Book Review: "Stone Blind"

Natalie Haynes' newest mythic retelling is both bitingly funny and tragically devastating.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I simply can’t get enough of mythological retellings. There’s just something pleasurable about seeing old wine put into new bottles, and few excel at making the myths of antiquity relevant to the present quite as well as Natalie Haynes, who once again proves her gifts in Stone Blind. In part a retelling of the myth of Medusa, it zooms out a bit to give us a bit of a mosaic, showing the various parties involved in her eventual slaying by the demigod Perseus. 

If you’ve read any of Haynes’ other work, you’re no doubt familiar with her skill at blending different voices together into a magnificent sort of chorus. She uses this to particularly powerful effect in Stone Blind and, in addition to Medusa, we also get the perspectives of Athene, Hera (who is truly and spitefully delightful), Andromeda, and even the snakes that replace Medusa's hair. The snake chapter is particularly wrenching to read for, even though they are reptiles, they still feel the guilt and agony of their failure to protect their mistress. 

Arguably the most compelling of these points of view, however, is that of the Gorgoneion, the severed head of Medusa which has the power to transform anything that meets its gaze into stone. The voice of this being both is and is not Medusa, and therein lies its liminal potency. She loathes Perseus with a passion, but she is powerless to stop him from using her as a weapon against all of those who come against him, gradually becoming as monstrous as he claims Medusa was. By the time the novel ends, one can’t help but wish that he had been turned to stone. 

Stone Blind is by turns tragic and funny, and sometimes both at once. The tragedy is particularly legible in the chapters told from the perspective of Medusa’s two sisters who, though they struggle sometimes to figure out what to do with their mostly mortal siblings, nevertheless take her in and care for the best they are able. Her death is truly devastating for them, and they feel as if they’ve failed the one person they care about more than any other. 

At the same time, there are some wickedly funny portions, as well, particularly when the Gorgoneion begins to narrate her viewpoint. Her voice drips with disdain for Perseus, who she sees as little more than an upstart boy blessed to be the son of Zeus and who is just dumb lucky enough to receive the aid of not one but two immortals (Hermes and Athene). The irony, of course, is that she’s absolutely right. Perseus is far from a hero; if anything, he is as much a victim of fate as anyone else. Though his father Zeus saves him from death as a baby, it’s very clear that the greatest of the gods cares as little for his mortal children as he does their mothers (yet another instantiation of the book’s profound and lacerating cynicism).   

And what of Medusa herself? Some reviewers have taken the book to task for shunting her into the background of her own story, and there is something to this criticism. I personally would have liked to have had more chapters from her point of view before her death, as this would have helped to really solidify the novel’s central theme of fate and the capriciousness of the gods. After all, the only reason she ends up with snakes for hair and a stare capable of turning others to stone is because she was raped by Poseidon in Athene’s temple, an affront the goddess of wisdom unjustly punishes her for. 

Indeed, if there is one female character who is even more interesting than Medusa it is Athene, and we get to bear witness to her entire life, from the moment that she emerges fully formed from Zeus' head to the moment when, as the novel reaches its end, she finally allows herself to gaze on the Gorgoneion, meeting the fate that has been meted out to so many others during the course of the story. You see, for Athene immortality is as much a curse as it is a gift, and she has grown bored with everlasting life. More than that, though, she has never felt at home among her fellow gods and goddesses, and the promise of being turned to stone also bears with it the possibility that, at long last, she might find a place–or a state of being–that will bring her some sort of peace. Whether or not she manages to find it, or whether the oblivion that awaits in the realm of stone is just another form of misery, is left to us to decide. 

That, I think, is the most brilliant thing about Stone Blind. Like the best myths, it gets at something troublingly human, tapping into feelings, emotions, and traumas that many of us have experienced at some point in their life. For the gods, particularly Athene, time loses all meaning, past and present blurring together so that, in one notable instance, the goddess of wisdom mourns one of her priestesses that had accidentally been turned to stone centuries earlier. It’s a startlingly uncanny moment, and Haynes nicely captures the utter strangeness of the ancient gods, who are both so like and utterly unlike their mortal counterparts. 

Haynes’ genius as an author lies in her ability to use vignettes to add up to a greater whole. Even when we get to know a character only for the length of a chapter, we still feel as if we fully understand them, that we have borne witness to their lives, loves and, tragically, their deaths. From the mightiest of the gods like Zeus and Poseidon to the lowly mortals who do everything they can to stay on their good side, these are the people who make the myths of the past come to life. Stone Blind is like a gorgeous mosaic, one comprised of many different pieces that somehow, through the strange alchemy that Haynes commands, combine into a coherent whole. 

It’s a strong read, and I can’t wait to see what Haynes has for us in the future.