The Haarryhausen stop-motion Medusa was terrifying!). I enjoyed Natalie Hayne’s previous books: A Thousand Ships and Pandora’s Jar, so I jumped at the chance to reading her latest book: Stone Blind, a retelling of the myths surrounding the origins and fate of Medusa.Īs in A Thousand Ships, the narrative here cleverly entwines the different strands of Medusa’s story, which is more complicated than the one you are likely to be familiar with (I blame endless holiday TV screenings of the 1981 Clash of the Titans. And how she was never really a monster at all. This is the story of how a young woman became a monster. That is, until Perseus embarks upon a fateful quest to fetch the head of a Gorgon. Medusa can no longer look upon anyone she loves without destroying them, and so condemns herself to a life lived in shadow and solitude to limit her murderous rage. Appalled by her own reflection: snakes have replaced her hair and she realises that her gaze can now turn any living creature to stone. When the sea god, Poseidon, commits an unforgivable act in her sacred temple the goddess, Athene, takes her revenge on an innocent – and Medusa’s life is changed forever. Her mortal lifespan gives her an urgency that her family will never know. Growing up with her sisters, she quickly realizes that she is the only one who gets older, experiences change, feels weakness. Medusa is the only mortal in a family of gods.
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