Alcestis, Katharine Beutner

I’m torn on this one. It was spellbinding, but in a soft, dusty way — Alcestis as a character is too obedient for most of her life to have any colour to her. The bit in the Underworld is still quite colourless, quite literally, except for Persephone. I was actually more interested in the relationship between Hades and Persephone than that between Persephone and Alcestis. I wanted to understand them, what made them tick, what made them volatile.

I understand that there’s actually a degree of historical accuracy here to way a real Alcestis would’ve lived, just with the gods treated as a rational part of everyday life as well, but she seems so meek and resigned — until she’s in the Underworld. I can appreciate the liberation of a female character from a stifling traditional role that must have been so flattering to the men in that male dominated world, and it makes sense it could happen in the Underworld, where the rules of life don’t apply.

I guess in summary, I just didn’t fall for it. There were some lovely sections, gorgeous imagery, and there was some interesting interplay between characters, but all in all it didn’t work for me.