Author describes challenges in updating 'Odyssey'

If you ever wondered what Hades' underworld is like, Canadian writer Margaret Atwood can give you a peek.

Atwood spoke about her new book, The Penelopiad, to an audience of over 200 people in Logan Hall yesterday evening at the annual Jane S. Pollack Memorial Lecture.

The Penelopiad is based on Atwood's interpretation of Penelope, the wife of the Greek hero Odysseus, and her 12 maids who were hung at the end of Homer's work as they brood in the underworld.

Atwood was quick to point out that The Penelopiad wasn't merely a retelling of Homer's masterpiece.

"In Penelopiad, Penelope is much less limp than in the Odyssey," she explained. "My Penelope is no fool. She ruled a kingdom on her own."

To illustrate her point, Atwood read an excerpt of a conversation between an intelligent, sarcastic Penelope and one of her many suitors.

Atwood also made satirical jokes about being Canadian, eliciting laughter from the audience. She kept a light, witty tone all through the evening, as she described the scrutiny with which female characters in literature are judged. Her own novels tend to have female protagonists.

Atwood was among many well-known authors who were selected to participate in the "Myth Series" project to retell myths in a contemporary style, but she said that several of the myths she tried to revitalize didn't come together.

"Myths can't be translated as they did in their ancient soil," Atwood said. "We can only find our own meaning in our own time." The "dark alleys" in Homer's famed epic poem, The Odyssey, intrigued Atwood, as did the opportunity to reinterpret the story's most mysterious female characters.

The lecture was hosted by the Alice Paul Center for Research on Women and Gender.

Shannon Lundeen, the center's associate director, said the planning committee had chosen Atwood for the lecture this year because "she is a prolific writer whom undergraduates are familiar with."

The Pollack Lectures are meant to attract undergraduate audiences interested in women's studies.

College sophomore Katherine Pier, who had written a paper on Atwood's 1986 award-winning novel The Handmaid's Tale for a contemporary women's literature course at Penn, said she appreciated Atwood's dry humor.

"Margaret Atwood is as imaginative in her speech as in her writing," Pier said.

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