The Penelepoid
Margaret Atwood ↗
Some highlights
I was a child who learned early the virtues – if such they are – of self-sufficiency.
..in one of her Trojan outfits, over-decorated to my taste, but chacun à son goût. She had a kind of slow twirl she would do; then she’d lower her head and glance
That seems to be what I was known for: being smart. That, and my weaving, and my devotion to my husband, and my discretion.
Why is it that really beautiful people think everyone else in the world exists merely for their amusement?
As for my mother, she’d stopped swimming around like a porpoise long enough to attend my wedding, for which I was less grateful than I ought
Water does not resist. Water flows. When you plunge your hand into it, all you feel is a caress. Water is not a solid wall, it will not stop you. But water always goes where it wants to go, and nothing in the end can stand against it. Water is patient. Dripping water wears away a stone. Remember that, my child. Remember you are half water. If you can’t go through an obstacle, go around it. Water does.
Odysseus was the guest of a goddess on an enchanted isle1, said some; she’d turned his men into pigs – not a hard job in my view – but had turned them back into men because she’d fallen in love with him and was feeding him unheard-of delicacies prepared by her own immortal hands, and the two of them made love deliriously every night;
There is indeed something delightful about being able to combine obedience and disobedience in the same act.
I knew he was lying, but was touched that he was lying for my sake. Not for nothing was he the great-grandson of Autolycus, friend of Hermes the arch-cheat, and the son of wily Odysseus of the soothing voice, fruitful in false invention, persuader of men and deluder of women.