Geraldine McCaughrean

Greek Heroes — (2003) Ages 9-12. Publisher: What makes a hero different from ordinary men? Are courage and strength enough, or is there something more that's needed for battle, whether against a fearful monster or the wrath of the gods themselves? Here are the stories of four heroes, Perseus, Hercules, Theseus, and Odysseus, who follow the path of glory in their many unforgettable adventures. Geraldine McCaughrean is a master storyteller and she excels in combining nail-biting plots with a powerful portrayal of the main characters in all their complexity, their matchless strength and wit tempered by human weakness. The result is a collection of deeply satisfying and mesmerizing stories that will be an excellent addition to any bookshelf.

Perseus

There are probably much shorter retellings of this hero-story, and there are probably quite a few longer ones — but if you wish to avoid the simplicity of a picture book and the long-windedness of an epic, then I don't think you'd find any reason to complain about Geraldine McCaughrean's version of the Perseus myth. In fact, I would go so far as to say that its fidelity to the well-known myth and the lyrical prose in which it is told make it the quintessential retelling of the ancient story (perhaps a premature claim considering I'm far from having read them all, but this would surely be up there in the top five!).

King Acrisius foolishly asks the Epidauran Oracle how he will die, and gets a devastating answer: it will be at the hands of his own grandson. Inevitably, he takes pains to ensure that his daughter Danae will never beget a child, by locking her up in a specially-designed tower. Just as inevitably, this attracts the attention of Zeus, the king of the gods... and a few months later Danae gives birth to a son: Perseus.

Horrified, Acrisius sets mother and son adrift on the sea in a wooden chest, only for them to be rescued by a fisherman and introduced to the King Polydectes. Coveting the hand of beautiful Danae, Polydectes sets her son an impossible task in order to pursue his reluctant bride without inference. Perseus is tricked into bringing back the head of the Gorgon Medusa — but you don't need me to tell you how this particular quest will pan out.

In fact, (though no fault of McCaughrean herself) this is one of the inevitable weaknesses of the book: you already know what's going to happen! When Perseus discovers exactly who and what the Medusa is, I thought to myself: "wait — how can he not know that already?" The myth of Medusa is so well-known, it seems strange that anyone (even the characters in her story) wouldn't know about her! But of course, I was reading from the point of view of a person who has known these stories for years. For a young reader just discovering the world of Greek myth, this is the perfect way to introduce them.

McCaughrean takes us through all of Perseus's adventures: his encounters with the hideous Graeae and the beautiful nymphs, the accumulation of his god-given weaponry, his confrontation with Medusa and her sisters, his meeting with the Titan Atlas, the rescue of the beautiful Princess Andromeda from the sea-serpent, and the conclusion of his grandfather's long-awaited fate. Speaking of fate, McCaughrean weaves in an underlying theme of the immutability of fate and the despair that this can cause, yet manages to add in a glimmer of the hope that comes with free choice by the story's end.

McCaughrean retains the sensuality that is so prevalent in Greek myths, without making it all too obvious (such as Danae's union with Zeus as he appears as falling gold through her window):

Coins and ingots and gold dust pelted her like hail so that she reeled and fell on her back and drew up her knees and cried out in fright. But it was not unpleasant — just a little startling.

Likewise, the author's prose throughout the story is wonderfully poetic and descriptive, from the beauties of Mount Olympus to the horror of the gorgons. It's quite reminiscent of Rosemary Sutcliffe, actually.

The tone shifts mid-way through the story, from the grim seriousness of Perseus's youth and the fight with the Gorgons to a lighter and more comic confrontation with Andromeda's people (the poor girl is tied up naked to a rock on the shore, having to listen to Perseus muse about whether she'd like to marry him: "Sir! I would marry your horse if it would save me from being eaten!"). McCaughrean was probably wise to write "love at first sight" with a touch of tongue-in-cheek.

I read Perseus in one sitting, and felt that although it was a story well-known to me, I had experienced it in a new, refreshing light. For any young person just beginning to get interested in the world of myth, this would be the book to get (along with McCaughrean's other retellings of Greek heroes: Hercules, Theseus, and Odysseus). —Rebecca Fisher

Hercules

Geraldine McCaughrean has written four retellings of Greek myths, fleshing out the personalities of various heroes and the circumstances that made them legendary. In her beautiful, fluid prose, McCaughrean hits the perfect balance in presenting the darker aspects of the myths without being either too gratuitous or too prissy. In this case, McCaughrean takes the figure of Hercules (who in a Greek setting, should technically be called "Heracles"). In his youth Hercules meets the personifications of Virtue and Vice, who offer him the choice of his destiny. Hercules chooses hardship and suffering over happiness — albeit somewhat accidentally — and so his fate is sealed.

The son of Zeus and a mortal woman, Hercules is imbued with supernatural strength even in his infancy. Saddled with the burden of his phenomenal physical strength and his inability to control it, his early life is marked by his jealous stepmother's vendetta against him. After the combined efforts of Hera's vindictiveness and his own drunken rampage result in the deaths of his wife and children, Hercules willingly makes himself a slave to King Eurystheus of Argos in penance.

King Eurystheus orders him on one dangerous mission after another, in what makes up the bulk of the book and later becomes known as the Twelve Labours of Hercules. Most casual readers of Greek mythology will recognizes some of the trials that Hercules goes through: the Nemean Lion, the Erymanthean Boar, the Stymphalian Birds, and of course the many-headed Hydra and the filthy Augean stables, but McCaughrean explores these feats in more detail and explains just how Hercules managed to overpower so many monstrous creatures.

McCaughrean also finds room to include side-stories such as Hercules's relationships with his second wife Deianeira, his mentor Chiron the centaur, and his famous meeting with the titan Atlas, who holds the sky up over the earth. Although the story ends with Hercules's long-awaited ascension into the heavens, it concludes on a bittersweet tone in which McCaughrean describes the constellation of Hercules and its placement in the sky:

One day, a million years from now, the Sun's small family of planets will loose itself among the seven stars, and we shall be cradled in Hercules's arms. All of Earth's little gods, people, beasts and children will fill that icy emptiness that presently lingers over his heart.

Most young people are familiar with Hercules through either the Kevin Sorbo series Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, or Disney's animated film, in which the famous hero appears as a good-hearted, sensitive man who devotes his life to good deeds simply for the sake of it. The reality (or rather, the original versions) portrayed him quite differently. The legendary Hercules was loud, boorish, brutish and rather dense; all the clever ideas that helped him defeat his foes were invariably whispered in Hercules' ears by helpful gods. McCaughrean walks the line between these two extremes. Although this Hercules is certainly not as saintly as his television/movie counterparts, he is still a relatively gentle and simple soul who captures the reader's sympathy.

Although McCaughrean doesn't shy away from his weakness for wine and women and the devastating consequences that follow, Hercules' grief and confusion over his destiny is vividly captured and surprisingly easy to relate to. (Though I suppose that's the whole point of archetypal heroes: to capture the profound dilemmas of human existence in larger-than-life terms). Although Hercules is often helped by the younger gods, in McCaughrean’s retelling he just as often comes up with his own ideas on how to defeat his foes, either through cunning or the appropriate handling of his strength. Ultimately there is a sense of tragedy about him, particularly considering the lost love that he finally finds at the conclusion of the novel.

McCaughrean also creates a wonderful character in the sniveling, cowardly, pathetic King Eurystheus. Comically terrified of Hercules, the king is convinced that his bond-slave is out to get him, leading Hercules to wonder why his temporary master has taken to hiding in a box and directing his orders from there.

Out of McCaughrean's four retellings of Greek myths, Hercules is probably the best. Remaining faithful to the myth, whilst writing with her own distinctive voice, softening some of the harsher aspects whilst never pandering to the lowest common denominator, McCaughrean presents a thoughtful, well-told, bittersweet look at one of the world's most famous heroes. —Rebecca Fisher

Theseus

Out of all the heroes in the Greek mythology canon, Theseus always struck me as the most pitiable. Though he started out promisingly enough, a string of bad decisions and unlucky circumstances left him the most broken of all the heroes in Greek mythology. In her retelling of his story, Geraldine McCaughrean pinpoints the reason for all this misery, Theseus's fatal pride, and maps the trail of ruined lives and broken hearts that Theseus leaves behind him before his sins finally catch up with him.

King Aegeus of Athens is desperate for a son, but is joyful when the sorceress Medea tells him that the next woman he holds in his arms will grant him a child. Aegeus hurries home to his wife, stopping only to visit his friend King Pittheus. But when Pittheus's daughter Aethra accidentally falls into his lap, Aegeus recalls the prophetic words, and hides his sandals and sword under a huge rock outside the palace, telling Aethra that should she ever bear a son, he will one day be able to lift the rock, and claim his birthright underneath.

Strangely enough, McCaughrean chooses to omit the prophetic words of the Oracle of Delphi that Aegeus originally goes to: "Do not loosen your wineskin until you have reached Athens," and its mysterious meaning that was understood only by Pittheus, who arranged for Aegeus to get drunk and sleep with Aethra. Likewise, gone is Aethra's seduction by Poseidon, which casts Theseus's real paternity into doubt. These are two of the most famous aspects of the Theseus myth, and I was surprised to see them removed, particularly since McCaughrean hasn't shied away from these slightly more adult themes in her other Greek myth retellings.

In any case, young Theseus eventually comes of age, lifts the rock and learns whom his true father is. Now his adventures really begin, first on his way to Athens, in which he dispatches of several bandits along the way (in rather grisly ways, I might add), and then in Athens itself, where he narrowly escapes an assassination attempt by his stepmother. His father is delighted beyond words to finally meet his son, but soon concerned when Theseus decides to travel to Crete in order to kill the hideous half-man, half-bull Minotaur. Traveling as one of the Athenian hostages that King Minos has decreed must be sacrificed to the bull, Theseus's greatest trial comes when he must brave the labyrinth and the beast that waits for him at its heart.

Theseus's success and his escape with the Princess Ariadne of Crete is usually where children's versions of his particular hero stop, but McCaughrean continues with Theseus's tragic life and the terrible decisions that lead to his own downfall. Although she skips Theseus's journey into the Underworld, she includes the disastrous familial problems that he faces through his own sense of pride and egotism. Particularly interesting is McCaughrean's take on matters of the heart: Theseus is used to being loved and adored by all his subjects, and so naturally it is Phaedra, who fascinates him: "She did not sigh at the sight of him. She did not tremble at his touch. Her eyes did not linger lovingly on the back of his head as he passed by."

As well as all this, the author manages to slip in the story of Daedalus and Icarus, as well as a cameo appearance from Hercules himself, and the tale of how Theseus came to have a club as his weapon of choice. There's plenty going on here, and it's all told in McCaughrean's lovely prose, as this description of the Queen of the Amazons displays: "Her throat was as dark and inviting as the wine flowing from a wineskin, and her lips seemed swollen from eating succulent and exotic fruits."

Although certain omissions prevent me from calling this the definitive version of the Theseus myth, this is another fascinating retelling of an ancient myth, in which the humanity of the hero is just as important as the legendary feats they perform. —Rebecca Fisher

Odysseus

This, the forth and final book in Geraldine McCaughrean's stories of Greek heroes, (preceded by Perseus, Hercules  and Theseus) is the only one based on actual literature: Homer's Odyssey. As such, McCaughrean does not have to pick and choose aspects of convoluted and often contradictory myths; her source material has already been written, providing a fairly linear sequence of events. As such, the stories concerning Odysseus have always been more straightforward than those of his peers.

The retelling begins well after the Trojan War, with Odysseus sailing home with his fleet of ships to his small kingdom of Ithaca, where his wife Penelope and son Telemachus await him. He has not seen them in ten long years, and the voyage home is a dangerous one. Meanwhile, interspersed with Odysseus' journey are "updates" as to what is happening in Ithaca with his wife and child: Penelope has been bombarded with unwelcome suitors who fight for her hand in marriage, leading mother and son to make secrets plans of their own to keep them at bay.

McCaughrean keeps the most famous encounters of Odysseus' adventure (encounters that even those who have little knowledge of Greek myth are probably familiar with) such as the blinding of Polyphemus the Cyclops, the enchantress Circe turning men into swine, and the twin terrors of Scylla and Charybdis. Along with these are slightly less-known experiences, such as Odysseus’ sojourn into the Underworld to speak with the blind seer Tiresias, hospitality in the household of the god of the winds, and the blissful stupor of the Lotus Eaters. All of this is more or less a condensed version of Homer's original text, but there is an amusing variation on the nymph Calypso who holds Odysseus "captive" on her island paradise. Turns out that living the life of luxury with an adoring female isn't quite as appealing as it sounds...

McCaughrean even manages to sneak in minor episodes, such as the unheroic death of Elpenor (poor guy fell off a roof) and Odysseus' actions to secure his peaceful rest in the Underworld. Come to think of it, it’s amazing just what is packed into this relatively slender book. The pace is rapid (getting slightly sluggish during the Scylla/Charybdis episode) and told in clear but beautiful prose; see here, a description of Circe's island:

Beyond the herb garden were olive groves and orchards of lemons, apples and limes. Vines entwined the marble colonnades, and hives shimmered with the early morning movement of bees. Tall, dark cypresses swayed like dancers, and the soft green of pine forests was sprinkled with asphodels and orchids.

Odysseus himself closely resembles Homer's portrayal of the man: a typical "hero" as the Greeks would have considered one. By contemporary standards he is undoubtedly egocentric as well, yet (as with all her retellings) McCaughrean uses this to her advantage by illustrating the human foibles of such heroes. In any case, Odysseus’ renowned cunning is at the forefront of his personality, what with his plan to avoid the Cyclops and the secret infiltration of his own house at the book's conclusion — he is even given several moments of self-inspiration that were originally passed onto him from the gods; such as chewing the moli flower to avert Circe's spells.

Customs such as the emphasis on hospitality and various death rites are interwoven into the story's flow (their importance clear without the need to stop and explain them) as is Odysseus' opposing feelings of both wanderlust and weariness. Like all the retellings (collected together in an omnibus edition: Greek Heroes), this series can serve as either an introduction to or a deeper look at the heroes of antiquity. Odysseus is perhaps not as memorable as McCaughrean’s other retellings, simply because it is a straightforward adaptation with little in the way of personal innovation, but still, this is a comprehensive, researched, well-told version of one of the most famous stories of Ancient Greece.
—Rebecca Fisher