Asterius, a review

book review

Asterius, by Susana Imaginário

When I was six or seven someone gave me a book on Greek Myths. I suppose it had the most famous stories, but I remember being obsessed with one in particular, about the Minotaur and his labyrinth. The reason is that the Minotaur terrified me beyond words, to the point of having repeated nightmares of being trapped in the labyrinth, chased by the monster. It got so bad that my mother threw the book away, as I couldn’t help myself from opening the book to that specific page every day.

I am relating this because this book is a retelling of that story, and while all these years it was the terror and fright, even if only as memories, that I associated with the Minotaur and his labyrinth, now that I have read this book, my perception of it all is forever changed, and this alone is a testament to how good the book is.

The book is what I took to calling ‘revisionist mythology’, which is born from the same impulse as revisionist history: the idea, or suspicion, that something doesn’t quite add up in the conventional narrative, that the basic facts may be correct, but they are presented in a frame that conceals more than it reveals, and that deceives more than it enlightens (I confess Greek Myth always seemed to me to be among the stories most in need of revision). The writer then, using both imagination and reason, pursues the story and tries to make sense of it. In this case, it meant presenting the story from the perspective of the Minotaur, and it is not only expertly written, but it makes much more sense.

There are plenty of books presenting a story from the perspective of the villain, but more often than not, and even if they are well written, once we finish the book we can reason back to sanity and realize that it was a trick, that the villain is still the villain, and that we were being led by the hand towards a wrong (and usually evil) conclusion. But this is not the case here. One comes to have sympathy for the monster, but not as monster: in fact, one understands, in the end, that he is probably the least monstruous being involved in the story. And this is not a trick, it is a logical and well thought out conclusion.

On the technical aspects of the book, I will mention the great pacing of the story, the sophisticated wit of the dialogue (though I did not care for the cursing, as I felt it out of character, but thankfully it was very sparse), the little philosophical musings and the beautifully rendered sense of tragedy and even bittersweetness to the character of the Minotaur, which as the author points out, no one even remembers the name of - I certainly didn’t, but I will now!

But while all this is true, and makes for great reading, I think the most remarkable achievement is that Susana has taken a well known story, told a thousand times and known by everyone, and not only made it more interesting, but also more true, and that is a very rare feat. I finished the book with the sense that, finally, I knew the real story.

One of the best books I have ever read, truly.