The Hymn to Dionysus

I am rather fond of Natasha Pulley books, though I am also terribly behind on reading them. This one, I am sorry to say, does not feature Katsu the Clockwork Octopus, but it does contain other clockwork things. Also, as it is set in Mycenaean Greece, it is many centuries before Katsu’s time, so I guess it is a bit much of me to expect him to put in an appearance.

A little mythology primer is in order to start with. In legend, the city of Thebes (the one in Greece, not the one in Egypt) was founded by a chap called Cadmus (or Kadmus, as Pulley has it, to help the reader with pronunciation). He had several children, including two daughters called Agave and Semele. The latter was younger and prettier, and she caught the eye of that serial philanderer, Zeus. She had a son.

Cadmus was not best pleased. He assumed that his younger daughter had been hanging out with some low-life boy. Agave was even less pleased. She thought the whole ‘my son’s father is Zeus’ thing was a crass attempt by Seleme to get her boy declared the next king rather than Agave’s son, Pentheus. Both of them wanted the baby killed.

In desperation, Seleme called upon Zeus to show himself. So he did, and she was promptly struck by lightning and died. Because Zeus is a bastard like that. As to the baby, well…

The story comes to us most famously in a play by Euripides called The Bacchae. More of that elsewhere in this issue. For now suffice it to say that baby Dionysus survives, travels the world, and eventually comes home and wreaks terrible vengeance on those who have wronged him. Greek theatre did tend towards the extremely bloodthirsty.

In her book, Pulley marries this myth with the story of the Trojan War, and with the actual historical event that we know as the Bronze Age Collapse. During the 12th century BCE, various civilisations around the Eastern Mediterranean disappeared, or suffered major problems. The Mycenaeans and the Hittites vanished, several successful cities on the Levant coast were clearly sacked and burned. And the Egyptians complained bitterly about enemies they called the Sea Peoples, who seem to have behaved in roughly the same way that the Vikings did in Western Europe two thousand years later.

The causes of the Bronze Age Collapse are hotly debated by historians (see also Helen King’s book in this issue), but one explanation is climate change. Pulley uses this, and in the book Thebes is suffering from a deadly drought. Their crops have failed. Agave, who is now Queen, has arranged to buy grain from Egypt, but at significant cost. Everyone is asking which god the city has offended, but they can’t name the one obvious god because Agave still refuses to believe that her nephew was divine.

The hero of our story is Phaidros, a Theban warrior. As a boy he was apprenticed to Agave’s brother, Helios. When he was very young, and therefore someone who didn’t understand adult politics, he helped rescue baby Dionysus from death. The god has not forgotten.

Meanwhile Phaidros has grown up, has been to Troy, and has come home with what we recognise as dreadful PTSD. He doesn’t understand royal politics any better now, but he does know a god who might help his people.

For anyone who loves Classical myth and history, this book is total jam. Pulley does play fast and loose with the history at times. Some of the traditions that she ascribes to the Thebans are more appropriate to the Classical period rather than the Mycenaean; some are stolen from Sparta. The giant statues of gods with their hidden clockwork mechanisms are more of a creation of Ptolemaic Egypt than of the Bronze Age. In myth there are Talos and the golden gynoids who assist Hephaestus, but no one actually made things like that for real until much later. Of course this is all thousands of years ago, and it makes for a good story. Besides, the book is not meant to be a strict historical novel.

There are several things I really like about the book, one of which is the treatment of Hector’s wife, Andromache. Pulley has her in the book as an Amazon-like warrior. And given that her name literally means “fighter of men” that’s a far better characterisation than the pathetic, helpless victim in Homer’s version.

I also loved the Egyptian diplomat. He’s very funny. And the leopard, obviously. Tiresias is in the book, and in Euripides as well. Pulley uses they/them pronouns, which is reasonable for someone who has lived part of their life as a man and part as a woman.

The book has two main themes. The first is PTSD, and frankly anyone who was at Troy, particularly if they participated in the sack, will not have come out of it entirely sane. There’s a great little comment at the start where five-year-old Phaidros says:

Cities are things you broke and set fire to. It was hard to imagine why anyone would live in one on purpose.

The other main theme is about political power, and how it dehumanises people who want it or acquire it. Mycenaean society was very palace-centred, and the palaces, Pulley suggests, were very like Westminster: everyone is lying to everyone else and on the lookout for an opportunity to stab a rival in the back.

While the book is a gay love story (it is a Natasha Pulley book, what did you expect?), I should also note that it is nowhere near as queer as Euripides’ play. Check out my review of that in this issue to see why.

Title: The Hymn to Dionysus
By: Natasha Pulley
Publisher: Gollancz
Purchase links:
Amazon UK
Amazon US
Bookshop.org UK
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