This is a nice short story and I’m sure it’s not the author’s fault, but to charge 1 credit for 45 minutes worth of content is crazy. In a desperate bid by her obsessive husband to keep her under control, Galatea is locked away under the constant supervision of doctors and nurses. As such, I had extremely high expectations going into this and I’m very pleased to say they were met entirely. Kobna Holdbrook-Smith narrates the Scottish novelist’s fictionalised biography of a 19th-century Irish traveller. She is brave, clever, and grandly terrible, worth of Greek myth and the empowerment we want for her.

A small hardback edition featuring a new afterword by Madeline Miller**In Ancient Greece, a skilled marble sculptor has been blessed by a goddess who has given his masterpiece – the most beautiful woman the town has ever seen – the gift of life. And so, Galatea becomes a little jewel that centres the formerly nameless woman given life by a goddess, not only giving her voice, but a complexity and boldness – an agency – she was previously denied. When Aphrodite's festival came, he gave his offerings and prayed for a woman who was like the statue he created.Madeline Miller, known for her exquisite literary adaptations, delivers yet another exceptional work with "Galatea. Pygmalion expects Galatea to please him with her youthful beauty and humble obedience, but in Madeline Miller’s retelling, Galatea has desires of her own.

When her gift threatens the gods, she is banished to the island of Aiaia where she hones her occult craft, casting spells, gathering strange herbs and taming wild beasts. If you fail to comply with this obligation, we may have a right of action against you for compensation. Sure, these are lifeless objects, but Galatea is stuck in an existence where that mindset of her as a lifeless object is still imposed upon her and in reality, the mindset of many abusive partners in the world try to impose these standards on women. Then, she imagines how the crabs will come for her husband, and she settles into the ocean floor and sleeps.

For the last ten years she has been teaching and tutoring Latin, Greek and Shakespeare to high school students. Galatea avenged herself and her daughter on that monstrous human filth, Pygmalion, like a godsdamned BADASS. If you’re looking for a beautifully-written retelling of a compelling Greek myth, I’d wholeheartedly recommend Galatea. People began to talk about the sculptor’s wife, and how strange she was, and how such beauty comes only from the gods. The people around her, the maids, and the doctors all seek to benefit something from her demise, too.

Taking that in mind, was I honestly meant to believe that, with a misogynistic and revolting motivation as that, he would have treated his "perfect" woman in any other way than what this story showed us? So much better than the other short story of hers I read today - might be because of how much I have thought about this myth in the past as opposed to the other. Madeline Miller has such a gift with words, with creating real characters you immediately care about and identify with. This pocket-sized short story is an offering – for those who long for more from Madeline Miller following The Song of Achilles and Circe – that satisfies an itch in its succinct fifty pages.Galatea can speak, she has feelings, and she can even give birth, but she is “born” subordinated to her husband — who sees himself as her father, mother, and brother as well. Still, the nuances and depth did not appear, leaving me feeling unsatisfied by how shallow everything turned out. But perhaps what captured contemporary audiences the most is the choice Miller made to reframe the familiar tragedy as a love story, a choice that grounds the epic in a poetic, firelit intimacy. If you’ve enjoyed Madeline Miller’s previous novels, Circe and The Song of Achilles, you should also absolutely read this story next. In summary, "Galatea" is a remarkable literary adaptation that reinvigorates an Ancient Greek myth with a fresh and powerful feminist perspective.