HELEN OF TROY: GODDESS, PRINCESS, WHORE, by Bettany Hughes
A BOOK OF THE YEAR IN THE INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY, THE FINANCIAL TIMES, THE DAILY MAIL, THE SCOTSMAN AND THE GOOD BOOK GUIDE! John Julius Norwich - Independent on Sunday Books of the Year 'A wonderful read. It's what great history is all about - excitement, a Kate Mosse, author of Labyrinth 'So has Bettany succeeded in her quest and self appointed task [to track down Helen of Troy]? In my view – yes. Magnificently…Bettany controls this complex material beautifully and brings it together in a very satisfying whole...the book is a ‘good read’. The writing is extremely vivid and evocative...underpinned by a sure-footed sense of narrative flow. It will be a resource for students and scholars as well, I think, as a great pleasure for the wider public. I enjoyed it thoroughly and recommend it most highly.' Lesley Fitton Chief Bronze Age Curator in the department of Greek and Roman Antiquities, British Museum ‘Bettany is the first person to push Helen as a major Bronze Age figure, rather than as a shadowy myth, and to a large extent she’s succeeded. Why should we think all the people Homer mentions are fictitious? I see every reason to believe that the Helen of legend, like Agamemnon or Menelaus, may have been a real character with a real background whose actions have been modified, embellished and distorted over the centuries’ Dr. Kenneth Wardle, Senior Lecturer in Archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology and world expert on the Mycenaean Bronze Age quoted in the Independent on Sunday "The most fascinating of subjects, handled with style, learning and a wide engagement with the evidence and its many different landscapes. Bettany Hughes is an author whom everyone will enjoy and she has brought her exceptional talents to bear on the possibilities and impact of the most famous heroine in history." ‘Bettany Hughes’ book might have been a tepid, encyclopaedic listing. But the most exciting thing about this book, is its hot fascination with the past, its almost ecstatic pursuit of a sensuous history…..The greatest pleasures of this biography, this history, this survey, lie in the author’s capacity to awaken the senses, to carry us with her as she hears, smells, feels, tastes, sees the past.Hughes’ attention to detail calls up a sympathetic experience not only pf pleasure but also of pain…This is a history where ‘you are there’ where the author’s experience of wading through volcanic rock toward the island where Paris and Helen first consummated their love brings a new intensity to old myths. She never lets the dustiness of the dig cloud her appreciation of the intimacy with the past that archaeologists enable. Hughes makes us part of the party.’ Professor Page DuBois US grande dame of the feminist revolution in scholarship in The Tribune 'Helen-ophiles, rejoice! Bettany Hughes' new Helen of Troy gives you everything you ever wanted to know about the Face That Launched A Thousand Ships. There won't be another book on Helen in a long, long time, because Ms. Hughes has brilliantly and exhaustively covered ( or I should say uncovered) her subject from more angles - romantic, historical, archaeological, mythological, psychological - than even Paris could dream of on his best night.' Dr. Steven Pressfield, Spartan expert and bestselling author of Gates of Fire and The Virtues of War 'This is a fantastic book and I thoroughly enjoyed it...I have never, EVER, read anybody write so well about travels in Greece and going to explore archaeology.' "This book is a real tour de force. It combines astonishing erudition and knowledge of the early classical world with a wonderful easy fluency of writing. It has taught me a lot, and I have enjoyed every page." Professor Robert Winsto 'Never before has the world of Homer's epic, the 13th century BC, been brought so vividly to life. Hughes brilliantly evokes the sights and sounds of the Bronze Age, the heady smells of women's perfumes and oils, the rustle of linen over their thighs and breasts, the whisper of their prayers and liturgies. Linear B, the Bronze Age script, excavated at Knossos and Mycenae and deciphered by Michael Ventris, becomes, after Hughes's imaginative treatment, no longer just a dry archaeological curiosity but a living language, poetic in its precision, femininely domestic in its concerns. And a sexy eroticism is injected into prehistoric antiquity as her detective work deduces such details as ancient seduction techniques, favourite sexual positions and women-only orgiastic rituals. It all adds up to a fascinating, compelling argument...I guarantee you a gripping read.' Dr. Jenny Wallace, Peterhouse, Cambridge University in Times Higher Education Supplement OTHER NATIONAL BOOK REVIEWS ‘I do hope that many readers buy this book. The gain is that the context of the Trojan Wars is enjoyably explained. Hughes is expert in the archaeology of beauty…the changing character of ‘Helen’ as princess, goddess and whore is used to show the changing cultural attitudes of historic ages. When Helen launched her thousand ships was she a shameless hussy…or like her mother was she a rape victim? Or as the daughter of a god was she a divinity to be worshipped herself? The answers have always depended on whom you talked to and when. Hughes energetically gives them all.’ Peter Stothardt, The Times 'Evoking in sensuous and gorgeous prose the citadels, the palaces and the luxuries of that long-vanished world. history and mythography have been dazzlingly elided. In this passionate book. Hughes adds to Helen's mystery... powerfully.' Vera Rule, Hot Ticket, Independent on Sunday Financial Times ‘Intense debate surrounds Helen whose elopement with Paris sparked the Trojan war. ‘Did she jump or was she pushed?’ has been a key question from the sixth century BC to our own. In Helen of Troy Bettany Hughes has gathered together a startling array of answers, both ancient and modern…an investigative achievement.’ Mary Beard, The Guardian 'An entrancing story of the making of the ultimate pin-up' Mail on Sunday, Book of the Week ‘Bettany Hughes's …meticulously-researched book about Helen, whose text and notes demonstrate her intimate knowledge of her subject. Hughes travelled extensively while doing research and the book is full of anecdotes, accounts of arriving in museums early in the morning, before the public, or taking boat journeys that follow Bronze Age trading routes. These alone would be sufficient reminder that Hughes is, as her publisher immodestly informs us, "widely acknowledged as the best of the new generation of TV historians", but the evidence is also there in her prose.’ Joan Smith, The Independent ‘Full of fascinating details’ The Express ‘More convincing and far more complex is Hughes’ excellent examination. Hughes’ argument is never less than fascinating.’ Sunday Herald ‘Hughes has clearly immersed herself in the ancient world of the Near East. There are many fascinating elements here but I was particularly interested in the high status of women…The book has many excellent maps and fine illustrations. She undoubtedly writes well, and if she occasionally skirts a purple passage too closely, it is a small price to pay for frequently felicitous expression.’ The Catholic Herald ‘Scholarship is here made very palatable. This is a substantial book, excellent value, and an exhilarating read. The intellectual agility of the author and the multiplicity of chapters give an impressionistic feel, but that is no bad thing: the book is as various as its subject…the notes are a rich quarry and the range of cultural reference is astonishingly wide…Bettany Hughes clearly relishes the struggle of the biographer. Anglo-Hellenic Review ‘More convincing, however, and far more complex, is historian Bettany Hughes’s excellent examination, not just of Homer’s Helen, but all the many configurations of her that have persisted throughout the centuries. Hughes’s argument – that Helen was a poetic incarnation of a real-life Bronze Age princess – is never less than fascinating. Like George, she sees a much more independent Helen than we are used to, a woman who came from a society where it was customary to be trained as a warrior from an early age, to inherit the throne and to choose one’s own husband (sometimes more than one at a time). While Hughes acknowledges that no remains have yet been found of a Bronze Age Spartan princess, she finds other telling pieces of wreckage to persuade us. Amassing her disparate evidence, Hughes manages to argue powerfully for her real-life version of Helen, a woman who would not only have been highly educated but also extremely strong and athletic. The origins of the tales of Helen’s almost divine beauty are not to be wondered at: it is likely, Hughes argues, that a very powerful woman did indeed exist at that time, and power always elevates the mundane to the godly. What she doesn’t labour is the point that, if, as a Greek poet, you want to find an excuse for the appalling razing of an entire city, a woman is a good device. Hughes is careful not to toe too rigid a feminist line on history’s appropriation of Helen as the cause of it all, but she is hard on those subsequent stories and paintings that have gloried in Helen’s misfortune. If Helen is an innocent victim then she was raped by Paris, prompting lurid and pornographic depictions of her abduction; if she is guilty of abandoning her husband and daughter, Hermione, then she is a she-monster, more deadly than Medusa.’ Sunday Herald ‘Hughes has written a vivid and well researched account of Helen which pre-empts my ideas…’ Professor Strauss, Professor of Ancient History, Cornell University – The Trojan War, new publication, Recommended Reading ‘Hughes’ enthusiasm for her subject leaps from the page…’ ‘…a work that will keep any reader engrossed and which will surely be the definitive biography of this legendary woman’ Waterstone’s Quarterly Book Review ‘The face that launched a thousand ships looks certain to sell quite a few thousand books too.’ Tatler OVERSEAS PRESS
‘…the most exciting thing about this book is its hot fascination with the past, its almost ecstatic pursuit of a sensuous history. And I mean sensuous, the sense in all their glory…The greatest pleasures of this history lie in the author’s capacity to awaken the sense, to carry us with her as she hears, smells, feels, tastes, sees the past. Hughes’ attention to detail calls up a sympathetic experience not only of pleasure but also pain… This is a history where ‘you are there’, where the authors experience of wading through volcanic rock towards the island where Paris and Helen first consumated their love brings a new intensity to old myths. Hughes archaeological research is the most compelling part of this account, she never lets the dustiness of the dig cloud her appreciation of the intimacy with the past that archaeologists enable. Hughes makes us part of the party… Hers is a passionately sensed and recorded homage to Helen… The text’s lavish illustrations, tumbled together, enrich Hughes’ argument and show how deeply the idea of Helen has been engraved in the Western imagination… Hughes reminds us now, at the end of a long history of Puritanism and misogyny, of a time when women’s dominion over the produce of the earth, and their own sexual powers, made some of them potent subjects and radiant objects of worship, adoration and desire.’ Professor Page Dubois, professor of Greek History and Cultural Studies in The San Diego Union-Tribune ' Helen of Troy has been a part of the Western cultural consciousness for thousands of years, an often troubling figure of female sexual power. Now British historian Hughes investigates the history and myth of Helen, using a mix of archaeological evidence, literary sources and personal observation to flesh out this archetypal creature. Acknowledging that Helen has long served as a lens through which male thinkers have projected their views of women, Hughes traces the uses to which the ancient princess has been put, from the prehistoric Mycenaean world, in which she would have been admired for her beauty and strength, through the Elizabethan age, when she was reviled as a demonic harlot. Fascinating and illuminating. The elucidation of prehistoric social, political and religious systems is especially interesting and serves as a needed corrective to Christian-influenced constructions of Helen and, through her, all women.’ US Publishers Weekly ‘the nuggets garnered from archaeology in particular are often revelatory…the details coalesce to conjure up an as aspect of this age in its satisfying entirety, a place the reader can enter and explore.’ The New York Times ‘Hughes brings a passion for ancient history and archaeology crossed with a strain of feminism to the figure of Helen.’ Marina Warner – The Washington Post ‘Historian Bettany Hughes has sailed wine-dark seas and sifted through eons of artefacts. Her dazzling book looks at the love match between beauty and power, displaying the archetypal ‘trophy mistress’ to the modern world.’ Journal O – Oprah’s recommended book list ‘The subtitle of this divine biography of the woman who caused all the trouble in Troy gives a sense of Bettany Hughes’ sizzling writing style. The author, a young British historian, explores not only the Bronze Age babe but also what she has meant throughout history and the cultural significance of being both desired and despised.’ USA Today ‘ A spirited new biography that frees the famous beauty from her pedestal’ More Magazine US ‘Interweaving history, archaeology, and mythology, Hughes manages to illuminate the tremendous effect this classical character has wielded on society, art, religion, politics and culture across time. Hughes chronicles Helen’s multifaceted odyssey across Bronze Age Greece and through the ensuing centuries in fascinating detail.’ US Booklist ‘Hughes draws the reader into her deftly written work with her stunning ability to capture the essence of a landscape or a character. The brilliant and exhaustive research that produced this gem of a book never overshadows its appeal.’ US Library Journal – starred selection ‘This far-ranging search for the real Helen has been written by a woman, one telegenic enough to be described as the Nigella Lawson of history documentaries. So Bettany Hughes brings a fierce empathy to her account of the beautiful Spartan Queen whom men couldn’t manage. Surveying all the paintings in the Louvre of Helen’s abduction by Paris, Hughes reels from ‘a catalogue of sexual violence.’ If we never look directly at the loveliest woman in history, with fine-grained detail we do learn a great deal about the short but sensuous lives of women in the Age of Heroes. For extra pleasure each chapter begins with a quote from the vast body of writing inspired by Helen.’ Michelle Griffin in The Age, Australia Headline: Only a Fool Won’t Listen To Homer: Helen Not Just The Ultimate Bitch ‘Bettany Hughes is intelligent, eloquent, a fine writer and beautiful as well.’ Marjoleine de Vos in NRC Handelsblad, Holland ‘Bettany Hughes is hot, sexy and a brilliant historian…her work is also for the laymen this is an accessible and lavishly illustrated book.’ Emma Brunt in Het Parool/PS Boeken, Holland ‘Speculative, yet positively stimulating book about the Spartan princess.’ Janet Luis in Opzi, Holland Headline: Meet Beautiful Helen – To Be Or Not To Be? ‘Bettany Hughes' story was so evocative that an almost tangible presence of Helen was created. I now look forward to meeting Socrates!’ Perihan Korkmaz in Sabah Kitap, Turkey ‘…a brilliant book. With the freshness of its contents, this book drives us along unconventional paths regarding the myth of Helen and the different traces left in various areas of the Mediterranean. It is both for the uninitiated reader as well as scholars. I read it with great enjoyment….congratulations.’ Angelos Delivorrias, Director of the Benaki Musem, Athens
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