us. “What could make a god afraid? I knew that answer too. A power greater than their own.”

‘The Song of Achilles,’ by Madeline Miller

While working within the constraints of the “The Odyssey” and other ancient myths, Miller finds plenty of room to weave her own surprising story of a passionate young woman banished to lavish solitude. “To be utterly alone,” Circe scoffs. “What worse punishment could there be, my family thought, than to be deprived of their divine presence?” But her bravado is short-lived. “The still air crawled across my skin and shadows reached out their hands. I stared into the darkness, straining to hear past the beat of my own blood.” In that extremity, Circe discovers the labor and, eventually, the power of witchcraft.

A protagonist, even a fascinating one, stuck alone in the middle of nowhere poses special narrative challenges, but Miller keeps her novel filled with perils and romance. She’s just as successful recounting far-off adventures — such as the horror of the Minotaur — as she is reenacting adventures on the island. In the novel’s most unnerving encounter, young Medea stops by mid-honeymoon fresh from chopping up her brother. Chastened by bitter experience, Circe offers her niece wise counsel, but you know how well that turns out.

Which is one of the most amazing qualities of this novel: We know how everything here turns out — we’ve known it for thousands of years — and yet in Miller’s lush reimagining, the story feels harrowing and unexpected. The feminist light she shines on these events never distorts their original shape; it only illuminates details we hadn’t noticed before.

That theme develops long before Odysseus and his men arrive, as the novel explores the prevalence and presumption of rape. Again and again, sailors land upon Circe’s shore and violate her hospitality so grotesquely that she’s forced to develop her infamous potions and spells. “The truth is,” she says ruefully, “men make terrible pigs.” Considering the treatment she has received, we can’t blame her for concluding, “There were no pious men anymore, there had not been for a long time.”

Of course, her grim appraisal is a perfect introduction for Odysseus. He doesn’t arrive on Aeaea until more than halfway through the novel, but then Miller plays their verbal sparring with a delightful mix of wit and lust. The affection that eventually develops between them is intriguingly complex and mature — such a smart revision of the misogynist fantasy passed down from antiquity:

“Later, years later, I would hear a song made of our meeting,” Circe tells us. “I was not surprised by the portrait of myself: the proud witch undone before the hero’s sword, kneeling and begging for mercy. Humbling women seems to me a chief pastime of poets. As if there can be no story unless we crawl and weep.”

There will be plenty of weeping later in this novel, although it’s likely to be your own. In the story that dawns from Miller’s rosy fingers, the fate that awaits Circe is at once divine and mortal, impossibly strange and yet entirely human.

Ron Charles is the editor of Book World and host of TotallyHipVideoBookReview.com .

On April 18 at 7 p.m., Madeline Miller will be at Politics and Prose, 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW. politics-prose.com .

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Why the literature of antiquity still matters, by Michael Dirda

By Madeline Miller

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Awards & Accolades

Our Verdict

Kirkus Reviews' Best Books Of 2018

New York Times Bestseller

by Madeline Miller ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 10, 2018

Miller makes Homer pertinent to women facing 21st-century monsters.

A retelling of ancient Greek lore gives exhilarating voice to a witch.

“Monsters are a boon for gods. Imagine all the prayers.” So says Circe, a sly, petulant, and finally commanding voice that narrates the entirety of Miller’s dazzling second novel. The writer returns to Homer, the wellspring that led her to an Orange Prize for The Song of Achilles (2012). This time, she dips into The Odyssey for the legend of Circe, a nymph who turns Odysseus’ crew of men into pigs. The novel, with its distinctive feminist tang, starts with the sentence: “When I was born, the name for what I was did not exist.” Readers will relish following the puzzle of this unpromising daughter of the sun god Helios and his wife, Perse, who had negligible use for their child. It takes banishment to the island Aeaea for Circe to sense her calling as a sorceress: “I will not be like a bird bred in a cage, I thought, too dull to fly even when the door stands open. I stepped into those woods and my life began.” This lonely, scorned figure learns herbs and potions, surrounds herself with lions, and, in a heart-stopping chapter, outwits the monster Scylla to propel Daedalus and his boat to safety. She makes lovers of Hermes and then two mortal men. She midwifes the birth of the Minotaur on Crete and performs her own C-section. And as she grows in power, she muses that “not even Odysseus could talk his way past [her] witchcraft. He had talked his way past the witch instead.” Circe’s fascination with mortals becomes the book’s marrow and delivers its thrilling ending. All the while, the supernatural sits intriguingly alongside “the tonic of ordinary things.” A few passages coil toward melodrama, and one inelegant line after a rape seems jarringly modern, but the spell holds fast. Expect Miller’s readership to mushroom like one of Circe’s spells.

Pub Date: April 10, 2018

ISBN: 978-0-316-55634-7

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2018

LITERARY FICTION | HISTORICAL FICTION

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THE MOST FUN WE EVER HAD

by Claire Lombardo ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 25, 2019

Characters flip between bottomless self-regard and pitiless self-loathing while, as late as the second-to-last chapter, yet...

Four Chicago sisters anchor a sharp, sly family story of feminine guile and guilt.

Newcomer Lombardo brews all seven deadly sins into a fun and brimming tale of an unapologetically bougie couple and their unruly daughters. In the opening scene, Liza Sorenson, daughter No. 3, flirts with a groomsman at her sister’s wedding. “There’s four of you?” he asked. “What’s that like?” Her retort: “It’s a vast hormonal hellscape. A marathon of instability and hair products.” Thus begins a story bristling with a particular kind of female intel. When Wendy, the oldest, sets her sights on a mate, she “made sure she left her mark throughout his house—soy milk in the fridge, box of tampons under the sink, surreptitious spritzes of her Bulgari musk on the sheets.” Turbulent Wendy is the novel’s best character, exuding a delectable bratty-ness. The parents—Marilyn, all pluck and busy optimism, and David, a genial family doctor—strike their offspring as impossibly happy. Lombardo levels this vision by interspersing chapters of the Sorenson parents’ early lean times with chapters about their daughters’ wobbly forays into adulthood. The central story unfurls over a single event-choked year, begun by Wendy, who unlatches a closed adoption and springs on her family the boy her stuffy married sister, Violet, gave away 15 years earlier. (The sisters improbably kept David and Marilyn clueless with a phony study-abroad scheme.) Into this churn, Lombardo adds cancer, infidelity, a heart attack, another unplanned pregnancy, a stillbirth, and an office crush for David. Meanwhile, youngest daughter Grace perpetrates a whopper, and “every day the lie was growing like mold, furring her judgment.” The writing here is silky, if occasionally overwrought. Still, the deft touches—a neighborhood fundraiser for a Little Free Library, a Twilight character as erotic touchstone—delight. The class calibrations are divine even as the utter apolitical whiteness of the Sorenson world becomes hard to fathom.

Pub Date: June 25, 2019

ISBN: 978-0-385-54425-2

Page Count: 544

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: March 3, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2019

LITERARY FICTION | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP

WE WERE THE LUCKY ONES

by Georgia Hunter ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 14, 2017

Too beholden to sentimentality and cliché, this novel fails to establish a uniquely realized perspective.

Hunter’s debut novel tracks the experiences of her family members during the Holocaust.

Sol and Nechuma Kurc, wealthy, cultured Jews in Radom, Poland, are successful shop owners; they and their grown children live a comfortable lifestyle. But that lifestyle is no protection against the onslaught of the Holocaust, which eventually scatters the members of the Kurc family among several continents. Genek, the oldest son, is exiled with his wife to a Siberian gulag. Halina, youngest of all the children, works to protect her family alongside her resistance-fighter husband. Addy, middle child, a composer and engineer before the war breaks out, leaves Europe on one of the last passenger ships, ending up thousands of miles away. Then, too, there are Mila and Felicia, Jakob and Bella, each with their own share of struggles—pain endured, horrors witnessed. Hunter conducted extensive research after learning that her grandfather (Addy in the book) survived the Holocaust. The research shows: her novel is thorough and precise in its details. It’s less precise in its language, however, which frequently relies on cliché. “ You’ll get only one shot at this ,” Halina thinks, enacting a plan to save her husband. “ Don’t botch it .” Later, Genek, confronting a routine bit of paperwork, must decide whether or not to hide his Jewishness. “ That form is a deal breaker ,” he tells himself. “ It’s life and death .” And: “They are low, it seems, on good fortune. And something tells him they’ll need it.” Worse than these stale phrases, though, are the moments when Hunter’s writing is entirely inadequate for the subject matter at hand. Genek, describing the gulag, calls the nearest town “a total shitscape.” This is a low point for Hunter’s writing; elsewhere in the novel, it’s stronger. Still, the characters remain flat and unknowable, while the novel itself is predictable. At this point, more than half a century’s worth of fiction and film has been inspired by the Holocaust—a weighty and imposing tradition. Hunter, it seems, hasn’t been able to break free from her dependence on it.

Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2017

ISBN: 978-0-399-56308-9

Page Count: 416

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: Nov. 21, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2016

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Circe by Madeline Miller

17 Dec Circe by Madeline Miller

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“Circe” spans several centuries, offering a deep dive into the life of its eponymous character. It begins with Circe’s childhood in the halls of Helios, her father, where she struggles to find her place among gods and nymphs. She discovers her penchant for witchcraft, a talent that leads to her exile on the island of Aiaia. This isolation becomes both a punishment and a sanctuary, allowing Circe to hone her magical skills and interact with various figures from Greek mythology, including Odysseus, the Minotaur, and Athena. The novel is not just a series of events but a profound exploration of Circe’s evolution from a naive nymph to a powerful sorceress, grappling with her immortality and her desire to understand the mortal world.

Main Characters

• Circe : Initially a timid and overlooked nymph, Circe grows into a formidable witch. Her journey is marked by moments of vulnerability, strength, and deep introspection.
• Odysseus : A clever and complex character, Odysseus’ interaction with Circe adds layers to both their stories.
• Telemachus : Odysseus’ son, who visits Circe and develops a unique bond with her.
• Athena : The goddess who often stands as Circe’s antagonist, representing the capricious and often cruel nature of the gods.

In-Depth Analysis

Miller’s writing is a standout feature, with its lyrical quality and deep emotional resonance. The novel excels in its portrayal of Circe as a multifaceted character, exploring themes of power, isolation, and identity. It also delves into the pettiness and politics of the gods, contrasting it with Circe’s growing affinity for humanity.

• Character Development : Circe’s evolution is the heart of the story. Miller skillfully depicts her transformation, making her a relatable and compelling protagonist.
• Lyrical Prose : The writing style is evocative and poetic, enhancing the mythological setting and the emotional depth of the narrative.
• Pacing : Some readers might find the middle part of the book a bit slow, as it delves deeply into character exploration.

Literary Devices

• Symbolism : Circe’s witchcraft symbolizes her independence and self-discovery.
• Foreshadowing : The novel uses subtle hints to foretell key events, particularly in the interactions between gods and mortals.

Relation to Broader Issues

“Circe” speaks to the universal themes of identity, power dynamics, and the nature of humanity. It also touches on gender roles and the struggle for autonomy, particularly resonant in the #MeToo era.

“Circe” will appeal to fans of Greek mythology, character-driven narratives, and feminist literature. It stands out for its fresh take on a mythological figure often relegated to the margins of these stories. Readers who enjoyed “The Song of Achilles,” also by Miller, or “The Silence of the Girls” by Pat Barker, will likely find this novel captivating.

Potential Audiences

• Fans of Greek mythology and retellings.
• Readers interested in feminist narratives.
• Those who appreciate character-driven stories and lyrical prose.

Thematic Analysis

The novel deeply explores themes like female empowerment, the nature of divinity versus humanity, and the search for identity. Circe’s journey is a powerful representation of breaking free from societal constraints and finding one’s voice.

Stylistic Elements

Miller’s prose is rich and poetic, bringing a modern sensibility to ancient myths. Her use of vivid imagery and careful pacing adds depth to the narrative and characters.

Comparison with Other Works

“Circe” can be compared to “The Song of Achilles” in its retelling of Greek myths with a humanistic perspective. It also shares thematic similarities with works like “The Penelopiad” by Margaret Atwood, offering a feminist perspective on classical stories.

Potential Test Questions with Answers

• It represents her transformation from an ignored nymph to a powerful witch, allowing her to explore her abilities and independence.
• She portrays him as complex and flawed, focusing on his cunning and moral ambiguities.

Awards and Recognitions

“Circe” was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2019 and received critical acclaim for its innovative approach to myth retelling.

Bibliographic Information

• Title : Circe
• Author : Madeline Miller
• Publication Date : 2018
• Publisher : Little, Brown and Company
• ISBN : 978-0316556347

BISAC Categories:

• Historical – Ancient
• Fairy Tales, Folk Tales, Legends & Mythology
• War & Military

Summaries of Awards and Other Reviews

• Mythopoeic Fantasy Award Nominee for Adult Literature (2019)
• ALA Alex Award (2019) ,
• Tähtifantasia Award Nominee (2022)
• Women’s Prize for Fiction Nominee (2019)
• The Kitschies for Red Tentacle (Best Novel) (2019) ,
• Goodreads Choice Award for Fantasy (2018)
• Book of the Month Book of the Year Award (2018) ,
• RUSA CODES Reading List Nominee for Historical Fiction (2019)

#1  New York Times  Bestseller — named one of the Best Books of the Year by NPR, the  Washington Post ,  People ,  Time , Amazon,  Entertainment Weekly ,  Bustle, Newsweek, the A.V. Club, Christian Science Monitor, Refinery 29, Buzzfeed, Paste, Audible, Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, Thrillist, NYPL, Self, Real Simple, Goodreads, Boston Globe, Electric Literature, BookPage, the Guardian, Book Riot, Seattle Times, and Business Insider.

Purchasing Links

Is this book a series.

“Circe” is a standalone novel. However, Madeline Miller’s other work, “The Song of Achilles,” explores similar themes in a different mythological context.

About Madeline Miller

Madeline Miller is an American novelist and classics scholar. Her debut novel, “The Song of Achilles,” also received critical acclaim and awards. Miller is known for her ability to reimagine ancient myths with contemporary relevance and emotional depth.

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Review: Circe by Madeline Miller — back as superwoman

Poor old Circe. Written off through the centuries as the scheming poisoner- witch of The Odyssey , who turned men into swine without so much as a by your leave, and had to be roughly tamed by Odysseus before consenting to help him. “Humbling women seems to me a chief pastime of poets,” the nymph herself observes wryly in Circe . “As if there can be no story unless we crawl and weep.”

Madeline Miller offers Circe a chance to present her own story. This defiant first-person narrative takes Homer’s paltry scraps about the “fair-locked goddess” and blends them with other ancient poets’ tales about her (Ovid and Hesiod among them). Bestowing modern feminist mores on classical texts may seem unwise, but it’s marvellous to

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Description

• Winner of the 2019 Indie Choice Award Shortlisted for the 2019 Women's Prize for Fiction Named one of the 'Best Books of 2018' by NPR, The Washington Post, Buzzfeed, People, Time, Amazon, Entertainment Weekly, Bustle, Newsweek, the A.V. Club, Christian Science Monitor, Southern Living, and Refinery 29.
• "Circe,' [is] a bold and subversive retelling of the goddess's story that manages to be both epic and intimate in its scope, recasting the most infamous female figure from the Odyssey as a hero in her own right." Alexandra Alter, New York Times
• "One of the most amazing qualities of this novel [is]: We know how everything here turns out - we've known it for thousands of years - and yet in Miller's lush reimagining, the story feels harrowing and unexpected. The feminist light she shines on these events never distorts their original shape; it only illuminates details we hadn't noticed before." Ron Charles, Washington Post
• "[Miller] gives voice to Circe as a multifaceted and evolving character...'Circe' is very pleasurable to read, combining lively versions of familiar tales and snippets of other, related standards with a highly psychologized, redemptive and ultimately exculpatory account of the protagonist herself." Claire Messud, New York Times Book Review
• "The story of Circe's entanglement with Odysseus lasts far beyond the narrative of "The Odyssey," making for compelling material to revisit. But ultimately it's as a character that Circe stands apart....Through her elegant, psychologically acute prose, Miller gives us a rich female character who inhabits the spaces in between." Colleen Abel, Minneapolis Star Tribune
• "Miller's lush, gold-lit novel - told from the perspective of the witch whose name in Greek has echoes of a hawk and a weaver's shuttle - paints another picture: of a fierce goddess who, yes, turns men into pigs, but only because they deserve it." NPR.org
• "so vivid, so layered, you could get lost in it... Whether or not you think you like Greek Mythology, this is just great storytelling. It feels cinematic." NPR's Here & Now
• "Spellbinding..Miller has created a daring feminist take on a classic narrative; although the setting is a mystical world of gods, monsters, and nymphs, the protagonist at its heart is like any of us." O Magazine
• "Miller's spell builds slowly, but by the last page you'll be in awe. In prose of dreamlike simplicity, she reimagines the myth of Circe." People
• "Miller, with her academic bona fides and born instinct for storytelling, seamlessly grafts modern concepts of selfhood and independence to her mystical reveries of smoke and silver, nectar and bones." Entertainment Weekly
• "This telling, in the sorceress's own words, is not the version we think we know." New York Times 'T Magazine'
• "Miller gives voice to a previously muted perspective in the classics, forging a great romance from the scraps left to us by the ancients.... Circe is, instead, a romp, an airy delight, a novel to be gobbled greedily in a single sitting ." Aida Edemariam, Guardian
• "In Madeline Miller's "Circe" - the gorgeous and gimlet-eyed follow-up to her Orange Prize-winning first novel, "The Song of Achilles" - the goddess is young and romantic enough at the start to feel a tiny bit let down that she's not shackled to a rock like her uncle, Prometheus, getting her liver pecked out each day."   Laura Collins-Hughes, Boston Globe
• Ambitious in scope, Circe is above all the chronicle of an outsider woman who uses her power and wits to protect herself and the people she loves, ultimately looking within to define herself. Readers will savor the message of standing against a hostile world and forging a new way." Shelf Awareness
• "A retelling of ancient Greek lore gives exhilarating voice to a witch... [Circe is] a sly, petulant, and finally commanding voice that narrates the entirety of Miller's dazzling second novel....Readers will relish following the puzzle of this unpromising daughter of the sun god Helios and his wife, Perse, who had negligible use for their child....Expect Miller's readership to mushroom like one of Circe's spells. Miller makes Homer pertinent to women facing 21st-century monsters." Kirkus, Starred Review
• "An epic spanning thousands of years that's also a keep-you-up-all-night page turner." Ann Patchett, author of Commonwealth
• "With lyric beauty of language and melancholy evocative of Keats' "Ode on a Grecian Urn", CIRCE asks all the big questions of existence while framing them in the life story of the famous goddess who had the magic of transformations. A veritable Who's Who of the gods of Olympus and the heroes of ancient Greece, Circe knows them all and we see them through her perceptive eyes. This is as close as you will ever come to entering the world of mythology as a participant. Stunning, touching, and unique." Margaret George, author of The Confessions of Young Nero
• "Circe bears its own transformative magic, a power enabled by Miller's keen eye for beauty, adventure, and reinvention. Through the charms of a misfit heroine, the world of gods becomes stunningly alive, and the world of our own humanity--its questions, loves, and bonds--is illuminated. This book is an immense gift to anyone who reads to find their own bravery and quest." Affinity Konar, author of Mischling
• "Madeline Miller, master storyteller, conjures Circe glowing and alive - and makes the Gods, nymphs and heroes of ancient Greece walk forth in all their armored splendor. Richly detailed and written with such breathtaking command of story, you will be held enchanted. A breathtaking novel." Helen Simonson, author of The Summer Before the War and Major Pettigrew's Last Stand
• " Circe is the utterly captivating, exquisitely written, story of an ordinary, and extraordinary, woman's life" Eimear McBride, author of A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing
• "Written with power and grace, this enchanting, startling, gripping story casts a spell as strong and magical as any created by the sorceress Circe." Mary Doria Russell, author of Epitaph
• "Madeline Miller's re-imagining of the witch Circe from The Odyssey makes for an intriguing, feminist adventure novel that is perfectly suited for the #TimesUp moment. Circe is also a smart read that has much to say about the long-term consequences of war and a culture that values violence and conquest over compassion and learning...Miller mines intriguing details from the original tale to imagine a rich backstory for Circe that allows readers to re-visit the world of Olympians and Titans in Greek mythology. From the court of the Titans, the reader meets Circe's parents, the god Helios and nymph Perse, and is introduced to a world of supernatural power players that is every bit as back-biting, gossip-filled and vicious as any episode of House of Cards ." May-Lee Chai, Dallas News
• "'Circe' is a sentence-by-sentence miracle"; Michigan Daily

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Madeline Miller

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This remarkable journey into mythology brings the ancient gods directly and viscerally into the present. Circe is a perfect mashup of elegant language, glorious storytelling, and exquisitely modern sensibilities. Miller's telling left me awed and moved by Circe and her story, all while wishing I could invite her over for a glass of wine on the porch. How this amazing author so perfectly melds the human and the divine, creating a story both immediate and epic, is dazzling.

Description

This #1 New York Times bestseller is a "bold and subversive retelling of the goddess's story" that brilliantly reimagines the life of Circe, formidable sorceress of The Odyssey (Alexandra Alter, TheNew York Times).

In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe is a strange child -- not powerful, like her father, nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power -- the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves.

Threatened, Zeus banishes her to a deserted island, where she hones her occult craft, tames wild beasts and crosses paths with many of the most famous figures in all of mythology, including the Minotaur, Daedalus and his doomed son Icarus, the murderous Medea, and, of course, wily Odysseus.

But there is danger, too, for a woman who stands alone, and Circe unwittingly draws the wrath of both men and gods, ultimately finding herself pitted against one of the most terrifying and vengeful of the Olympians. To protect what she loves most, Circe must summon all her strength and choose, once and for all, whether she belongs with the gods she is born from, or the mortals she has come to love.

With unforgettably vivid characters, mesmerizing language, and page-turning suspense, Circe is a triumph of storytelling, an intoxicating epic of family rivalry, palace intrigue, love and loss, as well as a celebration of indomitable female strength in a man's world.

#1 New York Times Bestseller -- named one of the Best Books of the Year by NPR, the Washington Post, People, Time, Amazon, Entertainment Weekly, Bustle, Newsweek, the A.V. Club, Christian Science Monitor, Refinery 29, Buzzfeed, Paste, Audible, Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, Thrillist, NYPL, Self, Real Simple, Goodreads, Boston Globe, Electric Literature, BookPage, the Guardian, Book Riot, Seattle Times, and Business Insider.

About the Author

Madeline Miller is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of two novels: The Song of Achilles, which won the Orange Women’s Prize for Fiction 2012, and Circe, which was short-listed for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2019. Her books have been translated into over thirty two languages. Miller holds an MA in Classics from Brown University, studied in the Dramaturgy department at Yale School of Drama, where she focused on the adaptation of classical texts to modern forms, and taught Latin, Greek, and Shakespeare to high school students for over a decade.

Praise for Circe

Winner of the 2019 Indie Choice Award Shortlisted for the 2019 Women's Prize for Fiction Named one of the 'Best Books of 2018' by NPR, The Washington Post, Buzzfeed, People, Time, Amazon,Entertainment Weekly, Bustle, Newsweek, the A.V. Club, Christian Science Monitor, Southern Living,and Refinery 29.

"Circe,' [is] a bold and subversive retelling of the goddess's story that manages to be both epic and intimate in its scope, recasting the most infamous female figure from the Odyssey as a hero in her own right."— Alexandra Alter, New York Times

"One of the most amazing qualities of this novel [is]: We know how everything here turns out - we've known it for thousands of years - and yet in Miller's lush reimagining, the story feels harrowing and unexpected. The feminist light she shines on these events never distorts their original shape; it only illuminates details we hadn't noticed before."— Ron Charles, Washington Post

"[Miller] gives voice to Circe as a multifaceted and evolving character...'Circe' is very pleasurable to read, combining lively versions of familiar tales and snippets of other, related standards with a highly psychologized, redemptive and ultimately exculpatory account of the protagonist herself."— Claire Messud, New York Times Book Review

"The story of Circe's entanglement with Odysseus lasts far beyond the narrative of "The Odyssey," making for compelling material to revisit. But ultimately it's as a character that Circe stands apart....Through her elegant, psychologically acute prose, Miller gives us a rich female character who inhabits the spaces in between." — Colleen Abel, Minneapolis Star Tribune

"Miller's lush, gold-lit novel - told from the perspective of the witch whose name in Greek has echoes of a hawk and a weaver's shuttle - paints another picture: of a fierce goddess who, yes, turns men into pigs, but only because they deserve it."— NPR.org

"so vivid, so layered, you could get lost in it... Whether or not you think you like Greek Mythology, this is just great storytelling. It feels cinematic."— NPR's Here & Now

"Miller's spell builds slowly, but by the last page you'll be in awe. In prose of dreamlike simplicity, she reimagines the myth of Circe."— People

"Miller, with her academic bona fides and born instinct for storytelling, seamlessly grafts modern concepts of selfhood and independence to her mystical reveries of smoke and silver, nectar and bones."— Entertainment Weekly

"This telling, in the sorceress's own words, is not the version we think we know."— New York Times 'T Magazine'

"Miller gives voice to a previously muted perspective in the classics, forging a great romance from the scraps left to us by the ancients....Circe is, instead, a romp, an airy delight, a novel to be gobbled greedily in a single sitting."— Aida Edemariam, Guardian

"In Madeline Miller's "Circe" - the gorgeous and gimlet-eyed follow-up to her Orange Prize-winning first novel, "The Song of Achilles" - the goddess is young and romantic enough at the start to feel a tiny bit let down that she's not shackled to a rock like her uncle, Prometheus, getting her liver pecked out each day."  — Laura Collins-Hughes, Boston Globe

Ambitious in scope, Circe is above all the chronicle of an outsider woman who uses her power and wits to protect herself and the people she loves, ultimately looking within to define herself. Readers will savor the message of standing against a hostile world and forging a new way."— Shelf Awareness

"A retelling of ancient Greek lore gives exhilarating voice to a witch... [Circe is] a sly, petulant, and finally commanding voice that narrates the entirety of Miller's dazzling second novel....Readers will relish following the puzzle of this unpromising daughter of the sun god Helios and his wife, Perse, who had negligible use for their child....Expect Miller's readership to mushroom like one of Circe's spells. Miller makes Homer pertinent to women facing 21st-century monsters."— Kirkus, Starred Review

"An epic spanning thousands of years that's also a keep-you-up-all-night page turner."— Ann Patchett, author of Commonwealth

"With lyric beauty of language and melancholy evocative of Keats' "Ode on a Grecian Urn", CIRCE asks all the big questions of existence while framing them in the life story of the famous goddess who had the magic of transformations. A veritable Who's Who of the gods of Olympus and the heroes of ancient Greece, Circe knows them all and we see them through her perceptive eyes. This is as close as you will ever come to entering the world of mythology as a participant. Stunning, touching, and unique."— Margaret George, author of The Confessions of Young Nero

"Circe bears its own transformative magic, a power enabled by Miller's keen eye for beauty, adventure, and reinvention. Through the charms of a misfit heroine, the world of gods becomes stunningly alive, and the world of our own humanity--its questions, loves, and bonds--is illuminated. This book is an immense gift to anyone who reads to find their own bravery and quest."— Affinity Konar, author of Mischling

"Madeline Miller, master storyteller, conjures Circe glowing and alive - and makes the Gods, nymphs and heroes of ancient Greece walk forth in all their armored splendor. Richly detailed and written with such breathtaking command of story, you will be held enchanted. A breathtaking novel."— Helen Simonson, author of The Summer Before the War and Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

"Circe is the utterly captivating, exquisitely written, story of an ordinary, and extraordinary, woman's life"— Eimear McBride, author of A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing

"Written with power and grace, this enchanting, startling, gripping story casts a spell as strong and magical as any created by the sorceress Circe."— Mary Doria Russell, author of Epitaph

"Madeline Miller's re-imagining of the witch Circe from The Odyssey makes for an intriguing, feminist adventure novel that is perfectly suited for the #TimesUp moment. Circe is also a smart read that has much to say about the long-term consequences of war and a culture that values violence and conquest over compassion and learning...Miller mines intriguing details from the original tale to imagine a rich backstory for Circe that allows readers to re-visit the world of Olympians and Titans in Greek mythology. From the court of the Titans, the reader meets Circe's parents, the god Helios and nymph Perse, and is introduced to a world of supernatural power players that is every bit as back-biting, gossip-filled and vicious as any episode of House of Cards."

— May-Lee Chai, Dallas News

"'Circe' is a sentence-by-sentence miracle";— Michigan Daily

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Book Review: Circe by Madeline Miller

Before I begin, I think it’s important to note that I opened Circe having almost zero prior knowledge about mythology . Despite majoring in English in college, I never had to read mythology. Crazy huh?

The Summary

In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe is a strange child—not powerful, like her father, nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power—the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves.

Threatened, Zeus banishes her to a deserted island, where she hones her occult craft, tames wild beasts and crosses paths with many of the most famous figures in all of mythology, including the Minotaur, Daedalus and his doomed son Icarus, the murderous Medea, and, of course, wily Odysseus.

But there is danger, too, for a woman who stands alone, and Circe unwittingly draws the wrath of both men and gods, ultimately finding herself pitted against one of the most terrifying and vengeful of the Olympians. To protect what she loves most, Circe must summon all her strength and choose, once and for all, whether she belongs with the gods she is born from, or the mortals she has come to love.

The Book Review

I was immediately pulled into Circe . It was so different from what I normally read, and I fell into the world of mythology with abandon.

And then…the fizzle.

Let’s back up here for a minute, though. Circe is a child in the beginning of the book, and I loved her story. She lives in the house of Helios (her dad, whose chariot pulls the sun across the sky every day), and is generally unliked by all the other gods, including her own family. It’s strange, but pulled me in.

However, even in the beginning, the sheer number of characters in Circe is super overwhelming. I had to keep pausing when names were mentioned to remember who it was, or try to wrap my head around him/her if it was a new character. Mythology is like that, so it makes sense, but man, it made for a difficult read when I was more interested in the story arc than the characters.

This book fizzled a little for me as it went on. I expected more of a story arc, but what I got was more like mythology itself – shorter stories that make a whole. Sure, it was chronological about Circe’s life, but for me, there wasn’t really a peak of any kind – it just kind of rumbled on. Of course, it’s based off of the existing story of Circe, so I don’t think Miller could have done a whole lot to remedy this.

Circe was compelling enough throughout to keep me reading and mostly enjoying, but I do have to say that I was happy to get to the end and put it behind me. Although it was a bit of a slog for me at times, I would recommend it to someone with more of an interest in mythology. I thought the writing was great and it was well done overall, so I gave it 4 stars.

Looking for more awesome books about Greek mythology? Check out our list of Best Fiction Books About Greek Mythology .

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Book Review : Circe

"A bold and subversive retelling of the goddess's story," this #1 New York Times bestseller is "both epic and intimate in its scope, recasting the most infamous female figure from the Odyssey as a hero in her own right" (Alexandra Alter, The New York Times ). In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe is a strange child -- not powerful, like her father, nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power -- the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves. Threatened, Zeus banishes her to a deserted island, where she hones her occult craft, tames wild beasts and crosses paths with many of the most famous figures in all of mythology, including the Minotaur, Daedalus and his doomed son Icarus, the murderous Medea, and, of course, wily Odysseus. But there is danger, too, for a woman who stands alone, and Circe unwittingly draws the wrath of both men and gods, ultimately finding herself pitted against one of the most terrifying and vengeful of the Olympians. To protect what she loves most, Circe must summon all her strength and choose, once and for all, whether she belongs with the gods she is born from, or the mortals she has come to love. With unforgettably vivid characters, mesmerizing language, and page-turning suspense, Circe is a triumph of storytelling, an intoxicating epic of family rivalry, palace intrigue, love and loss, as well as a celebration of indomitable female strength in a man's world.

I had certain expectations going into Circe, a novel about the legendary exiled Greek Goddess and witch who turned men into pigs, had the voice of a mortal, and lived with tamed lions and wolves. I pictured a wrathful goddess who suffered no fools through her powerful witchcraft. Instead, Circe offers a rejected and insecure goddess who is not like the others, and plops her on an island to live by herself for all eternity. The majority of the novel is utterly boring.

At first, I found Circe to be rather interesting. But that was solely limited to about the first quarter of the novel, if I’m being generous, before Circe gets exiled, and still lives among the other gods and goddesses. Too bad that these other immortal beings are absolutely awful in every way, with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Though it’s hard not to be reviled by the abhorrent behavior of these deities, at least their often bewildering fiascos and schemes are entertaining. At the end of the novel, author Madeline Miller remarked the following on her portrayal of gods:

For me, the Greek gods reflect what happens to humans when we see only ourselves and our own needs. The great gods have such infinite power and resources that they have forgotten what it’s like to want, to suffer, to show empathy, to face all of life’s minor inconveniences. They have forgotten what it’s like to be told no, and it has turned them into monsters, obsessed with dominance and hierarchy, always trying to claw a little higher. The frightening thing is how real this phenomenon is. I see the gods as a cautionary tale.

Though I am used to the capriciousness of the gods in Greek Mythology, Miller’s portrayal of the gods, without any merits whatsoever, was depressing to me. We witness Athena driving Odysseus into the ground with her divine inspiration for the glory of battle, Hermes’s gossip-mongering and meddling manipulating others to make poor life choices, and so and so forth. Every story of the classic gods and their chosen mortals in Circe is a story of tragedy, with no quarter or silver lining. There are no clever mortals tricking the gods or goddesses, or any members of the Greek Pantheon rewarding independence and ingenuity from their blessed mortals. It’s depressing to read. 

This is a narrative choice that I feel Miller made in order to drive home her point of how Circe was different, and not like the other gods and goddesses. With all the gods being callous to the life spans and goals of their mortals, Miller’s Circe can’t help but to look more sympathetic to the mortals in comparison. However, her bonds to the mortals she meets never feel anything but surface level to me, as like the other gods, her relationships with mortals are all selfish—they are rooted in her desperate need for validation, companionship, or some other kind of belonging. However, though the synopsis of the book asks the question of where Circe belongs, with gods, or mortals, the answer is that she doesn’t truly belong anywhere, except exiled on her island.

As the gods and goddesses have exiled her there, she simply can’t leave. L iterally, all readers are offered is a daily life of Circe on her island living alone and feeling sorry for herself. She gathers herbs, she pets her animals, she bemoans her fate, and then does it all again the next day. Sure, there are small breaks in the mind-numbing monotony, but these are only relegated to when she sleeps with some random visiting mortal or god, but that’s it. 

To me, it is not feminist in the least that the only break in the humdrum of a woman’s life is when a man appears. I think her sexual intimacy with multiple male characters is supposed to be feminist and to make Circe seem independent, wise, and confident in what she wants, but really, she’s just a product of growing up among the Greek pantheon, who we are shown multiple times in Circe to have absolutely no qualms about screwing anything and everything, including  literal cows, if it serves their purpose or merely strikes their fancy. And also, the poor exiled creature is basically a poor woman starving for any kind of interaction (though she for some reason hates the wayward and unwanted nymphs the Gods have sent to her island as punishment, which struck me as odd and extremely hypocritical), and is not at all the feared and wicked sorceress of legend. 

What’s worse, is that any time Circe does anything remotely cool, such as turning men into pigs, it’s in reaction to some wrong that befell her. In one scene in the book, I was completely unable to suspend my disbelief that a Greek goddess and notoriously powerful witch View Spoiler » did not take any precaution against a group of disreputable mortal sailors landing on her island. I was more horrified when the captain raped her. Circe does manage to stop the others from having their turn by turning them into pigs, but I just couldn’t believe Circe, who tames lions and wolves, created the most feared monster of the seas with her spells, would let a mortal man dare. I know my take on this scene probably sounds uncomfortably like victim shaming, but this portrayal of Circe as a naïve and hopeless young woman subdued by both her betters and lessers, is honestly the exact opposite of what I thought I was getting with this novel, which is marketed as a feminist retelling. « Hide Spoiler

Frankly, these events just didn’t make any logical sense to me, as the character is View Spoiler » raped to serve as a catalyst for the reason she turns mortal men into pigs. Why does rape always have to be used in place of actual character development? This is not feminism and I find it offensive that so many writers think the only way to make female characters interesting is to rape them or to kill off their love interests, so they can be tough and independent women as a result of the absence of men in their life. Worse, later on, the novel tries to force the agenda that Circe actually loves mortals more than her own kind. I never saw this love for mortals and in fact, when the novel begins, Circe falls in love with a mortal and turns him into a god, only for him to spurn her love for him once he becomes immortal. Circe shows countless times that both men and immortals are absolutely awful, but instead of showing her finding solace with one person, who makes her existence bearable and giving up her immortality for him, she settles for another man who gives her a tiny shred of affection.  « Hide Spoiler This is not empowering in any way. In fact, it feels that the character has absolutely no agency of her own, simply reacting to the insatiable and grasping gods who want something from her, or greedy men who randomly trespass. 

To be honest, I fell asleep reading this novel many times and I never wanted to pick it up. It was an exercise in willpower to even finish Circe and I can’t really say that I was glad that I pushed through this novel. I didn’t care for the ending either, which to me, felt like a betrayal and disappointment of everything Circe worked towards as a witch in exile. I didn’t find this novel to be empowering or feminist in the least, and didn’t care for the portrayal of any of the famed characters from Greek Mythology, whether god or mortal. Ultimately, I honestly don’t see what everyone found so mind-blowing about a sad woman living alone on an island View Spoiler » who gives up her immortality in the end to be with a mortal man « Hide Spoiler , despite the fact that she spends most of her time turning these same mortals into pigs. To me, this was not a story of a powerful goddess finding she prefers life with mortals, or that she wishes to have her own adventures View Spoiler » (which is the main random idea the book gives for her surrendering of her godhood) « Hide Spoiler , but of a woman giving up what little power she had managed to grasp for herself.

Circe is definitely a character driven book, which is something I love, when I actually like the character. There is very little plot to the novel at all, with the novel also moving at a snail’s pace. This novel could have honestly been edited to a quarter of its total length, as so little happens in most of it. I also found the themes of Circe to be largely confused. Though Circe wants to be a feminist novel that shows a goddess finding her true belonging among mortals, the novel doesn’t succeed at showing either of these things. Circe, in it’s most basic form is a novel about a lonely goddess, who is not like the others, who becomes super powerful against all odds, and then, View Spoiler » gives up all of those hard-earned powers in order to find some semblance of acceptance with a man she just met (and is yuck, half brother to her son, might I add), even though her favorite past time is turning mortal men into pigs. « Hide Spoiler Circe  is not a triumph of feminism or even of storytelling, it is quite simply, a Greek tragedy, and a prolonged one at that.

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Posted June 10, 2022 in Book Reviews , Fantasy , Historical Fiction

Tags: book reviews , fantasy book reviews , greek mythology

4 responses to “ Book Review : Circe ”

I didn’t mind Miller’s perspective of the gods, however, everything else you’ve said I 100% agree with and honestly, it’s a relief to see someone else put into words the feeling I got from this book. Like yourself I went into it with certain expectations, and I was very surprised when I read it. I definitely did not find the strong female character that reviews shouted about.

Thank you for your comment, Heather! This book has so many glowing reviews and awards that it’s hard not to feel like there’s something wrong with me.? I’m sorry you found it disappointing as well, but also thankful someone else understands where I’m coming from!

I am a man. Admittedly, I probably don’t know what it means to be a “feminist book” beyond what those conjure at face value. However, your critique of this book is completely wrong. Circe was a bad-ass! This book was not slow at all. In fact I felt like the pace was great. The detail and description was appropriate. Before reading this book I wondered how on Earth anyone could turn the tales of the rediculous and disfunctional Greek Gods into anything that I could take serious. Madeline Miller nailed it. This book was a blast to read. Sorry it dint meet your expectations of what a feminist book should be…

Glad you enjoyed the book and that it worked for you. I personally preferred “Song of Achilles” by Madeline Miller to “Circe.”

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Book Review of CIRCE

Well, I’ve done it. I’ve finally read the Goodreads Readers’ Choice Best Fantasy book of 2018: Circe , by Madeline Miller. And, it only took me until halfway through 2019 to post my book review of it.

I usually don’t read fantasy, which is a bit ironic considering that the novel I’ve written is a blend of historical fiction and fantasy. But, I love stories based on religion and mythology, particularly ones that create backstories for peripheral characters in classic tales or from well-known parts of history. Think along the lines of The Red Tent or Girl with a Pearl Earring . Circe falls easily into this category, since it draws upon parts of Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey , but also builds a completely new mythology for the character of Circe, who is largely known only as a sorceress and paramour of The Odyssey ‘s hero, Odyssesus.

Despite obsessively reading Greek myths from childhood through college, I admit that my knowledge of the goddess Circe is primarily from how Homer depicts her in The Odyssey — more specifically, from the 1990s NBC movie adaptation of The Odyssey starring Armand Assante and Bernadette Peters. (I think I still have it on VHS cassette somewhere, complete with where I accidentally hit the pause button while recording and therefore lost about 30 seconds of crucial Cyclops scene time. #ThoseWereTheDays).

Circe starts off very strong, drawing the reader into the mesmerizing world that the goddess is born into. Miller’s writing is exquisite; her tale reads like an epic poem, filled with beautiful metaphors, similes, and descriptive imagery. She’s clearly paying homage to Homer, which helps invokes the majesty of an classic, epic myth. I was fascinated by Circe’s intimidating and surprisingly lonely childhood amidst fearsome and magnificent gods. I was also immediately captivated by Circe herself, who seems to be the black sheep of her celestial family.

Eventually, Miller gets to the Circe we’re all familiar with: the cruel temptress who offers feasts to starving sailors before turning them into swine, and who convinces the hero Odysseus to dally with her on her exotically beautiful island. I appreciated this retelling, and was excited to see the story move beyond her time with Odysseus, since his departure signals where my knowledge of Circe’s traditional fable ends.

Unfortunately, this is also where I started to become a little disappointed with Circe . I felt that the story stalled out in several places while I was reading, particularly after Telegonus enters the scene. I was still intrigued by the premise of the novel, but I would periodically grow weary of events taking place, or with the interactions between certain characters. Compared to the action of the first half of the novel, the second half was just a little “ho-hum.” It wasn’t enough to make me stop reading, but I did have to nudge myself a few times to find out where Circe’s story would ultimately lead her.

I’m glad I kept reading, though, because it definitely led her somewhere I did not suspect. I have no idea how much of Circe is based on “actual” events (i.e., popular mythology), but Circe’s life in Miller’s novel certainly takes a few unexpected twists.

Overall, I like Circe for what it’s done for its titular character: create a fantastic, wondrous, and emotional backstory for a mysterious figure we’ve all heard of, but have really only seen through men’s eyes. We know Circe as a woman who lives on an island, surrounded by men whom she’s preyed upon with seduction and magic. But, we don’t really know how she got to the island, or how she became this “wicked witch” in the first place. Everyone deserves to have their own story told, and I loved that Miller finally gave Circe hers, told in her own voice.

And, Circe’s not the only one who gets a revamp in this novel; Miller brings a sharp, intriguing sense of dichotomy to many classic Greek heroes and monsters found in The Odyssey . Too often, legends paint certain characters as either diametrically good or bad. Just as we are shown a different side of Circe, Miller creates similar, sympathetic backstories for several other mythological “monsters,” such as Scylla (of Scylla and Charybdis) and the Minotaur. In turn, she builds up the crueler nature of the heroes we’re used to glorifying, like Odysseus. As a result, the black-and-white world of “good guys vs bad guys” is wonderfully muddled. Through Circe’s eyes, the reader is able to see that the propensity for both good and evil lurks within all creatures, even heroes and monsters.

As one of my first forays into fantasy, I think  Circe was pretty good. Although I didn’t love the entire story that Miller gave her heroine, I loved that fact that Circe was given a story in the first place, and that it was one that made her a powerful, intriguing, and empathetic figure. If nothing else, Circe proved why retellings are one of my favorite genres of literature.

What are some retellings of classic stories you love? Feel free to send some recommendations my way in the comments below!

And, stay tuned for my book-inspired recipe: Greek Chicken Orzo Salad!

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Circe: The stunning new anniversary edition from the author of international bestseller The Song of Achilles Kindle Edition

• Print length 347 pages
• Language English
• Sticky notes On Kindle Scribe
• Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing
• Publication date April 19, 2018
• File size 4342 KB
• Page Flip Enabled
• Word Wise Enabled
• Enhanced typesetting Enabled
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About the author, product details.

• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B076ZRJQ8N
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Bloomsbury Publishing; 1st edition (April 19, 2018)
• Publication date ‏ : ‎ April 19, 2018
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• File size ‏ : ‎ 4342 KB
• Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
• Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 347 pages
• Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 152667002X
• #162 in Greek & Roman Myth & Legend
• #621 in Historical Fantasy (Kindle Store)
• #849 in Historical Literary Fiction

About the author

Madeline miller.

Madeline Miller grew up in New York City and Philadelphia. She attended Brown University, where she earned her BA and MA in Classics. She has taught and tutored Latin, Greek, and Shakespeare to high school students for over fifteen years. She has also studied at the University of Chicago’s Committee on Social Thought, and in the Dramaturgy department at Yale School of Drama, where she focused on the adaptation of classical texts to modern forms.

The Song of Achilles, her first novel, was awarded the 2012 Orange Prize for Fiction and was a New York Times Bestseller. Her second novel, Circe, was an instant number 1 New York Times bestseller, and won the Indies Choice Best Adult Fiction of the Year Award and the Indies Choice Best Audiobook of the Year Award, as well as being shortlisted for the 2019 Women's Prize for Fiction. Circe also won The Red Tentacle Award, an American Library Association Alex Award (adult books of special interest to teen readers), and the 2018 Elle Big Book Award. Miller's novels have been translated into over twenty-five languages including Dutch, Mandarin, Japanese, Turkish, Arabic and Greek, and her essays have appeared in a number of publications including the Guardian, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Telegraph, Lapham's Quarterly and NPR.org. Most recently, she has published a standalone short story, Galatea. She currently lives outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Visit her website at: www.madelinemiller.com

Photo credit: Nina Subin

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New Cold Wars review: China, Russia and Biden’s daunting task

David Sanger of the New York Times delivers a must-read on the foreign policy challenges now facing US leaders

R ussia bombards Ukraine. Israel and Hamas are locked in a danse macabre. The threat of outright war between Jerusalem and Tehran grows daily. Beijing and Washington snarl. In a moment like this, David Sanger’s latest book, subtitled China’s Rise, Russia’s Invasion, and America’s Struggle to Defend the West , is a must-read. Painstakingly researched, New Cold Wars brims with on-record interviews and observations by thinly veiled sources.

Officials closest to the president talk with an eye on posterity. The words of the CIA director, Bill Burns, repeatedly appear on the page. Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, and Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, surface throughout the book. Sanger, White House and national security correspondent for the New York Times, fuses access, authority and curiosity to deliver an alarming message: US dominance is no longer axiomatic.

In the third decade of the 21st century, China and Russia defy Washington, endeavoring to shatter the status quo while reaching for past glories. Vladimir Putin sees himself as the second coming of Peter the Great, “a dictator … consumed by restoring the old Russian empire and addressing old grievances”, in Sanger’s words.

The possibility of nuclear war is no longer purely theoretical. “In 2021 Biden, [Gen Mark] Milley, and the new White House national security team discovered that America’s nuclear holiday was over,” Sanger writes. “They were plunging into a new era that was far more complicated than the cold war had ever been.”

As Russia’s war on Ukraine faltered, Putin and the Kremlin raised the specter of nuclear deployment against Kyiv.

“The threat that Russia might use a nuclear weapon against its non-nuclear-armed foe surfaced and resurfaced every few months,” Sanger recalls.

The world was no longer “flat”. Rather, “the other side began to look more like a security threat and less like a lucrative market”. Unfettered free trade and interdependence had yielded prosperity and growth for some but birthed anger and displacement among many. Nafta – the North American Free Trade Agreement – became a figurative four-letter word. In the US, counties that lost jobs to China and Mexico went for Trump in 2016 .

Biden and the Democrats realized China never was and never would be America’s friend. “‘I think it’s fair to say that just about every assumption across different administrations was wrong,” one of Biden’s “closest advisers” tells Sanger.

“‘The internet would bring political liberty. Trade would liberalize the regime’ while creating high-skill jobs for Americans. The list went on. A lot of it was just wishful thinking.”

Sanger also captures the despondency that surrounded the botched US withdrawal from Afghanistan. A suicide bombing at the Kabul airport left 13 US soldiers and 170 civilians dead. The event still haunts.

“The president came into the room shortly thereafter, and at that point Gen [Kenneth] McKenzie informed him of the attack and also the fact that there had been at least several American military casualties, fatalities in the attack,” Burns recalls. “I remember the president just paused for at least 30 seconds or so and put his head down because he was absorbing the sadness of the moment and the sense of loss as well.”

Almost three years later, Biden’s political standing has not recovered. “The bitter American experience in Afghanistan and Iraq seemed to underscore the dangers of imperial overreach,” Sanger writes. With Iran on the front burner and the Middle East mired in turmoil, what comes next is unclear.

A coda: a recent supplemental review conducted by the Pentagon determined that a sole Isis member carried out the Kabul bombing. The review also found that the attack was tactically unpreventable.

Sanger also summarizes a tense exchange between Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu, prime minister of Israel , over the Gaza war.

“Hadn’t the US firebombed Tokyo during world war two? Netanyahu demanded. “Hadn’t it unleashed two atom bombs? What about the thousands who died in Mosul, as the US sought to wipe out Isis?”

On Thursday, the US vetoed a resolution to confer full UN membership on the “State of Palestine”. Hours later, Standard & Poor’s downgraded Israel’s credit rating and Israel retaliated against Iran.

N ew Cold Wars does contain lighter notes. For example, Sanger catches Donald Trump whining to Randall Stephenson, then CEO of AT&T , about his (self-inflicted) problems with women. The 45th president invited Stephenson to the Oval Office, to discuss China and telecommunications. Things did not quite work out that way.

“Trump burned up the first 45 minutes of the meeting by riffing on how men got into trouble,” Sanger writes. “It was all about women. Then he went into a long diatribe about Stormy Daniels.”

Stephenson later recalled: “It was ‘all part of the same stand-up comedy act’ … and ‘we were left with 15 minutes to talk about Chinese infrastructure’.”

Trump wasn’t interested. Stephenson “could see that the president’s mind was elsewhere. ‘This is really boring,’ Trump finally said.”

On Thursday, in Trump’s hush-money case in New York, the parties picked a jury. Daniels is slated to be a prosecution witness.

Sanger ends his book on a note of nostalgia – and trepidation.

“For all the present risks, it is worth remembering that one of the most remarkable and little-discussed accomplishments of the old cold war was that the great powers never escalated their differences into a direct conflict. That is an eight-decade-long streak we cannot afford to break.”

New Cold Wars is published in the US by Penguin Random House

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Taylor Swift's 'Tortured Poets' is written in blood

On Taylor Swift's 11th album, The Tortured Poets Department , her artistry is tangled up in the details of her private life and her deployment of celebrity. But Swift's lack of concern about whether these songs speak to and for anyone but herself is audible throughout the album. Beth Garrabrant /Courtesy of the artist hide caption

On Taylor Swift's 11th album, The Tortured Poets Department , her artistry is tangled up in the details of her private life and her deployment of celebrity. But Swift's lack of concern about whether these songs speak to and for anyone but herself is audible throughout the album.

For all of its fetishization of new sounds and stances, pop music was born and still thrives by asking fundamental questions. For example, what do you do with a broken heart? That's an awfully familiar one. Yet romantic failure does feel different every time. Its isolating sting produces a kind of obliterating possessiveness: my pain, my broken delusions, my hope for healing. A broken heart is a screaming baby demanding to be held and coddled and nurtured until it grows up and learns how to function properly. This is as true in the era of the one-percent glitz goddess as it was when blues queens and torch singers organized society's crying sessions. It's true of Taylor Swift , who's equated songwriting with the heart's recovery since she released " Teardrops on my Guitar " 18 years ago, and whose 11th album, The Tortured Poets Department , is as messy and confrontational as a good girl's work can get, blood on her pages in a classic shade of red.

Taylor Swift, Beyoncé and 50 more albums coming out this spring

Turning the Tables

Taylor swift is the 21st century's most disorienting pop star.

Back in her Lemonade days, when her broken heart turned her into a bearer of revolutionary spirit, Swift's counterpart and friendly rival, Beyoncé , got practical, advising her listeners that while feelings do need tending, a secured bank account is what counts. "Your best revenge is your paper," she sang .

For Swift, the best revenge is her pen. One of the first Tortured Poets songs revealed back in February (one of the album's many bonus tracks, it turns out, but a crucial framing device) is called " The Manuscript "; in it, a woman re-reads her own scripted account of a "torrid love affair." Screenwriting is one of a few literary ambitions Swift aligns with this project. At The Grove mall in Los Angeles, Swift partnered with Spotify to create a mini-library where new lyrics were inscribed in weathered books and on sheets of parchment in the days leading up to its release. The scene was a fans' photo op invoking high art and even scripture. In the photographs of the installation that I saw, every bound volume in the library bears Swift's name. The message is clear: When Taylor Swift makes music, she authors everything around her.

For years, Swift has been pop's leading writer of autofiction , her work exploring new dimensions of confessional songwriting, making it the foundation of a highly mediated public-private life. The standard line about her teasing lyrical disclosures (and it's correct on one level) is that they're all about fueling fan interest. But on Tortured Poets , she taps into a much more established and respected tradition. Using autobiography as a sword of justice is a move as ancient as the women saints who smote abusive fathers and priests in the name of an early Christian Jesus; in our own time, just among women, it's been made by confessional poets like Sylvia Plath, memoirists from Maya Angelou to Joyce Maynard and literary stars like the Nobel prize winner Annie Ernaux. And, of course, Swift's reluctant spiritual mother, Joni Mitchell .

Even in today's blather-saturated cultural environment, a woman speaking out after silence can feel revolutionary; that this is an honorable act is a fundamental principle within many writers' circles. "I write out of hurt and how to make hurt okay, how to make myself strong and come home, and it may be the only home I ever have," Natalie Goldberg declares in Writing Down the Bones , the most popular writing manual of the 20th century. When on this album's title track, Swift sings, "I think some things I never say," she's making an offhand joke; but this is the album where she does say all the things she thinks, about love at least, going deeper into the personal zone that is her métier than ever before. Sharing her darkest impulses and most mortifying delusions, she fills in the blank spaces in the story of several much-mediated affairs and declares this an act of liberation that has changed and ultimately strengthened her. She spares no one, including herself; often in these songs, she considers her naiveté and wishfulness through a grown woman's lens and admits she's made a fool of herself. But she owns her heartbreak now. She alone will have the last word on its shape and its effects.

This includes other people's sides of her stories. The songs on Tortured Poets , most of which are mid- or up-tempo ballads spun out in the gossamer style that's defined Swift's confessional mode since Folklore , build a closed universe of private and even stolen moments, inhabited by only two people: Swift and a man. With a few illuminating exceptions that stray from the album's plot, she rarely looks beyond their interactions. The point is not to observe the world, but to disclose the details of one sometimes-shared life, to lay bare what others haven't seen. Tortured Poets is the culmination of a catalog full of songs in which Swift has taken us into the bedrooms where men pleasured or misled her, the bars where they charmed her, the empty playgrounds where they sat on swings with her and promised something they couldn't give. When she sings repeatedly that one of the most suspect characters on the album told her she was the love of her life, she's sharing something nobody else heard. That's the point. She's testifying under her own oath.

Swift's musical approach has always been enthusiastic and absorbent. She's created her own sounds by blending country's sturdy song structures with R&B's vibes, rap's cadences and pop's glitz; as a personality and a performer, she's all arms, hugging the world. The sound of Tortured Poets offers that familiar embrace, with pop tracks that sparkle with intelligence, and meditative ones that wrap tons of comforting aura around Swift's ruminations. Beyond a virtually undetectable Post Malone appearance and a Florence Welch duet that also serves as an homage to Swift's current exemplar/best friendly rival, Lana Del Rey , the album alternates between co-writes with Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner, the producers who have helped Swift find her mature sound, which blends all of her previous approaches without favoring any prevailing trend. There are the rap-like, conversational verses, the reaching choruses, the delicate piano meditations, the swooning synth beats. Antonoff's songs come closest to her post- 1989 chart toppers; Dessner's fulfill her plans to remain an album artist. Swift has also written two songs on her own, a rarity for her; both come as close to ferocity as she gets. As a sustained listen, Tortured Poets harkens back to high points throughout Swift's career, creating a comforting environment that both supports and balances the intensity of her storytelling.

It's with her pen that Swift executes her battle plans. As always, especially when she dwells on the work and play of emotional intimacy, her lyrics are hyper-focused, spilling over with detail, editing the mess of desire, projection, communion and pain that constitutes romance into one sharp perspective: her own. She renders this view so intensely that it goes beyond confession and becomes a form of writing that can't be disputed. Remember that parchment and her quill pen; her songs are her new testaments. It's a power play, but for many fans, especially women, this ambition to be definitive feels like a necessary corrective to the misrepresentations or silence they face from ill-intentioned or cluelessly entitled men.

"A great writer can be a dangerous creature, however gentle and nice in person," the biographer Hermione Lee once wrote . Swift has occasionally taken this idea to heart before, especially on her once-scorned, now revered hip-hop experiment, Reputation . But now she's screaming from the hilltop, sparing no one, including herself as she tries to prop up one man's flagging interest and then falls for others' duplicity. "I know my pain is such an imposition," Swift sang in last year's " You're Losing Me ," a prequel to the explosive confessional mode of Tortured Poets , where that pain grows nearly suicidal, feeds romantic obsession, and drives her to become a "functional alcoholic" and a madwoman who finds strength in chaos in a way that recalls her friend Emma Stone's cathartic performance as Bella in Poor Things . (Bella, remember, comes into self-possession by learning to read and write.) " Who's afraid of little old me? " Swift wails in the album's window-smashing centerpiece bearing that title; in " But Daddy I Love Him ," she runs around screaming with her dress unbuttoned and threatens to burn down her whole world. These accounts of unhinged behavior reinforce the message that everybody had better be scared of this album — especially her exes, but also her business associates, the media and, yes, her fans, who are not spared in her dissection of just who's made her miserable over the past few years.

Listen to the album

I'm not getting into the dirty details; those who crave them can listen to Tortured Poets themselves and easily uncover them. They're laid out so clearly that anyone who's followed Swift's overly documented life will instantly comprehend who's who: the depressive on the heath, the tattooed golden retriever in her dressing room. Here's my reading of her album-as-novel — others' interpretations may vary: Swift's first-person protagonist (let's call her "Taylor") begins in a memory of a long-ago love affair that left her melancholy but on civil terms, then has an early meeting with a tempting rogue, who declares he's the Dylan Thomas to her Patti Smith; no, she says, though she's sorely tempted, we're "modern idiots," and she leaves him behind for a while. Then we get scenes from a stifling marriage to a despondent and distracted child-man. "So long, London," she declares, fleeing that dead end. From then on, it's the rogue on all cylinders. They connect, defy the daddy figures who think they're bad for each other, speak of rings and baby carriages. Those daddies continue to meddle in this newfound freedom.

In this main story arc, Swift writes about erotic desire as she never has before: She's "fresh out the slammer" (ouch, the rhetoric) and her bedsheets are on fire. She cannot stop rhapsodizing about this new love object and her commitment to their outlaw hunger for each other. It's " Love Story ," updated and supersized, with a proper Romeo at its center — a forbidden, tragic soulmate, a perfect match who's also a disastrous one. Swift peppers this section of Tortured Poets with name-drops ("Jack" we know, " Lucy " might be a tricky slap at Romeo, hard to tell) and instantly searchable references; he sends her a song by The Blue Nile and traces hearts on her face but tells revolting jokes in the bar and eventually reveals himself as a cad, a liar, a coward. She recovers, but not really. In the end, she does move on but still dreams of him hearing one of their songs on a jukebox and dolefully realizing the young girl he's now with has never heard it before.

Insert the names yourself. They do matter, because her backstories are key to Swift's appeal; they both keep her human-sized and amplify her fame. Swift's artistry is tied up in her deployment of celebrity, a slippery state in which a real life becomes emblematic. Like no one before, she's turned her spotlit day-to-day into a conceptual project commenting on women's freedom, artistic ambition and the place of the personal in the public sphere. As a celebrity, Swift partners with others: her model and musician friends, her actor/musician/athlete consorts, brands, even (warily) political causes. And with her fans, the co-creators of her stardom.

Her songs stand apart, though. They remain the main vehicle through which, negotiating unimaginable levels of renown, Swift continually insists on speaking only for herself. A listener has to work to find the "we" in her soliloquies. There are plenty of songs on Tortured Poets in which others will find their own experiences, from the sultry blue eroticism of " Down Bad " to the click of recognition in " I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can) ." But Swift's lack of concern about whether these songs speak for and to anyone besides herself is audible throughout the album. It's the sound of her freedom.

Taylor Swift: Tiny Desk Concert

She also confronts the way fame has cost her, fully exploring questions she raised on Reputation and in " Anti-Hero ." There are hints, more than hints, that her romance with the rogue was derailed partly because her business associates found it problematic, a danger to her precious reputation. And when she steps away from the man-woman predicament, Swift ponders the ephemeral reality of the success that has made private decisions nearly impossible. A lovely minuet co-written with Dessner, " Clara Bow " stages a time-lapsed conversation between Swift and the power players who've helped orchestrate her rise even as she knows they won't be concerned with her eventual obsolescence. "You look like Clara Bow ," they say, and later, "You look like Stevie Nicks in '75." Then, a turn: "You look like Taylor Swift," the suits (or is it the public, the audience?) declare. "You've got edge she never did." The song ends abruptly — lights out. This scene, redolent of All About Eve , reveals anxieties that all of Swift's love songs rarely touch upon.

One reason Swift went from being a normal-level pop star to sharing space with Beyoncé as the era's defining spirit is because she is so good at making the personal huge, without fussing over its translation into universals. In two decades of talking back to heartbreakers, Swift has called out gaslighting, belittling, neglect, false promises — all the hidden injuries that lovers inflict on each other, and that a sexist society often overlooks or forgives more easily from men. In "The Manuscript," which calls back to a romantic trauma outside the Tortured Poets frame, she sings of being a young woman with an older man making "coffee in a French press" and then "only eating kids cereal" and sleeping in her mother's bed when he dumps her; any informed Swift fan's mind will race to songs and headlines about cads she's previously called out in fan favorites like "Dear John" and "All Too Well" — the beginnings of the mission Tortured Poets fulfills.

Reviews of more Taylor Swift albums on NPR

In the haze of 'Midnights,' Taylor Swift softens into an expanded sound

Let's Talk About Taylor Swift's 'Folklore'

Show And Tell: On 'Lover,' Taylor Swift Lets Listeners In On Her Own Terms

The Old Taylor's Not Dead

The Many New Voices Of Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift Leaps Into Pop With 'Red'

Swift's pop side (and perhaps her co-writers' influence) shows in the way she balances the claustrophobic referentiality of her writing with sparkly wordplay and well-crafted sentimental gestures. On Tortured Poets , she's less strategic than usual. She lets the details fall the way they would in a confession session among besties, not trying to change them from painful memories into points of connection. She's just sharing. Swift bares every crack in her broken heart as a way of challenging power structures, of arguing that emotional work that men can sidestep is still expected from women who seem to own the world.

Throughout Tortured Poets, Swift is trying to work out how emotional violence occurs: how men inflict it on women and women cultivate it within themselves. It's worth asking how useful such a brutal evisceration of one privileged private life can be in a larger social or political sense; critics, including NPR's Leah Donnella in an excellent 2018 essay on the limits of the songwriter's reach, have posed that question about Swift's work for years. But we should ask why Swift's work feels so powerful to so many — why she has become, in the eyes of millions, a standard-bearer and a freedom fighter. Unlike Beyoncé, who loves a good emblem and is always thinking about history and serving the culture and communities she claims, Swift is making an ongoing argument about smaller stories still making a difference. Her callouts can be viewed as petty, reflecting entitlement or even narcissism. But they're also part of her wrestling with the very notion of significance and challenging hierarchies that have proven to be so stubborn they can feel intractable. That Swift has reached such a peak of influence in the wake of the #MeToo movement isn't an accident; even as that chapter in feminism's history can seem to be closing, she insists on saying, "believe me." That isn't the same as saying "believe all women," but by laying claim to disputed storylines and fighting against silence, she at the very least reminds listeners that such actions matter.

Listening to Tortured Poets , I often thought of "The Last Day of Our Acquaintance," a song that Sinéad O'Connor recorded when she was in her young prime, not yet banished from the mainstream for her insistence on speaking politically. Like Swift's best work, its lyrics are very specific — allegedly about a former manager and lover — yet her directness and conviction expand their reach. In 1990, that a woman in her mid-20s would address a belittling man in this way felt startling and new. Taylor Swift came to prominence in a culture already changing to make room for such testimonies, if not — still — fully able to honor them. She has made it more possible for them to be heard. "I talk and you won't listen to me," O'Connor wailed . "I know your answer already." Swift doesn't have to worry about whether people will listen. But she knows that this could change. That's why she is writing it all down.

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‘Cabaret’ Review: What Good Is Screaming Alone in Your Room?

Eddie Redmayne and Gayle Rankin star in a buzzy Broadway revival that rips the skin off the 1966 musical.

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By Jesse Green

Just east of its marquee, the August Wilson Theater abuts an alley you probably didn’t notice when last you were there, perhaps to see “Funny Girl,” its previous tenant. Why would you? Where the trash goes is not usually part of the Broadway experience.

But it is for the latest revival of “Cabaret,” which opened at the Wilson on Sunday. Audience members are herded into that alley, past the garbage, down some halls, up some stairs and through a fringed curtain to a dimly lit lounge. (There’s a separate entrance for those with mobility issues.) Along the way, greeters offer free shots of cherry schnapps that taste, I’m reliably told, like cough syrup cut with paint thinner.

Too often I thought the same of the show itself.

But the show comes later. First, starting 75 minutes beforehand, you can experience the ambience of the various bars that constitute the so-called Kit Kat Club, branded in honor of the fictional Berlin cabaret where much of the musical takes place. Also meant to get you in the mood for a story set mostly in 1930, on the edge of economic and spiritual disaster, are some moody George Grosz-like paintings commissioned from Jonathan Lyndon Chase . (One is called “Dancing, Holiday Before Doom.”) The $9 thimbleful of potato chips is presumably a nod to the period’s hyperinflation.

This all seemed like throat clearing to me, as did the complete reconfiguration of the auditorium itself, which is now arranged like a large supper club or a small stadium. (The scenic, costume and theater design are the jaw-dropping work of Tom Scutt.) The only relevant purpose I can see for this conceptual doodling, however well carried out, is to give the fifth Broadway incarnation of the 1966 show a distinctive profile. It certainly does that.

The problem for me is that “Cabaret” has a distinctive profile already. The extreme one offered here frequently defaces it.

Let me quickly add that Rebecca Frecknall’s production , first seen in London , has many fine and entertaining moments. Some feature its West End star Eddie Redmayne, as the macabre emcee of the Kit Kat Club (and quite likely your nightmares). Some come from its new New York cast, including Gayle Rankin (as the decadent would-be chanteuse Sally Bowles) and Bebe Neuwirth and Steven Skybell (dignified and wrenching as an older couple). Others arise from Frecknall’s staging itself, which is spectacular when in additive mode, illuminating the classic score by John Kander and Fred Ebb, and the amazingly sturdy book by Joe Masteroff.

But too often a misguided attempt to resuscitate the show breaks its ribs.

The conception of Sally is especially alarming. As written — and as introduced in the play and stories the musical is based on — she is a creature of blithe insouciance if not talent, an English good-time gal flitting from brute to brute in Berlin while hoping to become a star. Her first number, “Don’t Tell Mama,” is a lively Charleston with winking lyrics (“You can tell my brother, that ain’t grim/Cause if he squeals on me I’ll squeal on him”) that make the Kit Kat Club audience, and the Broadway one too, complicit in her naughtiness.

Instead, Frecknall gives us a Sally made up to look like she’s recently been assaulted or released from an asylum, who dances like a wounded bird, stretches each syllable to the breaking point and shrieks the song instead of singing it. (Goodbye, Charleston; hello, dirge.) If Rankin doesn’t sound good in the number, nor later in “Mein Herr,” interpolated from the 1972 film, she’s not trying to. Like the cough syrup-paint thinner concoction, she’s meant to be taken medicinally and poisonously in this production, projecting instead of concealing Sally’s turmoil.

That’s inside-out. The point of Sally, and of “Cabaret” more generally, is to dramatize the danger of disengagement from reality, not to fetishize it.

The guts-first problem also distorts Redmayne’s Emcee, but at least that character was always intended as allegorical. He is the host to anything, the amoral shape-shifter, becoming whatever he must to get by. Here, he begins as a kind of marionette in a leather skirt and tiny party hat, hiccupping his way through “Willkommen.” Later he effectively incarnates himself as a creepy clown, an undead skeleton, Sally’s twin and a glossy Nazi.

Having seen Frecknall’s riveting production of “Sanctuary City,” a play about undocumented immigrants by Martyna Majok , I’m not surprised that her “Cabaret” finds a surer footing in the “book” scenes. These are the ones that take place in the real Berlin, not the metaphorical one of the Kit Kat Club. She is extraordinarily good when she starts with the naturalistic surface of behavior, letting the mise en scène and the lighting (excellent, by Isabella Byrd) suggest the rest.

And naturalism is what you find at the boardinghouse run by Fräulein Schneider (Neuwirth), a woman who has learned to keep her nose down to keep safe. Her tenants include a Jewish fruiterer, Herr Schultz (Skybell); a prostitute, Fräulein Kost (Natascia Diaz); and Clifford Bradshaw (Ato Blankson-Wood), an American writer come to Berlin in search of inspiration. Soon Sally shows up to provide it, having talked her way into Cliff’s life and bed despite being little more than a stranger. Also, despite Cliff’s romantic ambivalence; over the years, the character has had his sexuality revamped more times than a clownfish.

The Schneider-Shultz romance is sweet and sad; neither character is called upon to shriek. And Rankin excels in Sally’s scenes with Cliff, her wry, frank and hopeful personality back in place. The songs that emerge from the boardinghouse dramas are not ransacked as psychiatric case studies but are rather given room to let comment proceed naturally from real entertainment. Rankin’s “Maybe This Time,” with no slathered-on histrionics, is riveting. It turns out she can properly sing.

The interface between the naturalism and the expressionism does make for some weird moments: Herr Schultz, courtly in a topcoat, must hug Sally goodbye in her bra. But letting the styles mix also brings out the production’s most haunting imagery. The intrusion of the Nazi threat into the story is especially well handled: first a gorgeously sung and thus chilling version of “Tomorrow Belongs to Me,” then the swastika and then — well, I don’t want to give away how Frecknall stages the scene in which Schultz’s fruit shop is vandalized.

That so many of these moments arise from faithful attention to the original material should be no surprise. “Cabaret” hasn’t lasted this long for nothing. Created at the tail end of Broadway’s Golden Age, it benefited from the tradition of meticulous craftsmanship that preceded it while anticipating the era of conceptual stagings that followed.

All this is baked into the book, and especially the score, which I trust I admire not merely because I worked on a Kander and Ebb show 40 years ago. That the lyrics rhyme perfectly is a given with Ebb; more important, they are always the right words to rhyme. (Listen, in the title song, for the widely spaced triplet of “room,” “broom” and, uh-oh, “tomb.”) And Kander’s music, remixing period jazz, Kurt Weill and Broadway exuberance, never oversteps the milieu or outpaces the characters even as it pushes them toward their full and sometimes manic expression.

When this new “Cabaret” follows that template, it achieves more than the buzz of chic architecture and louche dancing. (The choreography is by Julia Cheng.) Seducing us and then repelling us — in that order — it dramatizes why we flock to such things in the first place, whether at the Kit Kat Club or the August Wilson Theater. We hope, at our risk, to forget that, outside, “life is disappointing,” as the Emcee tells us. We want to unsee the trash.

Cabaret At the August Wilson Theater, Manhattan; kitkat.club . Running time: 2 hours 45 minutes, with an optional preshow.

Jesse Green is the chief theater critic for The Times. He writes reviews of Broadway, Off Broadway, Off Off Broadway, regional and sometimes international productions. More about Jesse Green