There's only so long you can wear the mask before the skin beneath it starts to curdle.
Medusa
by Jessie Burton
Genre: Literary Fiction
About: A retelling of Medusa's origin. A young girl lives on a deserted island with only her dog and two sisters for company. But one day a stranger sails to shore - a boy as golden as the sun. But this girl must stay in darkness. For woe betide any man fool enough to look upon her...
The Good
The prose from the very first page was utterly engaging and full of melancholic, reflective beauty. I really loved that we weren't experiencing the events that led to Medusa becoming the myth, but instead she was telling us her story alongside Perseus. This is a myth retelling and the story itself is a retelling. I found that this gave it an air of a mystery rather than inevitability.
And the descriptions of the snakes! Medusa begins in fear and disgust for them, but as a reader I found every mention so endearing. Their different personalities, the beautiful descriptions of their colourings and patterns, how they behaved depending on Medusa's mood or situation, was just really well done and gave a new dimension to her curse. You really saw her power as coming from her; these snakes were an extension of her personality. I loved that by the end she no longer feared this 'disfigurement' but was in awe of it: of herself.
The Bad
The dialogue was really jarring because it was so modern. You have Medusa's sisters saying 'What's up?' and Perseus describing Zeus as 'I mean, he's my dad, and everything'... It just didn't fit in with what the prose was doing and was at complete odds with the time setting.
And I did like the idea of the villain's story being retold as an empowered feminist one, but it was done in a very obvious way. Medusa literally did nothing. She was blameless every step of the way and the author wouldn't allow Medusa to do any wrong, at least not intentionally. Even the reason why she was cursed was really from the action and words of her sisters rather than anything she said or did. This gave her no agency of her own and turned her into this virtuous, perfect character who you're supposed to feel sympathy for but I found myself rolling my eyes at each obvious 'hell yeah, high-five, girl!' point being made. No, it wasn't her fault Poseidon attacked her; no, it wasn't her fault Athena cursed her; no, it wasn't her fault Perseus turned to stone... Not her fault, not her fault, not her fault. But I wanted more from her story than her simply being wronged all of the time.
The Somewhat Iffy
Perseus changed heart really quickly. Medusa kept saying the most logical things to him when he was attacking her, and it had no impact. He went from being in love with her, to wanting to kill her just from learning her true name. Her words that had had such an impact on him for all those days (weeks?) suddenly held no weight. I think I would have found it more believable if we'd seen him really battling with this decision to kill Medusa. If we'd been given a moment where he'd hesitated, and then perhaps he'd glimpsed her in his shield and the sight of her filled him with enough horror that he went in for the kill, only to then lock eyes with her and be turned to stone. That would have given a lot more tension and emotion to the change rather than he heard her true name and from that moment on there was no turning back for him.
Also the ending... This was a bit confusing because Perseus was supposed to have killed Medusa. The fact that he didn't felt like cheating the reader. You can retell a story and give it a different angle and characters different motivations but you really shouldn't change the ending unless it's done in a clever way. This wasn't. I actually thought the second person narrative would lead to a reveal of Medusa telling her story to another son of Zeus or perhaps to Perseus years later having been de-stoned(?). This could have given a tragic weight to the ending by implying to the reader that Medusa was about to be killed by someone she had trusted, whether from having fallen in love again or from Perseus coming back stronger. But no, the second person is just to us, the reader. Medusa ends without the tragedy, without the myth's ending, a story too removed from its origins that it rings out as false.
Overall
This is a breeze of a novella to read. But while the prose is beautiful, the dialogue is too jarring in its modernity and the feminist angle is so glaringly told that it's point weakens, rather than strengthens Medusa's story.
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