Speaker 1: Thanks to a cast for hosting and monetizing this podcast.
Speaker 1: Oh Hi, hello there, this is Let's talk about Miss
Speaker 1: Baby and I'm your host live and today I am
Speaker 1: here with a special conversation episode. And on a Tuesday
Speaker 1: no Less, I sat down with author and past guest
Speaker 1: of the show Jennifer St to talk all about her
Speaker 1: new novel Elektra, and generally the stories of quite Amnestra,
Speaker 1: elect Dra, and Cassandra, who are the voices in this book.
Speaker 1: Lord knows I could talk about Clydemnestra forever. So I
Speaker 1: was thrilled to not only get an advanced copy of
Speaker 1: the book to read, but also to have Jenny back
Speaker 1: on the show. Plus just a brag that she listened
Speaker 1: to the podcast while writing the book. And I'm even
Speaker 1: in the acknowledgements. It's just fun. We had so much
Speaker 1: fun chatting about these characters. They're also fascinating and brilliant,
Speaker 1: and I was so excited to hear about how Jenny
Speaker 1: approached writing their stories, how she handled certain things, what
Speaker 1: sources she was particularly interested in. What's so fascinating about
Speaker 1: this story is that it spans the Iliad and the
Speaker 1: Odyssey to an extent, but then It also is the
Speaker 1: only story from Greek myth that's featured in plays by
Speaker 1: all three of the surviving tragedians, and they would have
Speaker 1: been so many hundreds of years after whatever was Homer.
Speaker 1: There's so many novels lately about the Trojan War and
Speaker 1: the women involved in the war itself, and they're great.
Speaker 1: But I think that was high time for a novel
Speaker 1: featuring the darker and yet so sympathetic side of Clytemnastra
Speaker 1: and Electra and Cassandra share. But I fucking love clydem
Speaker 1: Maastra and all her righteous anger and obviously all the
Speaker 1: Agamemnon hate. I am always here to shipt on Agamemnon,
Speaker 1: and Jenny was here with me for it. We had
Speaker 1: such a great conversation. I could talk about the story
Speaker 1: for hours and hours. So I will just now turn
Speaker 1: it over to the actual conversation, making sure you pick
Speaker 1: up a copy of Electra. It's out now in the
Speaker 1: UK and in North America, and we'll enjoy this incredibly fun,
Speaker 1: interesting and insightful conversation about these myths and how Jenny
Speaker 1: went about turning them into a novel. This is episode
Speaker 1: one hundred and sixty one day forty two, Still Planning
Speaker 1: to kayle Agamemnon. A conversation with Ariadne and Electra author
Speaker 1: Jennifer ste Why don't we start with like, so, I mean,
Speaker 1: I sorry. This is when I also realized how much
Speaker 1: I love the conversational part of these things. And then
Speaker 1: when I talked to office, I'm like, oh god, this
Speaker 1: should really be an interview. So that's where I kind
Speaker 1: of my brain goes off into a bunch of different places.
Speaker 1: So I feel free to make very much make this
Speaker 1: like conversational versus feeling like you're being interviewed, Like, let's
Speaker 1: just chat about these wonderful people, because that's what I
Speaker 1: love to do, particularly these characters. So I'm like completely
Speaker 1: obsessed with the idea of the curse of the House
Speaker 1: of Atreus and and all of these been So how
Speaker 1: did you pick them? Like were you always wanting to
Speaker 1: do this, this story? Like they're so different from Merry Yeah, y,
Speaker 1: I guess, so, like why why these three ladies? Yeah? So,
Speaker 1: um there's yeah, And thank you for making it conversational.
Speaker 1: I think it's so much easier than feeling like it's
Speaker 1: like a list of questions. Um, yeah, so why are
Speaker 1: these three women is really like what what you said
Speaker 1: about being different to Ariadne. That was a really keen
Speaker 1: motivator for me. I wanted to admiss myself in a
Speaker 1: completely different world, and I felt with Ariadne the story
Speaker 1: is so much about God's and magic, and that's something
Speaker 1: that I love about Greek mythology. But also when you're
Speaker 1: into the Trojan War and you're into Clytemnestra story, electric story,
Speaker 1: and there is so much more, so much more escape
Speaker 1: for human error in these human decisions, and the gods
Speaker 1: feel like they're kind of a little step back, they're
Speaker 1: a little bit remieved. So although this still got this
Speaker 1: powerful influence on the story, they seemed like a really interesting,
Speaker 1: kind of meaty, psychological kind of thing to get my
Speaker 1: teeth into, which which was really appealing to do after
Speaker 1: writing Ariadne. And it kind of became those three because
Speaker 1: something that I was really really keen to do, possibly
Speaker 1: as a result of reading so much Greek mythology, was
Speaker 1: to explore the idea of female rage, and that was
Speaker 1: kind of the starting point. It was about anger because
Speaker 1: I think, especially as a woman, you are probably you know,
Speaker 1: we kind of condition from a young age to suppress
Speaker 1: our anger, and it quite often comes out turned against
Speaker 1: ourselves rather than turned externally on the world. So to
Speaker 1: have these three women who turned that anger outwards Cassandra
Speaker 1: a little bit less so, but certainly Cryt Semester in
Speaker 1: a lecturer in Cassandra in places. That was just that
Speaker 1: they seemed like such brilliant characters to delve into for
Speaker 1: that reason and of really go some of my difference
Speaker 1: and some of my new and some my way. I
Speaker 1: didn't feel very confident at the start. There was I
Speaker 1: felt like I had to do so much to put
Speaker 1: myself inside their heads, and that was really really challenging,
Speaker 1: and I felt like that's going to make it rewarding,
Speaker 1: that's going to make it a really good story. Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: Electra is so interesting too, because well, in Clydonnestra, like
Speaker 1: I just love clandonstra that murderous woman, like she's my favorite.
Speaker 1: But Electra's anger is so interesting because I think if
Speaker 1: coming from a modern like reading of it and like
Speaker 1: modern feminism, like I get so annoyed with Electra for
Speaker 1: where her anger is placed because I'm like, I think
Speaker 1: you should decide with your mother, like your mother is
Speaker 1: making I mean, maybe not saying making the right call
Speaker 1: and like straight up murdering im not, but like Clytemnestra's
Speaker 1: anger feels so valid, and then to have Electra just
Speaker 1: be so on the other side of it is so
Speaker 1: interesting ing And yeah, like it must have been really
Speaker 1: fascinating to to kind of get into that mindset to
Speaker 1: where like you can sort of understand why Electro feels
Speaker 1: the way she does, but also you definitely understand like
Speaker 1: why Clytemnestra feels the way she does. Yeah, Clyde Semnester
Speaker 1: is so very righteous in her anger, and and I
Speaker 1: suppose kind of come into it. I found it so
Speaker 1: so much simpler to get inside Clytemnestra has had so
Speaker 1: much easier, and she's also in you know, the way
Speaker 1: that she's treated in the ancient sources. So I quite
Speaker 1: often come back to the Odyssey. That's quite often just
Speaker 1: just like a think, there's so much in it, obviously,
Speaker 1: and it's my favorite. So yeah, so coming to Clytemnestra
Speaker 1: in the Odyssey, even though it's so sort of a
Speaker 1: minor part of it, when a Dissea's visits the underworld,
Speaker 1: when he speaks to the shape of Agamemnon, and Agamemnon
Speaker 1: is saying, um, you know, my wife is so terrible.
Speaker 1: All my wife bear had a bit of fair enough.
Speaker 1: Who's annoyed other? I understand that, but you know, saying
Speaker 1: to Odysseus, you have so much of a better wife.
Speaker 1: You know, your wife is faithful, your wife is enduring.
Speaker 1: You're gonna go home and you're going to be welcomed
Speaker 1: a lot more kindlier than I was. And and and
Speaker 1: it's that it's always that comparison between women. You know,
Speaker 1: women are just always held up against one another. And
Speaker 1: nobody at any point, as far as I can see,
Speaker 1: is ever comparing Odysseus and Agamemnon as husbands. Bath of
Speaker 1: them are terrible. Yeah, so you know why kind of
Speaker 1: a why compare the wives, and because that's what people
Speaker 1: always do. And with Clidemnestra, she's kind of a a
Speaker 1: monster for the through the the lens of the patriarchy,
Speaker 1: and she is this kind of nightmare woman who isn't
Speaker 1: just going to do what she's told, She's not going
Speaker 1: to do what's expected of her, and she's going to
Speaker 1: spend that time while like a Memnon's away at or
Speaker 1: taking control and taking power, and she's she's going to
Speaker 1: take her revenge on him. So I really loved that
Speaker 1: idea of her as being this kind of this terrifying woman.
Speaker 1: But actually what drives her is is her maternal love.
Speaker 1: It's the fact that she she is so debated to
Speaker 1: Virginia and she's not going to let her daughter go unavenged.
Speaker 1: So there's something really beautiful about her anger and something
Speaker 1: that I could really really connect to on that very
Speaker 1: visceral level, whereas you're right with a lecturer, especially coming
Speaker 1: to it from a modern mindset. She's kind of fanatical,
Speaker 1: and she's kind of driven by ideas about her family,
Speaker 1: honor and religion, and and she really wants to preserve
Speaker 1: the status quo, so kind of getting her perspective is
Speaker 1: a little bit more difficult. But in terms of her character,
Speaker 1: she is so very much like her mother, and I
Speaker 1: think that's why they clashed so badly, and they are
Speaker 1: just both so immovable and they're so fixed on this
Speaker 1: is the right thing to do, that need there of
Speaker 1: them are aware of the consequences around them, and that
Speaker 1: that dynamic between them and I don't think it's I mean,
Speaker 1: it's obviously extreme, but I think it's not an unusual
Speaker 1: mother daughter dynamic to really great against the things that
Speaker 1: make you like your mother and really come up against
Speaker 1: that kind of that that barrier to understanding. And so
Speaker 1: that felt, that felt real, and that felt like something
Speaker 1: that actually did make sense. And I suppose that was
Speaker 1: the way into her lectures character and the way to
Speaker 1: unlocking her. But she was definitely she definitely took a
Speaker 1: lot longer for me. And the novel didn't start out
Speaker 1: being a lecturer. It started out being Clytemnestra, and then
Speaker 1: over the course of writing and rewriting, Electure came more
Speaker 1: and more to the foreground, and in the end it
Speaker 1: built so much towards her that she ended up with
Speaker 1: the title spot m hmmm. I was wondering what that too, Yeah,
Speaker 1: because like I mean, it's just it's interesting because of
Speaker 1: like her as a character. Um, but she's she's so
Speaker 1: fascinating and I do think you're right, like you can
Speaker 1: you can kind of get into her mind just purely
Speaker 1: from like everything around her and kind of how she
Speaker 1: gets there, because it's so very much like you know,
Speaker 1: she she basically most of her knowledge of her family
Speaker 1: is of her mother, and so her father kind of
Speaker 1: lives in this like other world in her head of
Speaker 1: like sort of an invented person. And then so she
Speaker 1: loves him more and like fights against her mother because
Speaker 1: she's around her mother all the time. And I can
Speaker 1: feel I can see that in like teenagers generally, right,
Speaker 1: Like it's like you you want to love the parent
Speaker 1: who's like this sort of like the idea in your
Speaker 1: head versus the one that's in front of you. You know, Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1: And I mean, first of all, the only way that
Speaker 1: anyone can love like Ammendment is if they don't know him.
Speaker 1: So it's like no other way to find him in
Speaker 1: any way political, and so she's got to invent him.
Speaker 1: And that was that was one of the first because obviously,
Speaker 1: like we've talked before about timelines and chronology and none
Speaker 1: of it making sense. And so when it comes to
Speaker 1: a lecture and she comes into the tragedies as a
Speaker 1: fully grown woman, but I don't think as far as
Speaker 1: I can tell that we get a very clear sense
Speaker 1: of her age, and certainly not how old she was
Speaker 1: when Agammon went to war, And for for her to
Speaker 1: actually have this obsession with him, I thought, well, he
Speaker 1: must have gone when she was too small to have formed,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of a real judgment of the kind
Speaker 1: of person that he is, and that allows her to
Speaker 1: then mythologize him. And then when he comes back, she's
Speaker 1: in her teenage years, which is a tricky time anyway
Speaker 1: and certainly for parental relationships. And so yeah, that's she
Speaker 1: definitely made sense to me as um as a really
Speaker 1: as a teenager, so very stuck in that that that
Speaker 1: vision of like, my life would be so much better
Speaker 1: if my father was here, if you'd never gone away,
Speaker 1: things are perfect once they could be again, you know,
Speaker 1: without any kind of real understanding of who he really
Speaker 1: is or what it would have been like if he'd stayed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's exactly it. And I think you're right about the
Speaker 1: age too, because like iforganize the oldest and she's killed
Speaker 1: when she's marriageable age, which is like what fourteen grows,
Speaker 1: So it makes sense that electric could be you know,
Speaker 1: anywhere from like five to ten. Like we only know
Speaker 1: that Orestes is a baby, and then otherwise we kind
Speaker 1: of like have this or liminal space about how old
Speaker 1: anyone is. And I have to say, I do love
Speaker 1: that you have chrysophemus in it. Too, because she's often
Speaker 1: like not in the story at all. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm always a space, I'm always so interested in sisterly relationships.
Speaker 1: And it was and to have kind of obviously if
Speaker 1: it ignize Dad that Chris Chris Chrysophemous, I've really struggled
Speaker 1: with her name, so I like make a guess, I
Speaker 1: don't even know, but just it doesn't it doesn't play
Speaker 1: very easily. And so yeah, but she's when she's when
Speaker 1: she's in the tragedies, she's kind of it. Um. She
Speaker 1: sort of sympathizes a little bit with Electra, but she
Speaker 1: doesn't she's not going to go as far as Electra.
Speaker 1: And so that seems like something to kind of and
Speaker 1: to yet to like delve into a bit like with
Speaker 1: very Adne and Fireder the way that I thought they
Speaker 1: would probably react differently to the minutar just this way
Speaker 1: that you know, you can you can have the same
Speaker 1: childhood experience. But for Christophemis Christophemus, she she's going to
Speaker 1: go down that more sort of traditional read I suppose,
Speaker 1: of complying, of being obedient, of doing what she's told,
Speaker 1: however she feels about it. But Electua, she's so much
Speaker 1: Clatemester's daughter, she just can't do that. Yeah, that's so true.
Speaker 1: I hadn't really ever thought of them in that way
Speaker 1: of of just like, I mean, what makes them so
Speaker 1: different is that they are the same, and they each
Speaker 1: have these these things they have to hold on to
Speaker 1: at the cost of like anything else. And I just
Speaker 1: love these characters so much, so just generally exciting um,
Speaker 1: but also the curse. So I'm just like, I love
Speaker 1: the whole idea of of the curse, you know, on
Speaker 1: the House of Atrius specifically because it's like it's the
Speaker 1: Tantaled curse, and then it's the Curse of the Pelopidi,
Speaker 1: and then it's the Attroney curse, and you're like, this
Speaker 1: family is so cursed that their curse has three different
Speaker 1: names as it rolls through the generations. But then looking
Speaker 1: at the women involved is especially interesting because like, technically speaking,
Speaker 1: Electra is the only one like by blood in this curse,
Speaker 1: but obviously the curse effects like Clydemnestra and Cassandra, and
Speaker 1: so it's an interesting way to look at it in
Speaker 1: that way. And like, obviously I'm pro just looking at
Speaker 1: everything from the lens of the women involved, So like
Speaker 1: how do you feel about the curse? Like why was
Speaker 1: that kind of your thing? I noticed it's in like
Speaker 1: all the copy and stuff too, so just generally interested
Speaker 1: in the like the approach to the course itself here,
Speaker 1: I think that that really came from not actually from
Speaker 1: Greek mythology, and I was partly inspired and definitely in
Speaker 1: terms of the curse and these ideas about how much
Speaker 1: of this is free will and how much of this
Speaker 1: is fate? And I really want that to Macbeth for that,
Speaker 1: and that is the English teacher that I can never
Speaker 1: get rid of from my psyche and will always be
Speaker 1: a part of me, because I just used to love
Speaker 1: teaching with birth. I used to and you'd think with
Speaker 1: teenagers the app I taught that like Ramy and Julia
Speaker 1: would be the one because it's all about kind of
Speaker 1: teenager love and all the rest of it. But it
Speaker 1: was McBeth that used to grip them the most when
Speaker 1: when we did McBeth. And it is just that idea
Speaker 1: of how much of your fate is inevitable and how
Speaker 1: much of it do you have a choice over? And
Speaker 1: it's the way that um in in this in this
Speaker 1: um like like you said, three fault curse and Greek mythology.
Speaker 1: You feel like there's a way out for each generation,
Speaker 1: but each of them doesn't take it, so they just
Speaker 1: may get worse and worse until it's so like just
Speaker 1: ingrained into their psyche that they will do these terrible
Speaker 1: things to one another. I mean the fact that it
Speaker 1: starts with Tantalus just just deciding to serve up his
Speaker 1: son to the gods fuff fuf funk, seemingly to test them. Well,
Speaker 1: I don't know why they needed testing that he would
Speaker 1: choose his own son for that as well. It's so
Speaker 1: and it's so twisted, and I don't know, it feels
Speaker 1: like kind of a bit Game of Thrones, a bit Macbeth,
Speaker 1: all of these other like really sort of dark stories,
Speaker 1: and I was just really wanted to weave all of
Speaker 1: that in and to really make it feel like this
Speaker 1: horrible claustrophobic intensity for the novel, just pressing down as
Speaker 1: these characters think that they've seen their escape and they
Speaker 1: think that they're going to get out, but instead they
Speaker 1: end up just getting sucked deeper and deeper in. I
Speaker 1: just think that's that's so irresistible. Yeah, and the way
Speaker 1: that it can suck in the people in the periphery,
Speaker 1: you know, like Agam. I'm not a mentalist or obviously
Speaker 1: affected by it, but that it can pull in you know,
Speaker 1: this foreign woman foreign quote unquote like spars not that foreign,
Speaker 1: but you know, like Clytemnestra getting yanked into it, and
Speaker 1: and like even Cassandra getting yanked into it in her
Speaker 1: own way is so interesting, like just the way that
Speaker 1: it could like bleed out beyond the the actual blood
Speaker 1: family members, and and interesting what you're saying to like Tantalus.
Speaker 1: They you know, after he does feeds his kid to
Speaker 1: the gods, they go on to like in terms of
Speaker 1: like Greek mythology and the way it's referred to, like
Speaker 1: they're constantly like, oh, yeah, no, Tantalus did this worst thing,
Speaker 1: Like Tantus was awful. Even part of the family is
Speaker 1: like discussing, you know, this Tantald like what he did
Speaker 1: and how horrific it is. And then I just love
Speaker 1: that they still down to like Atrius and it's like no,
Speaker 1: but like maybe we do feed somebody who's like maybe
Speaker 1: that comes back, like maybe maybe that wasn't you know,
Speaker 1: the worst possible thing imaginable, Like let's look at it again,
Speaker 1: so to revisit that for different reasons, and this time
Speaker 1: I'm sure it will go swimmingly exactly, Like if we
Speaker 1: don't feed them to the gods, then it's fine, right, yeah, completely,
Speaker 1: just feed them to their own father instead. And the
Speaker 1: fact that the peelops when you know he's saved, he's
Speaker 1: brought back by the gods, he gets his magical ivory
Speaker 1: shoulder and all the rest of it, but then he
Speaker 1: still turns out to be an absolutely um like monster
Speaker 1: of a pisson anyway, because you would kind of expect
Speaker 1: that he would that he would be the opposite to
Speaker 1: his father. And yeah, I guess that's kind of similar
Speaker 1: to Clytemnestra in a lecture that it just this blood
Speaker 1: will out, It just comes through in their characters, and
Speaker 1: somehow they just can't seem to stop themselves from doing
Speaker 1: this over and making the same mistakes over and over again.
Speaker 1: That's very human, I think, And even though it's so
Speaker 1: lurid and so fantastical, there's just that kind of truth
Speaker 1: of human beings that you know, you you know that
Speaker 1: this is probably a really bad CLIs faction, but somehow
Speaker 1: you think that it's going to go okay this time,
Speaker 1: or or that you've got justification, and so often that's
Speaker 1: not the case. Yeah, absolutely, where it's like objectively, you
Speaker 1: know these things to be true, but but it's just
Speaker 1: it's going to happen again because of something or another,
Speaker 1: or just like your own inability to comprehend that, like no,
Speaker 1: maybe maybe your first thought of like this is a
Speaker 1: bad idea, is is in fact right? And yeah, I
Speaker 1: just find that whole curse and like the question surrounding
Speaker 1: basically everything you've covered in this book, Like, I just
Speaker 1: find it so fascinating to look at the ways in
Speaker 1: which each generation was affected by it and like what
Speaker 1: happened because of it? And anyway, I love curses in
Speaker 1: Greek mythology general, but this is the best person all
Speaker 1: of Greek. It definitely is. Yeah, it's definitely my favorite. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just the most like wide ranging and like just
Speaker 1: I mean long standing. Obviously. Also I just like to
Speaker 1: be able to list all the three because they're just
Speaker 1: great words when you put them all together. Yeah, very satisfying.
Speaker 1: It just really is um so one person who's like
Speaker 1: such a sort of lightning rod, I think is the
Speaker 1: word I would like to use. Um is Helen obviously,
Speaker 1: and she's kind of like on the periphery, you know,
Speaker 1: in everything, which is sort of just like generally the
Speaker 1: notion of her character. She's on the periphery everywhere. But
Speaker 1: how did you approach or did you have any like
Speaker 1: specific goals with how you wanted to handle Helen? Like,
Speaker 1: she's just such a she's such an interesting character for
Speaker 1: so many different reasons. So I'm just curious generally about
Speaker 1: your your Helen. Yeah, I think I found her quite
Speaker 1: an intimidating character to come to, right because she's, you know,
Speaker 1: she's she doesn't have I mean, who who kind of
Speaker 1: really is she? In Greek mythology, she's used for so
Speaker 1: many purposes, And I think that the one thing that
Speaker 1: I knew about her was that, um, she's she's the instigator.
Speaker 1: She's the catalyst for this terrible war. And that's so
Speaker 1: in raging and so nonsensical the idea. And I have
Speaker 1: her say in the novel that a thousand ships would
Speaker 1: sail for her, that this is a war about male ego,
Speaker 1: it's a war about conquest and territory and wealth and power,
Speaker 1: and that so handy. Here we are, we can blame
Speaker 1: it all on one woman who is just so beautiful
Speaker 1: that we hate her because we want her so much.
Speaker 1: So that was that was I knew that kind of
Speaker 1: that was by feeling about Helen, but kind of working
Speaker 1: out who she would be and what would make her
Speaker 1: do whatever is she does and we don't really know
Speaker 1: what she does? Says you know, did she does she
Speaker 1: go with parents willingly? Is she abducted? Is she turned
Speaker 1: into a cloud, and what is it spends ten years
Speaker 1: in Egypt? We don't know. So yeah, and again I
Speaker 1: think I thought, well, I want to try and see
Speaker 1: her a little bit more than through the prism of
Speaker 1: her female relationships, because kind of seeing how she relates
Speaker 1: to all these men, to menalised Paris, to the Sitters
Speaker 1: or whoever else isn't really helping me get an understanding
Speaker 1: of who she is. So I started with her and
Speaker 1: Clytemestra back in Sparta and their childhood together, and that's
Speaker 1: strange sibling relationship they have where they're twins, but Helen's
Speaker 1: been born and from an egg because she's the daughter
Speaker 1: of Use, where it's cry Semesterra is completely mortal, and
Speaker 1: that kind of imbalance between them and as Helen is
Speaker 1: the daughter of like not just a god, but she's
Speaker 1: the daughter of Sees, the sort of the kind of
Speaker 1: the the sort of like the king of the gods.
Speaker 1: You know, she's she must kind of feel that she
Speaker 1: has got something important to do with her life because
Speaker 1: all of the males and of God's are going off
Speaker 1: and having adventures or quests, are going to war, and
Speaker 1: what's she going to do apart from be the most
Speaker 1: beautiful woman, like just be a prize for these men.
Speaker 1: So that did make me think about her going to
Speaker 1: Troy and how she maybe she could have been tempted,
Speaker 1: Like why she would have been tempted maybe not really
Speaker 1: just by Paris, but by the promise of something new
Speaker 1: and something exciting and some kind of destiny that she
Speaker 1: could get hold of. But she's so she's just so
Speaker 1: much the focus of other people's opinions all the time.
Speaker 1: M that I did, I did want to give her
Speaker 1: some little moments where she is just herself. So like
Speaker 1: where she interacts with Cassandra in Troy, because they're both
Speaker 1: in these kind of different but quite similar situations because
Speaker 1: they're both outcast within that city, neither of them out
Speaker 1: fully accepted for these very different reasons, and both of
Speaker 1: them kind of you to be in the havings of disaster.
Speaker 1: So I definitely thought there'd be a connection between them.
Speaker 1: I think while I was writing, I just felt and
Speaker 1: I think he'll always feel like this is great mynthology,
Speaker 1: Like there's about six different levels that you could write
Speaker 1: just under the surface. And I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: Helen and Cassandra novel would be great. Bring Andromick here
Speaker 1: and like write all of their stories and there's just
Speaker 1: there's just not realm in one book. But um, yeah,
Speaker 1: So I did as much with hers as though as
Speaker 1: space well, kind of honoring those other characters. His stories
Speaker 1: I just thought needed to be heard this time. M hmmm.
Speaker 1: I did love that moment, like Clydemnestra is kind of
Speaker 1: thinking about her and it's like did she go willingly
Speaker 1: or did she not? You know? And I think that
Speaker 1: that's it's like a question that I mean even just
Speaker 1: the way you you phrased it there, Like that's one
Speaker 1: thing I find out about Helen to be so interesting
Speaker 1: is that I can see either side, even from the
Speaker 1: standpoint of like wanting to give her agency in both cases,
Speaker 1: like you know, she like she could have loved either
Speaker 1: of them, like we just know so little that I
Speaker 1: think you can have a sympathetic and understanding, understandable like
Speaker 1: idea of Helen while also like looking at both of
Speaker 1: these options and think both you can get and neither
Speaker 1: neither really make her the bad guy because she just
Speaker 1: overall is not the bad guy. Like these men went
Speaker 1: to war because of their own fragile egose, they didn't
Speaker 1: go to war over Helen, Like that's not actually how
Speaker 1: it works. And so I do like the idea that
Speaker 1: that you can see her going with Paris out of
Speaker 1: love or out of desire to have a different experience,
Speaker 1: to have something bigger and better and like and even
Speaker 1: that still you can look at that option and still
Speaker 1: be like, it still wasn't on her, Like it's still
Speaker 1: all about the men and their egos, like it the
Speaker 1: idea of her her blame and this in that story
Speaker 1: is always fascinated me so much because it's just, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's so just based in misogyny, and like the patriarch
Speaker 1: in this idea that like, yeah, sure one woman caused
Speaker 1: a whole war that only involved men's fighting, that that
Speaker 1: checks out, Yeah, definitely, like a ten years age was
Speaker 1: a completely proportionate reaction to her leaving her at the end.
Speaker 1: And yeah, absolutely, I think like one of the first
Speaker 1: books that I ever read about great mythology when I
Speaker 1: was younger was The Tale of Troy by Redel I'm
Speaker 1: selling Green. I don't if you ever read that. It's
Speaker 1: like a children's book, and it was the fit is
Speaker 1: my first introduction to the Trajan War, and in it,
Speaker 1: Helen is a completely innocent character. It's Aphrodite has charmed
Speaker 1: her and she doesn't know what's happening, and then suddenly
Speaker 1: she's in Troy with Paris and she spends the whole
Speaker 1: time crying for her daughter that she's left behind and Menelaus,
Speaker 1: who she really loves. So I think it was ingrained
Speaker 1: in me. Helen is a sympathetic character. I came across
Speaker 1: that representation of her before any other, so I think
Speaker 1: I would always have that kind of Yeah, it definitely
Speaker 1: wasn't Helen's fault kind of In that book, he also
Speaker 1: mentions that Theseus is awful, so I mean any children, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that sounds great, especially for a kid's book of Greek
Speaker 1: pathology like it just it's a rare feat I think
Speaker 1: to have a theseus called out in something like that.
Speaker 1: That's great. Um, I recently and you kind of already
Speaker 1: alluded to it, but I recently recorded a conversation episode.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if it'll come out before or after this,
Speaker 1: but regardless, I'm gonna bring it up. But about the
Speaker 1: idea of Helen as the idol on like this weird
Speaker 1: version of her that actually is off in Egypt this
Speaker 1: whole time, and there's this like false like cloud Helen
Speaker 1: in Troy doing everything. That's just so fascinating to me, Like,
Speaker 1: did you have any thoughts about doing anything with that?
Speaker 1: I mean, it sounds like it would be so deeply complicated,
Speaker 1: but I'm just so curious about your thoughts on that
Speaker 1: version of her. Now, all I did was I put
Speaker 1: in a tiny Easter eg where when Cassandra sees her,
Speaker 1: she says she's so beat Phil she looks and say
Speaker 1: she could have been sculptured from a cloud, and I
Speaker 1: just reference and that, Yeah, I found it, and not
Speaker 1: the place I think to actually make her a cloud
Speaker 1: and go into all of that. But I'll be so
Speaker 1: interested to listen to that conversation. That sounds great, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's really interesting and just now I want to do
Speaker 1: like a whole like accompanying episode on that idea of her,
Speaker 1: because it's so weird and unique for Greek mythology, this
Speaker 1: idea of like a false version of someone, and it
Speaker 1: feels like it would only happen with Helen, you know,
Speaker 1: like only someone that controversial for no good reason, like
Speaker 1: would get you say, impunishable, that maybe she wasn't there
Speaker 1: at all. Yeah, and just so like it's all down
Speaker 1: to her, So how can we make it you know not?
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's it's fascinating idea, just this like
Speaker 1: version of her. This whole story is like so complex
Speaker 1: and there's so many different versions. I think the most
Speaker 1: interesting thing for me, and I'm sure you encounter this
Speaker 1: with Ariadney too, is the stories where um, where there's
Speaker 1: like these mythical versions and then there's these tragedy versions,
Speaker 1: because like so often we have to link our our
Speaker 1: ideas of Greek mythology on Greek tragedy because that's where
Speaker 1: we get a lot of things where other sources are lost.
Speaker 1: But also the thing I always come back to is
Speaker 1: that like Greek tragedy was a performance. It was like
Speaker 1: a piece of of like art, it was reception in itself,
Speaker 1: like so we you know, it's easy to also then
Speaker 1: look at it and be like, well, grain of salt,
Speaker 1: Like what did the playwright want to change for his
Speaker 1: own story, his own drama? Like the idea of like
Speaker 1: what we change in a movie adaptation versus the original
Speaker 1: story and things like that. So did you have like
Speaker 1: preferences in terms of what you wanted to refer to
Speaker 1: or like, I mean just basically like what are your
Speaker 1: thoughts on that in general? Because it's fascinating. I love
Speaker 1: Greek tragedy, So now I'm rambling definitely, And yeah, I
Speaker 1: went all over with it. So I kind of I
Speaker 1: do feel like the most defining fish and that we've
Speaker 1: got off the main story is these glisses Aristia and
Speaker 1: that was definitely where I started that. Clytemnestra is so
Speaker 1: compelling in that version, but electric kind of is not
Speaker 1: particularly she's she's she doesn't there's not very much about
Speaker 1: her really particularly and there is it? Is it the libation?
Speaker 1: There is I get compute something? Yeah, yeah, libation. I
Speaker 1: know I mixed them up to because you have some
Speaker 1: people call them the Greek and the libation bearers is
Speaker 1: the yeah, yeah, um yeah, yeah, so and that she's
Speaker 1: kind of she's just I mean, she's there and she
Speaker 1: does she follows the same story. And as with Sophocles
Speaker 1: and Europodes, but obviously Soppo plays and Europides called I
Speaker 1: play their tragedies Electra, and there is so much more
Speaker 1: of her in them. So I was kind of I
Speaker 1: was skipping back and forth between the tragedies, kind of
Speaker 1: like taking Clytemnestra from easch is taking the idea of
Speaker 1: the beacon's lighting, which I love so much, but also
Speaker 1: it doesn't make any sense because it makes it feel
Speaker 1: as though they get back from Troy in the space
Speaker 1: of one night. So I really wanted, really wanted the
Speaker 1: beacons in there, but I had to find a way
Speaker 1: to make that makes sense, which was tricky. I wonder
Speaker 1: if they could have had beacons to like now I'm
Speaker 1: just thinking about distances and things, and like, I don't
Speaker 1: know if that would have worked. Had not thought about
Speaker 1: that before, but now I'm fascinated by the idea of
Speaker 1: like whether they could actually have had that From like
Speaker 1: Turkey to Arghosts. Yeah, there's there's a lot of say
Speaker 1: in between, so exactly, and like some islands, but the
Speaker 1: islands are not close enough to each other anyway. Yeah,
Speaker 1: on many levels, but I still really wanted to include
Speaker 1: them because I don't know. Of course, I think they're great.
Speaker 1: I just more w into like what a technically speaking,
Speaker 1: but no, they're perfect plot device. Yeah absolutely, I don't.
Speaker 1: Could they have had them on stage in the tragedy
Speaker 1: because they've had like thinning torches probably, Yeah, you're right,
Speaker 1: So if you think about it in that respect, it
Speaker 1: would have and would have been like a gorgeous thing
Speaker 1: and an easy one and they had pretty high tech
Speaker 1: East Less so with East Gloss, I imagine, but they
Speaker 1: would have performed those later with with Attack. But like
Speaker 1: I just always think back to the crane and stuff
Speaker 1: they had, like they did a lot with their stage work. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's going to like take us down or a
Speaker 1: bit hall of like tray. Oh my god, If you
Speaker 1: don't think I think about that like every single day.
Speaker 1: So yeah, And so I was, Yes, I was back
Speaker 1: and forth between soft classes Glass until I got really
Speaker 1: confused with where I was, and um, yeah, well not
Speaker 1: so much confused with that I was, but kind of
Speaker 1: when I'm looking back and trying to unpick and work
Speaker 1: out well which it came from where, because um, with
Speaker 1: with research and all these different sources, I guess I
Speaker 1: find it all, and then I have to turn it
Speaker 1: into something of my own, and then it's it's so
Speaker 1: difficult to then go back and kind of try and
Speaker 1: unpick where it all all came from. And then obviously
Speaker 1: there's so much from the from the Iliad and then
Speaker 1: from the Odyssey as well, and then I couldn't write
Speaker 1: a book without of it showing showing us somewhere. No
Speaker 1: one should so. Um. But I do think with this story,
Speaker 1: more so than with Aria Adney, the versions do you
Speaker 1: mesh a lot more smoozely um. I think with Verry
Speaker 1: Adney there was so much that was contradictory, and there
Speaker 1: were and it felt like there were versions from kind
Speaker 1: of so much, kind of so much longer before the
Speaker 1: Theseus story, and that I was trying to smush it
Speaker 1: all together. I'll take that word again, and yeah, and
Speaker 1: it was. It was a lot harder to make those
Speaker 1: pieces fit. Whereas whereas when it comes to electoral Clytemester
Speaker 1: in Cassandra, there is a lot more that I think
Speaker 1: seems to agree when it comes to them, and between
Speaker 1: the tragedies and between the poetry and the epics. There
Speaker 1: there's obviously there's character differences, and I think, especially with
Speaker 1: a lecturer, she varies quite a lot. She's like, she's
Speaker 1: very bloodthirsty, and sophically is she's a little bit more conflicted.
Speaker 1: In Euripides, there's kind of there's definitely more more a
Speaker 1: depth to a character. And I don't know which order
Speaker 1: of those two would have come in, but um no,
Speaker 1: that's interesting that I think Euripides is really kind of
Speaker 1: brought out more to her and that was that was
Speaker 1: really useful to me. But whenever you come to a lecture,
Speaker 1: there's still this huge gap in her life. There's just
Speaker 1: all of that time that went before you went. By
Speaker 1: the time you meet her in any version that I
Speaker 1: could find, she's already grown up and she's already got
Speaker 1: this really fixed hatred and there's nothing, no kind of
Speaker 1: explation in the ancient sources I could find of where
Speaker 1: that came from and how that developed. That's so true,
Speaker 1: Like I hadn't really thought about it until you started
Speaker 1: saying all of that, but yeah, like there really are
Speaker 1: It really is almost entirely just the place in this case,
Speaker 1: because the Iliad doesn't really touched upon much of like
Speaker 1: the family obviously because they're back home, and and like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you get the representation in the Odyssey, which is so interesting,
Speaker 1: but it's all about quite a nastra and yeah, so
Speaker 1: I guess we just have these like I mean, luckily
Speaker 1: we it's the only story that has been covered by
Speaker 1: all three of the tragedian, so it gets these like
Speaker 1: extra love balls. Um, but I would be wrong to
Speaker 1: not now add or more like not I would not
Speaker 1: be my own personality to not now add that. In university,
Speaker 1: so I took um my one like Greek drama class,
Speaker 1: which was the best, and I had the greatest prof
Speaker 1: But he decided that like the way we were going
Speaker 1: to study the plays was that actually the only place
Speaker 1: we were going to study were the three different tragedians
Speaker 1: takes on that story. So we just spent an entire
Speaker 1: semester only studying like the you know, I think we
Speaker 1: went eastchilosophically as Euripides, because I think yet timelines that
Speaker 1: makes most sense, and so it was so fascinating to
Speaker 1: look at how they did differently because like your right,
Speaker 1: Euripides as Electra is I think she's much more sympathetic.
Speaker 1: She's really interesting. And but also Euripides as arresties is bizarre.
Speaker 1: Like the play called the Rusties is like this wild
Speaker 1: ride of weird. I actually played Electra in a radio
Speaker 1: play version of that. It was great. We got extra
Speaker 1: credit for it and everything. All we did was like
Speaker 1: sit in a room with like six of us and
Speaker 1: just record this play NonStop. It was very But I
Speaker 1: need to reread these plays. And it's been so long,
Speaker 1: I don't even know if I fully like I forget
Speaker 1: how I covered them in the podcast because it's been
Speaker 1: like four years since I did it, and now like
Speaker 1: all I want to do is reread all the different
Speaker 1: takes on them, particularly because I love Euripides so much.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's it's just fascinating the way they each
Speaker 1: have this stories. You get this like added depth of
Speaker 1: understanding and looking at how each of them handled it.
Speaker 1: And like, I mean, he's close is obviously the oldest,
Speaker 1: he's like sort of the most like stayed, and you
Speaker 1: get a great story out of him, but you get
Speaker 1: better characters, I think out of Sophocles and Euripides. And
Speaker 1: there's a kind of that moment where Euripides like makes
Speaker 1: fun of the Eastless recognition scene something, and he's like, well,
Speaker 1: because I mean it's obviously it doesn't there's I mean,
Speaker 1: there's a beacons, and then there's that. There are some
Speaker 1: definitely some plot holes, I think, and he says, you know, well,
Speaker 1: how could a lecture possibly recognize our rescues from a
Speaker 1: lack of her? People have got similar Yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: lack of her and the and the footprint. I think
Speaker 1: that her foot fits in the same footprint. And I
Speaker 1: mean that because that's always two for those and sisters absolutely,
Speaker 1: So I do really like that you have that little
Speaker 1: but that reception of each other, that referencing of each other.
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, well, I mean I just like to
Speaker 1: think about all those different things, like because he's close.
Speaker 1: It was like almost a hundred years I think before
Speaker 1: Eurypes and he was so famous, so yeah, like everyone
Speaker 1: would have been like comparing or yeah, like criticizing or
Speaker 1: various things like that. So I love the intricacies of
Speaker 1: Greek tragedy truly. I could spend hours talking about it,
Speaker 1: but we won't turn this into that. Um, So I'm
Speaker 1: interested in how much you did or did not want
Speaker 1: to you involve the Trojan War because obviously, like that's
Speaker 1: the most important, and like, did you maybe this also
Speaker 1: connects with like why you wanted to feature Cassandra, you
Speaker 1: know in this story and sort of like what, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean talk about that, Yeah, definitely. And so I
Speaker 1: think if you, you know, if you're interested in great pathology,
Speaker 1: the Trajan War is just going to be something that
Speaker 1: you are always going to want to return to. And
Speaker 1: it's just there is there's so much in it and
Speaker 1: to to love and to explore, and and so I
Speaker 1: knew that I wanted the Trajan War in a novel,
Speaker 1: and I was trying to think, well, how can I
Speaker 1: do this that is not going to feel like, um,
Speaker 1: it's just kind of rehashing what other people have done, um,
Speaker 1: because I wanted to, you know, to put my own
Speaker 1: slant on it, do something new. And so seeing it
Speaker 1: from the inside of Troy was the main thing that
Speaker 1: I didn't want to be out on the Greek beaches
Speaker 1: kind of seeing Achilles and Agamemnon and again, because that's
Speaker 1: been done so brilliantly. You know, I've read the Science
Speaker 1: of the Girls, I've read a thousand ships, I've read
Speaker 1: the song of Achilles, and they are all amazing and
Speaker 1: I'm not going to try to do that again. It
Speaker 1: doesn't need doing. And so going to try inside Troy
Speaker 1: was the first thing that really interested me because I
Speaker 1: felt like I hadn't seen that so much and I
Speaker 1: wanted to know what it was like to be in
Speaker 1: that city. I was writing during lockdowns because this is
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, and this idea of being under siege felt
Speaker 1: very timely, very relevant, and the kind of feeling that
Speaker 1: anxiety and again and magades that way Clastophebia again because
Speaker 1: that's really the pervading feeling of the novel and really
Speaker 1: really chimed and felt like something that was a way
Speaker 1: of kind of, I guess like writing about the pandemic,
Speaker 1: even without writing about the pandemic, because I'm three thousand
Speaker 1: years ago and this is a totally different scenario and
Speaker 1: it's a it was a way of escaping but also
Speaker 1: channeling quite a lot of those anxieties and fears as well.
Speaker 1: And Cassandra has just always been a huge favorite of mine,
Speaker 1: and I think she will be for so many people
Speaker 1: who are interested in this area because she's just her plight,
Speaker 1: her situation is so oh it speaks to you on
Speaker 1: so many levels. And the way that she is a
Speaker 1: woman who is never heard and never believed. I mean,
Speaker 1: first of all, that's something she always yeah, but quite possibly,
Speaker 1: you know, And so she's um and I think like
Speaker 1: in a lot of visions her brother is believed, isn't
Speaker 1: he He's also a prophet and so you know, right,
Speaker 1: so there's something to to cheer over as well, though
Speaker 1: I didn't I didn't include him in. It just captures
Speaker 1: her for you know, keeping it focused and kind of
Speaker 1: giving the spotlight to the people who deserve it. And
Speaker 1: you can't add too much, you greet, mythology becomes a
Speaker 1: little messy, like as if the original aren't aren't messy
Speaker 1: enough exactly, And I felt, you know, I don't want
Speaker 1: to have to put in a load of footnotes and
Speaker 1: have people like rushing up to encyclopedia every five minutes.
Speaker 1: So um, yeah. So Cassandra, the fact that she can
Speaker 1: see what's going to happen to try, she can see
Speaker 1: how her city is going to be devastated. She knows
Speaker 1: it's coming and shout as loud as she might. Nobody
Speaker 1: will pay any attention to her. It's just so maddening
Speaker 1: and so fascinating and so just just amazing to to
Speaker 1: get into that that mindset and how what it would
Speaker 1: be like, how it would actually begin to drive you
Speaker 1: mad that everybody believes that you are mad. She's she's
Speaker 1: just incredible and she's so tragic as well, but she
Speaker 1: has these moments of defiance where she's still trying to
Speaker 1: save try even though why does it she just run away?
Speaker 1: Nobody there will give her the respect that she deserves.
Speaker 1: But it's her home, it's her city, it's where she
Speaker 1: belongs and where she feels that, you know what, Kinship,
Speaker 1: that she she still loves her family, and she still
Speaker 1: loves her city, however badly they've treated her, and she's
Speaker 1: still going to do everything she can, even though she
Speaker 1: knows it's deemed to failure. It's just it's so painful
Speaker 1: that it just it made me just feel that she's
Speaker 1: somebody well I finally want to hear her voice and
Speaker 1: and then believe her story. So and as well as
Speaker 1: that there was kind of just the practicality of This
Speaker 1: is a story about a lecture and Clytemnestra, and Clytemnestra
Speaker 1: is spending ten years planning her revenge, which is great,
Speaker 1: it doesn't make her a very interesting novel of her
Speaker 1: like day for you two, still planning how to kill
Speaker 1: all the way up to ten years. So yeah, so
Speaker 1: to actually take the action to try and to see
Speaker 1: see it happening. And so it is difficult to write
Speaker 1: a character you can see the future and create a
Speaker 1: sense of suspense as well, because if she knows what's
Speaker 1: going to happen, how how are you going to make
Speaker 1: it exciting. So the fact that she's kind of she's
Speaker 1: an unreliable narrator in the way that these visions hit
Speaker 1: her because you know, a Paula is not going to
Speaker 1: give her like a detailed, bullet pointed breakdown of like
Speaker 1: this is going to happen, when and where and how
Speaker 1: it's going to be this, this, this, this kind of
Speaker 1: fits these frenzied moments for her where she sees it coming. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's true. I mean, yeah, if we've learned anything from
Speaker 1: the Oracle, like Apollo doesn't speak, he's not going to
Speaker 1: make it easy for you. Um, but yeah, that's that's
Speaker 1: Cassander is so interesting and I think from like even
Speaker 1: the start in the book, she she fits this great
Speaker 1: role too of you know, like the aside from the
Speaker 1: fact that she's this fascinating character who I think Yad
Speaker 1: does deserve more of a voice, but also she's kind
Speaker 1: of there for it all, and there's not like a
Speaker 1: lot of details about her in the midst like there's
Speaker 1: very little. I did an episode on her and it
Speaker 1: was hard to tease everything out. But what she is
Speaker 1: is that she does kind of serve as this like
Speaker 1: this sort of fixed point in in much of troy story,
Speaker 1: even you know, from the very beginning of like what's
Speaker 1: going to happen with Paris, And I think that it
Speaker 1: adds so much that you get to have this character
Speaker 1: who who links up then with with Clydemnestra and Electra
Speaker 1: in that very you know, important way, but also serves
Speaker 1: to give you this like inside access to all of
Speaker 1: Troy and everything that happened there. So she is she
Speaker 1: kind of seems to serve like a very perfect plot
Speaker 1: device of like you're saying, not having just the entire
Speaker 1: book be about Clydemnestra like slowly plotting her revenge, but
Speaker 1: also being able to look at the war itself through
Speaker 1: this character who is there and interacting with Helen and
Speaker 1: getting all these different insights. She just kind of is
Speaker 1: perfect for all of that. Yeah, And because she's not involved,
Speaker 1: she's always this sort of outcast character. She's always got
Speaker 1: that that separation for everybody else, and her vision isn't
Speaker 1: clouded in that way. You know, she's not She's not
Speaker 1: like one of the other characters. He's really got the
Speaker 1: skin in the game and so much involvement because she's
Speaker 1: not a part of anything. She's separate all the time,
Speaker 1: so she can see it and she can relay it.
Speaker 1: And when Patrick Cliss is killed, she knows she in Troy,
Speaker 1: she knows that's not Achilles inside that armor. And so
Speaker 1: it was like a good way to be able to
Speaker 1: describe that scene happening as well, and that without it
Speaker 1: being really confusing because everybody else in Troy thinks they're
Speaker 1: seeing Achilles day that she's got this this superior knowledge.
Speaker 1: So she's the person that I can turn to for that,
Speaker 1: for the for what's happening there. And then she really
Speaker 1: serves a purpose to bring out something else about Clytnestra's
Speaker 1: character when she's brought home as a captive, because this
Speaker 1: is something and I think this came from of it,
Speaker 1: but it's certainly something I remember being told when I
Speaker 1: studied the players back in college when I was like
Speaker 1: seventeen eighteen, which is that when Agamemnon brings Cassandra home,
Speaker 1: clae Semmestra is just consumed with this terrible sexual jealousy.
Speaker 1: And I just thought, even as a as an eighteen
Speaker 1: year old, I kind of thought this, this does not
Speaker 1: ring true of Clyde. She hates Agamemnon and jealousy. He's
Speaker 1: got this concubine, which is the worst word ever, but yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: there's there's nothing that she's going to feel for Cassandra
Speaker 1: in that moment beyond pity that she's that she is
Speaker 1: the property of this man that Clytemesterra knows is a
Speaker 1: monster and absolutely despises. And there's maybe like an element
Speaker 1: of kind of disrespect in front of everybody. He's you know,
Speaker 1: he's showing off his his prize in front of his
Speaker 1: and his wife is there. But I just I just
Speaker 1: it's not jealousy. And I am That scene was just
Speaker 1: so so facial to me in drawing something else out
Speaker 1: of my semester and Clemonnster, I think she deserves so
Speaker 1: much more than she's gotten in so many stories. So
Speaker 1: I'm I'm thrilled with the way you've handled her because
Speaker 1: she just deserves so much. I find her so interesting
Speaker 1: and like, you know, she just gets written off as
Speaker 1: this murderer, and like, sure she is, but we can
Speaker 1: see why, Like it doesn't make it okay, but we
Speaker 1: can see where she's coming from, like between her and Medeia.
Speaker 1: I just I love the way that you know, even
Speaker 1: though they existed in this deeply patriarchal mess of a world,
Speaker 1: and even though like all of their stories are in
Speaker 1: that you can still tease out like what you did.
Speaker 1: It's not okay. I don't why I keep it because like,
Speaker 1: obviously murders bad, but like, but you can still see
Speaker 1: how they got there. You can sympathize, you can really
Speaker 1: feel it, and I think it just makes kind of
Speaker 1: Nestra so much more real. And and yeah, you're right,
Speaker 1: like there's no way she was jealous, and I don't
Speaker 1: I don't want to hear a version where she's jealous
Speaker 1: like she if anything, You're right, like there could be disrespect,
Speaker 1: you know, she could just be like, well this adds
Speaker 1: insult to injury, like he brought home a woman after all,
Speaker 1: you know, on top of that. But yeah, she's she's
Speaker 1: certainly not feeling jealous of Cassandra. She's literally about to
Speaker 1: kill Agamemnon in this moment. And I also love that
Speaker 1: you made Clytemnestra who does kill him, because one it
Speaker 1: was not always a geese this And I don't want
Speaker 1: to be easeless. I wanted to be kind of Nostra,
Speaker 1: Like she didn't make him do her dirty work. He's
Speaker 1: just kind of this there is like there's this like
Speaker 1: supportive I find it like this supportive side character of like, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's there for moral support, but like the decisions are
Speaker 1: on Kindemnestra. And I think I think that that really
Speaker 1: like adds something to the whole thing. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: think that's the best moment in ace list when she
Speaker 1: comes out and she talks about killing him and she said,
Speaker 1: it's like this, the rain, spring rains, revite lies in
Speaker 1: the crops. That's what the spray of his blood was Like,
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that's ever. I need to reread these.
Speaker 1: Oh man, it's been too long. I just I think
Speaker 1: that if that just goes that that goes right to
Speaker 1: the heart of Clyde Semmeestra, and there's there's absolutely no
Speaker 1: way that she would hand that that moment to anyone,
Speaker 1: and certainly not another man. That is entirely her moment,
Speaker 1: her becoming everything that she has been waiting for, and
Speaker 1: and it really has off. Yeah, and sort of this
Speaker 1: just it's sort of a departure, but just made me
Speaker 1: think of it. I also really enjoyed the way you
Speaker 1: handled the like Clytemnestra versus her children thing. I think
Speaker 1: there was a line that was just like I hope
Speaker 1: this makes them, gives them peace or something where it's
Speaker 1: like they you know, she also comes around to understand
Speaker 1: why her fate then has to happen, and and it's
Speaker 1: just sort of I mean, she this is sort of
Speaker 1: her character, you know, in all the versions. I think
Speaker 1: is that she just needed she needed to avenge I
Speaker 1: for Gania, and after that, it didn't really matter what
Speaker 1: happened to her, Like it was just she was consumed
Speaker 1: by it, that is what mattered, and like whatever came
Speaker 1: after it is what it is. But she'd gotten that
Speaker 1: that like feeling of righteousness against Agamemnon for what he did. Yeah, completely,
Speaker 1: and because there is such a big contradiction in her
Speaker 1: character that she's everything she does is because she loves
Speaker 1: her daughter so much. But then at the same time,
Speaker 1: she has this terrible relationship with her three surviving children.
Speaker 1: So that was something to really to really kind of
Speaker 1: tackle in her character and how that distance between them
Speaker 1: grew and became so unbridgeable, that gulf and that then
Speaker 1: ultimately she loves all of her children and and I
Speaker 1: just I don't think that you could have Clytemnestra not
Speaker 1: because that is that's how motivates and boss how much
Speaker 1: she how she lived, she is not going to not
Speaker 1: feel that for her other children as well. No, exactly,
Speaker 1: She's just to overcome by what she feels about if
Speaker 1: Aganya to like, you know, have a good relationship with them.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, of course, you know, like
Speaker 1: you're saying it, that is her whole motivation, So she
Speaker 1: she clearly still loves them in the end, even if
Speaker 1: you know everything is tragedy in that story. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but the trauma that she went through and the idea
Speaker 1: that you would take her data to be married and
Speaker 1: her father, Yeah, like that story is just it's just
Speaker 1: so much like you know, somehow it feels recent, but
Speaker 1: it was already like six months ago now, but I
Speaker 1: covered the play that if a Ganyas and it's just, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's such a moment, and I think, you know, I
Speaker 1: think it's so important to be handled as what it is,
Speaker 1: and I think that's exactly what you did of It's
Speaker 1: like the most tragic thing in the world. It's horrific,
Speaker 1: Like you literally are so excited. You think your eldest
Speaker 1: daughter is getting married. It's a good match. It's so
Speaker 1: it's like life things being fulfilled, and then it then
Speaker 1: it just turns in the most horrific of ways, and like,
Speaker 1: how how do you deal with that as a human?
Speaker 1: And like how does that change you forever? It is
Speaker 1: this defining moment in her life, Yeah, it is. I
Speaker 1: think it's so important that it is the defining moment
Speaker 1: for her, that it is so that. Yeah, just it's
Speaker 1: all so much, but I think, yeah, I think, I
Speaker 1: think you handle it all so beautifully, and I think
Speaker 1: it's just such an important it's such an important story
Speaker 1: to look at it this way. And I just love
Speaker 1: these people so much. So then I ran out of
Speaker 1: smart things to say about it. But I am so curious, Um,
Speaker 1: this just came up while we were talking. But like,
Speaker 1: did you learn anything in research in your writing that
Speaker 1: kind of really was just particularly exciting or kind of
Speaker 1: blew your mind or anything like that. Well, it's well,
Speaker 1: it's kind of it's like, it's not something that I learned.
Speaker 1: It was something that I had to had to fill in.
Speaker 1: It was just this idea about Electurer's marriage and who
Speaker 1: and so in the Euripides, where it's just he's just
Speaker 1: an unnamed peasant. I think that's he doesn't he he
Speaker 1: doesn't get any anymore than that. But he's like really
Speaker 1: virtuous and he marries a lecture but it's like a
Speaker 1: sham marriage. He does it. So it's just this has
Speaker 1: has ordered it because if she has children with a peasant,
Speaker 1: they will be inferior children and they won't grow up
Speaker 1: to avenge him. So it's his way out of the
Speaker 1: course because obviously he doesn't want, you know, electures children
Speaker 1: to grow up and kill him, and they won't if
Speaker 1: they if they're comments obviously, so I wanted to work
Speaker 1: him into the story, um, but I to. It also
Speaker 1: gave me a chance to see elect Traphy is some
Speaker 1: slightly more sympathetic eyes if she has got somebody in
Speaker 1: her life who has about her enough to do that
Speaker 1: for her. And so I worked him in a lot earlier,
Speaker 1: and there's there's a lot of invention there, but that's
Speaker 1: because the lecture's life up until then is such is
Speaker 1: such a vibe, it's such a blank um. So I
Speaker 1: did I did want to give her a friend? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I noticed that too, and I hadn't thought of like
Speaker 1: the original sourcing on it. I think what was probably
Speaker 1: good about going into it was that it has been
Speaker 1: a long time since I've covered these stories, like other
Speaker 1: than Ifigan Eye at Aatlas, it's been like it's been
Speaker 1: a while. But yeah, that's great, and I think the
Speaker 1: fact that you've got to invent so much about Electra's
Speaker 1: life in that in between, or just like her as
Speaker 1: a character to like, I think she's probably like a
Speaker 1: a pretty ideal source to work off of, or not
Speaker 1: source but character, because you know, she she has a
Speaker 1: lot fleshed out, but there's still a lot that can
Speaker 1: be left to the imagination to probably less so with
Speaker 1: Clyde Mastra. Oh no, definitely, because I think with Clytemnestra,
Speaker 1: as we've just said, we know exactly what drives here
Speaker 1: to that point of hatred and that point of revenge,
Speaker 1: and we can feel it and we can sympathize with it,
Speaker 1: and we can totally understand it. But with a lecture
Speaker 1: and the idea that she would get to that point,
Speaker 1: I mean, there are just some steps to fill in
Speaker 1: along the way, and she can't start out like that.
Speaker 1: She's not born with that kind of rage and that
Speaker 1: kind of hatred, and so it's something that has to
Speaker 1: develop and has to evolve and to kind of figure
Speaker 1: out how that would happen throughout the cost of her life.
Speaker 1: That was definitely something something to work with. M hmm. Well,
Speaker 1: then simultaneously too, you had to make her like at
Speaker 1: least mostly likable or or like you had to like
Speaker 1: you know, you don't want the reader to also just
Speaker 1: hate her the whole time or think that she's wrong
Speaker 1: and stuff. So I bet it was quite a tight
Speaker 1: rope of like figuring out how to handle electrac And
Speaker 1: I hope that readers will find something to like about
Speaker 1: her because her because it's definitely not her actions that
Speaker 1: you're going to like. You are not at any point
Speaker 1: going to be the way that whereas of kindemmester. Really,
Speaker 1: whatever your moral standpoint are, murder is you are cheering
Speaker 1: her on at that moment in her story, because if
Speaker 1: anyone ever had it coming, it's Agamemnon and at her hands.
Speaker 1: That with a lecturer, it is a completely different situation,
Speaker 1: And I think that I don't think any reader is
Speaker 1: going to be slightly worried if they are completely sympathetic
Speaker 1: to that. Yeah, I really hope because I agree to
Speaker 1: like her and to care about her during the writing process,
Speaker 1: even while being frustrated by how deluded she is and
Speaker 1: how misguided she is. Um, I could feel like I
Speaker 1: knew where she was coming from. So yeah, I really
Speaker 1: hope that the reader does as well. Yeah, I've always
Speaker 1: really liked her too, so that might have influenced as well.
Speaker 1: But I just like her as a character who I
Speaker 1: suppose it's mostly that, like, she's a woman in Greek
Speaker 1: myth who has a lot to say and that's rare. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I've liked her, and she's she's got, she's got agency,
Speaker 1: she's um, she's she's decided what she wants and she's
Speaker 1: she's going to do it. Yeah, even if what she
Speaker 1: wants is not what we would like, yeah, yeah, uh,
Speaker 1: this really has been so much fun. I'm so excited
Speaker 1: that we've got to have this conversation. I think for me,
Speaker 1: like I loved Ariadney, and I love the myth of Ariadney,
Speaker 1: but like, this is my story in a much more
Speaker 1: like visceral way, in a way where I'm like I
Speaker 1: could talk about it so much forever. So I'm thrilled
Speaker 1: with with Like i mean, just the book and you,
Speaker 1: and this is so much fun. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: I was so excited about talking to you about this.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm really excited about the novel and I'm just
Speaker 1: I'm so glad that that about too. Absolutely, i mean,
Speaker 1: Greek mythology novels all the time, Like I'm just so
Speaker 1: thrilled with how many are coming out, and I'm I'm
Speaker 1: kind of glad I have this. I have you as
Speaker 1: like an author who I've had on before, because I
Speaker 1: get really intimidated talking to authors or like I get
Speaker 1: the issue of like I want this to be a conversation,
Speaker 1: but it usually needs to be an interview. So I'm
Speaker 1: very glad we had our background too, of we can
Speaker 1: just chat about it because it makes it so much
Speaker 1: easier for me as a person who doesn't want to
Speaker 1: be an interviewer, I just want to have conversations with people. Yeah, No,
Speaker 1: I think it's it's much it's much nicer, and it's
Speaker 1: I I just I love to talk to you because
Speaker 1: we got to talk about all the all the like
Speaker 1: nitty gritty of the myths and the characters, and it's
Speaker 1: just it's so much. It's just it's so it's so
Speaker 1: interesting to be able to go into that kind of depth,
Speaker 1: in that kind of detail. So I love it. That's
Speaker 1: exactly like, I'm just thrilled I have somebody now who's like, well,
Speaker 1: I have all of this knowledge is making in my
Speaker 1: head about these people and I can just throw it
Speaker 1: all at you, and you had all the answers. But
Speaker 1: I also will say and give myself a little bit
Speaker 1: of like, oh this was very fun credit, but I
Speaker 1: did read the acknowledgements, so thank you. Oh yes, I'm welcome. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just it was it was just amazing, like having
Speaker 1: your support with Ariadney and the fact that you had
Speaker 1: me on the podcast twice and I think that you
Speaker 1: were the first interview that I did when yeah, when
Speaker 1: I kind of remember that fire and it was so nice,
Speaker 1: and I remember like I finished that and I was like,
Speaker 1: this is fine. I can do interview because you just
Speaker 1: you're so easy to talk to you and I'm getting
Speaker 1: to be on a show that I loved was obviously
Speaker 1: like a bit of a dream country. So thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you. I'm still like, I'm still anxious in my interviews,
Speaker 1: so I'm still glad to hear that to myself, even
Speaker 1: though I talked people all the time. But yeah, it
Speaker 1: was a thrill. I Um. I screenshot at it and
Speaker 1: sent it to Jenny and Jenny this morning, just being ah,
Speaker 1: and they were like, can we know what it's like? Well,
Speaker 1: you should have said to me if I've already seen it,
Speaker 1: like come on, ye, yes, it's same with just yeah,
Speaker 1: it was you were all my lockdown companions, your podcasts.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad. It's very fun. I mean, yeah, I
Speaker 1: love knowing that that anyone writing mythological work at all
Speaker 1: are listening to me. So it's an it's an added thrill. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: So really again, thank you so much. Um, why don't
Speaker 1: you I realize we've I've just kept referencing the book,
Speaker 1: but we haven't actually talked about like when people can
Speaker 1: get it. I will put everything in the episodes description
Speaker 1: and I will provide like a bit of an introduction
Speaker 1: as I always do. UM, but you want to tell
Speaker 1: listeners a little bit more about how and when they
Speaker 1: can get it and anything else you want to share
Speaker 1: about the book or you. Yeah, so it is out
Speaker 1: on the twenty right pool in the UK, and then
Speaker 1: it will be out in the third of May in
Speaker 1: North America. UM. Also close and hate having to weight
Speaker 1: in back audio or e book. However, people want to
Speaker 1: get their books, and it's available wherever you got your books.
Speaker 1: So she's got it perfect. Yeah. Oh, did you want
Speaker 1: to anyone to follow you at any places as well?
Speaker 1: On the social media you want to share, Yes, of course,
Speaker 1: So I'm on Instagram and Jennifer dot st dot author,
Speaker 1: and I'm on Twitter Jenny st wonderful and I will
Speaker 1: add all of that into the episodes that people can
Speaker 1: find you so generally. Just thank you again so much
Speaker 1: for tuning out. Well, thank you so much for for
Speaker 1: letting me nerds as always, thank you so much for listening.
Speaker 1: I am so thrilled with how many mythological retailings there
Speaker 1: are these days, so many interesting ways of looking at this,
Speaker 1: these ancient and timeless characters bring on the novelizations. Still,
Speaker 1: I particularly love when those authors become friends of the show.
Speaker 1: It was such a joy chatting with Jenny again, not
Speaker 1: least because I get to openly just turn it into
Speaker 1: a conversation rather than an interview, because I fear the
Speaker 1: pressure of formal interviews, but also because I get the
Speaker 1: chance to pick author's brains about turning myths into novels.
Speaker 1: It's such a fascinating thing and such like a unique
Speaker 1: way of going about these myths. I'm often so deep
Speaker 1: in the myths themselves that I can't imagine fictionalizing something,
Speaker 1: So it's something that's just so interesting to me. Plus
Speaker 1: I get the joy of just speaking with someone else
Speaker 1: who's like, somehow even deeper into this myth than I
Speaker 1: am in my daily life. That's a thrill. It's rare,
Speaker 1: and now all I want to do is reread the
Speaker 1: different plays that feature this story. I will absolutely cover
Speaker 1: it again one day. I didn't remotely do it justice
Speaker 1: all those years ago. I barely even compared the place.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine the nursery that will be involved when
Speaker 1: I do it again. With my obsession with variations and
Speaker 1: looking at how each of the play r has handled
Speaker 1: different things. Oh my god, it's gonna be a lot.
Speaker 1: It might be obnoxious but also fun. But I'm getting
Speaker 1: out of myself because honestly, I have so much planned
Speaker 1: for the future of this show, so many plays I
Speaker 1: haven't even remotely touched yet, and now I'm rambling. So
Speaker 1: thank you to Jennifer st for coming on the show.
Speaker 1: So much fun, and make sure that you listener grab
Speaker 1: a copy of Electra. You will find links to Jenny's
Speaker 1: social media and beyond in the episodes description. Let's Talk
Speaker 1: About Miss Baby is written and produced by me Live
Speaker 1: Albert Michaelis. Smith handles so many things. God's just everything.
Speaker 1: At this point, She's wonderful. We have an intern this month,
Speaker 1: isn't that cool? First intern ever. Grace Roby is helping
Speaker 1: it with God's so many things. The podcast is hosted
Speaker 1: and monetized by a cast. Thank you, you are all
Speaker 1: the best. What a cool job I have. I have
Speaker 1: lived and I love this ship.