Two mythical murderous families

The Greek myths bubble with revenge and betrayal, while the bloodthirsty tyrants of history are themselves made into to myths. Let me present two novels which reinterpret these legendary stories for the modern era, emphasising the human motivations behind the murder and mayhem. Both novels focus on famous families: in the first, the violence turns inwards in an orgy of self-destruction; in the second, the family will do almost anything to ensure their own survival. In both, the gods of the time are co-opted to sanction sacrifice and murder, while the women use their limited power as best they can.

House of Names by Colm Toíbín

Agamemnon tricks his wife, Clytemnestra, into bringing their elder daughter, Iphigenia, to the coast where he’s encamped with his soldiers, by pretending he’s arranged her marriage to Achilles. There, Clytemnestra is imprisoned in a confined space, while Agamemnon has Iphigenia murdered in what he claims to be a necessary sacrifice to the gods, but could equally serve to appease his restless men, trapped by the wrong kind of wind on the shoreline. When the wind changes, Agamemnon feels vindicated. He returns to the business of war while his wife and young son, Orestes, go back to the palace, unable to speak of their trauma. Of course, Clytemnestra is nursing a grievance against her husband; but she doesn’t realise is that Electra, the daughter who remained at home, is equally furious with her. In a culture where murder, war and abandonment to the dungeons is the default mode for managing conflict, even readers, like me, with only a passing acquaintance with Greek mythology, will realise these characters are set to suffer an awful lot more.
 
In updating the classic story, the award-winning Irish writer Colm Toíbín has retained the original setting (although this is only lightly sketched) but downplayed the contribution of the supernatural to focus on the individual psychology of his characters. For me, not generally drawn to crime fiction, this made for a page-turning read. House of Names is a study of a paranoid state as chilling as the contemporary North Korea, and no doubt other sad societies, where anyone can be sacrificed on a whim. It’s a reminder (although who will listen?) that we can’t overcome violence through more violence and that, if we choose to forget, rather than learning from, our mistakes, we’re compelled to repeat them. It’s also a brilliant study of the anxieties of leadership, and especially middle management, where, caught between the dictates of those above (shareholders, board, gods) and the demands of those below in the hierarchy, genuine power seems unattainable. Thanks to the publishers, Viking Penguin, for my review copy.

In the Name of the Family by Sarah Dunant

The Borgias and Machiavelli, those arch villains of Renaissance Italy, are the subjects of Sarah Dunant’s eleventh novel. Although fiction, it is heavily embedded in historical fact, as evidenced by over two pages of scholarly references. This might bring a few surprises to those whose knowledge of the period stems from myth or less engaging fictions. Having read The Prince, I already knew that it’s not Machiavelli himself who is Machiavellian, and enjoyed deepening my understanding by the author’s portrayal of his subject, the ruthless head of the Papal army, Cesare Borgia, and of the Florentine diplomat, Niccolo Machiavelli’s, fascination with him. But it was the corrupt Pope’s daughter, Lucrezia Borgia, who was the biggest surprise, and most fascinating strand of this hefty novel. Sarah Dunant shows her to be less the evil witch portrayed by popular culture, but an intelligent and spirited young woman making the best of the limited options available to her.
 
At the start of the novel, Lucrezia travels with her ladies in waiting to her third arranged marriage, overnighting at various castles and palaces along the way, where she charms all who meet her. Her first marriage, at age thirteen, was annulled when it became less convenient to the Borgia dynasty. Her second, into the house of Naples to cement the Spanish alliance, ended after Cesare switched sides and had her husband bumped off. Who wouldn’t pity Lucrezia, unusually for the times, actually in love with her husband, leaving behind her baby son to make heirs for the d’Este family? Who wouldn’t admire her capacity to survive malaria, stillbirth and syphilis, the impact of the latter on aristocratic women as a result of their husbands’ whoring, at that time unacknowledged?
 
The first of Sarah Dunant’s novels I read, Sacred Hearts, was a fascinating tale of doomed love against the background of a renaissance convent, and I particularly enjoyed the chapters in In the Name of the Family where Lucrezia stays in a convent to convalesce. While she admirably covers the “masculine” blood and guts of politics, warring and whoring, what I loved about this book was the reclaiming of women’s history from a feminist perspective. Thanks to Virago for my review copy.