Letters To My Sister, Ariadne

Book Club Review: ‘Ariadne’ by Jennifer Saint is not what you’d think it is

What could be the common thread between Asterion, The Minotaur’s life and Ariadne’s? Confusion? Frustration? Maybe feeling lost and at home at the same time.

It is not my intention, but I think that my labyrinthian erratic obsession may come out in this ‘review’. To be completely upfront, this is more of a half-review, half-diary collaboration with Asterion, who is also me—not following? Don’t worry, I’ll throw you some red string along the way so that we can both make our way back from this.

You may be familiar with the fulcrum of the story. Pasiphae, daughter of Helios and sister to Circe, was enthralled by Poseidon to fall in love with a divine white bull. With the help of Daedalus (father of Icarus, the famous fallen boy who aimed for the Sun) she managed to seduce the bovine and then gave birth to the half-man half-bull, Asterion. The starry one. As the creature grew oddly carnivorous, Minos, the husband scorned, used him as a symbol of the power of Athens, and (again using the ingenious mind of Daedalus) trapped him in an impossible maze, called the Labyrinth, where once a year he was fed 14 young Athenians.

Someone who gets overlooked in the myth is Ariadne, the oldest sister of…