매들린 밀러는 고대 그리스 문학을 영감의 원천으로 삼고 여성의 몫으로 되찾아 오기 시작한 현대 여성 작가들의 움직임에 적극적으로 동참하고 있는 주목할만한 미국 작가입니다. 『키르케』는 신화 속에서 지나가듯 언급될 뿐인, 헬리오스의 딸 마녀 키르케를 주인공으로 내세워 새로운 관점에서 신화 속 다양한 인물과 주제를 바라볼 수 있게 해주는 작품입니다. 매들린 밀러의 『키르케』를 통해 프로메테우스, 다이달로스와 이카로스, 메데아, 오뒷세우스를 비롯한 상상 속의 인물들이 다시금 새 생명을 얻습니다.
We lay together in my wide, gold bed. I had wanted to see him loosened with pleasure, passionate, laid bare. he was never laid bare, but the rest I saw. We did find some trust between us.
“I am not really from Argos,” he said. The firelight flickered over us, casting long shadows across the sheets. “My island is Ithaca. It’s too stony for cows. We run to goats and olive groves.”
“And the war? A fiction also?”
“The war was real.”
There was no rest in him. He looked as though he could have parried a spear-thrust out of the shadows. Yet the weariness had begun to show through, like rocks when the tide recedes. By the law of guests I should not question him before he had fed and refreshed himself, but we were past such observances.
Athena's Owl 