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House of Names
House of Names
House of Names
Audiobook8 hours

House of Names

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

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About this audiobook

* A Washington Post Notable Fiction Book of the Year
* Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR, The Guardian, The Boston Globe, St. Louis Dispatch


From the thrilling imagination of bestselling, award-winning Colm Tóibín comes a retelling of the story of Clytemnestra and her children—“brilliant…gripping…high drama…made tangible and graphic in Tóibín’s lush prose” (Booklist, starred review).


“I have been acquainted with the smell of death.” So begins Clytemnestra’s tale of her own life in ancient Mycenae, the legendary Greek city from which her husband King Agamemnon left when he set sail with his army for Troy. Clytemnestra rules Mycenae now, along with her new lover Aegisthus, and together they plot the bloody murder of Agamemnon on the day of his return after nine years at war.

Judged, despised, cursed by gods, Clytemnestra reveals the tragic saga that led to these bloody actions: how her husband deceived her eldest daughter Iphigeneia with a promise of marriage to Achilles, only to sacrifice her; how she seduced and collaborated with the prisoner Aegisthus; how Agamemnon came back with a lover himself; and how Clytemnestra finally achieved her vengeance for his stunning betrayal—his quest for victory, greater than his love for his child.

House of Names “is a disturbingly contemporary story of a powerful woman caught between the demands of her ambition and the constraints on her gender…Never before has Tóibín demonstrated such range,” (The Washington Post). He brings a modern sensibility and language to an ancient classic, and gives this extraordinary character new life, so that we not only believe Clytemnestra’s thirst for revenge, but applaud it. Told in four parts, this is a fiercely dramatic portrait of a murderess, who will herself be murdered by her own son, Orestes. It is Orestes’s story, too: his capture by the forces of his mother’s lover Aegisthus, his escape and his exile. And it is the story of the vengeful Electra, who watches over her mother and Aegisthus with cold anger and slow calculation, until, on the return of her brother, she has the fates of both of them in her hands.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateMay 9, 2017
ISBN9781508227922
Author

Colm Toibin

Colm Tóibín was born in Ireland in 1955. He is the author of eleven novels, including The Master, Brooklyn, and The Magician, and two collections of stories. He has been three times shortlisted for the Booker Prize. In 2021, he was awarded the David Cohen Prize for Literature. Tóibín was appointed the Laureate for Irish Fiction 2022-2024.

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Reviews for House of Names

Rating: 3.6049724254143647 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is a great novel for anyone who's not read the original classic. Wonderful narration.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Blood soked as you would expect of the tale of clytemnestra & co. Starts strongly inside her head but gets difuse with too many narrator’s PoVs. And mixing up “avenge” and “revenge “ is unforgivable given the theme .
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Left you hanging
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I found this retelling of the Greek classic, Agamemnon, enjoyable. Several family members recount their version of events from the sacrifice of Agamemnon's daughter through the various revenges over the years thereafter.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    In post-Trojan war literature, it seems to be the losers who gather the most literary acclaim and effort: Aeneas and the founding of Rome, and the miseries of Hecuba, Andromache, and the other widows enslaved by the victorious Achaeans. On the Greek side, Odysseus earns an entire memorable and adventurous story for himself. But there's also the fall of the House of Atreus, as Agamemnon returns with war bounty Cassandra (who you'd think would know better, considering her gift of prophesy) to his wife Clytemnestra, who has been plotting revenge with her lover Aegisthus. Throughout Homer's epic Iliad, king and general Agamemnon feuds with hero Achilles, both coming off as entitled sulking whiners who care not a whit for anything but their own financial rewards and renown. In Toibin’s novel, Agamemnon's sacrifice of his daughter Iphigenia, required by the gods to provide winds for the sail to Troy, is the sole source of his wife's enmity. Her husband's deception (enticing them with a promise of a brilliant marriage to Achilles) drives Clytemnestra's tale of horror. The longest (and most boring) passages belong to their son Orestes, imprisoned and exiled as a young boy by Aegisthus as a strategy to maintain their control of the throne, as he and companion Leander (a Toibin invention) struggle for years to return to Argos. Electra's section is somewhat colorless, although it is she who gives the pliant and confused Orestes the weapon and the opportunity to take revenge on their mother for their father's murder. This entire retelling seems lifeless and unnecessary, and as the blood spurts and the bodies pile up, the only plot line of interest is the shunning of Orestes, even by Electra, for the crime of killing his mother, who killed her husband, who killed his daughter.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A retelling of a classic. This story could have/should have been gripping and engaging. It started off as such, but quickly became repetitive and rather dull. The characters all seem to become numb, and it was very difficult to feel anything for/about them.
    While I love the idea of retelling the classics, this offering seemed to suck the drama and tension out of the story.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    In this imagining — it wouldn’t be fair to call it a re-imagining — of the events surrounding Agamemnon’s sacrifice of his daughter, Iphigenia, and the horrific consequences of that act, Tóibín once again confirms his mastery of tone and touch and pace. Told from the viewpoints of Agamemnon’s aggrieved wife and mother of Iphigenia, Clytemnestra, Orestes, his son, and Electra, his second daughter, Tóibín gives us a measured and nuanced treatment full of righteous anger, ambivalence, and veils of ignorance.It is always curious to read a story whose broad outline and specific ends one knows well in advance. Although it is a common enough experience for our appreciation of the standard repertoire of, say, Shakespearean dramas, it is less common in literature to tread much furrowed ground. Tóibín concentrates on the impressions and understandings or misunderstandings of each of his serial protagonists in close third-person in order to bring immediacy to his tale. And he is such a master of word choice and subtle shifting of pace that you’ll read this like a paperback thriller, turning page after page after page to chase the outcome. Brilliant!Highly recommended.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    House of Names, Colm Toibin, author; Juliet Stevenson, Charlie Anson, Pippa Nixon, narratorsI really enjoyed the narration of this short novel about a famous Greek myth. In order to retain power and success in battle, Agamemnon has arranged for the murder of his own first born daughter, Iphigenia, to appease the gods who have demanded it. The elders agree that this must be done to save their own lives and protect their families. They agree to tear asunder his family and to take the life of an innocent young girl to save their own. This they believe will turn the tide of battle in their favor. So begins a cycle of deception and violence.Clytemnestra was deceived into preparing her daughter to be the bride of Achilles. Unwittingly, she brought her daughter to her place of slaughter. When her husband, Agamemnon, returns victorious after battle, she is ready to take action to avenge her daughter’s death. Clytemnestra teams up with a prisoner, Aegisthus, to carry out her deed. One murder leads to another in a cycle of violence and betrayal. Meanwhile, Elektra, sister to Iphigenia, draws her own conclusions about her sister’s death, blaming her mother. Orestes knows his father ordered her murder, but is unaware of anything else that has happened. Both sister and brother have been temporarily neutralized by order of Aegisthus and are imprisoned. As Toibin reimagines how these characters feel and react, the reader is drawn into the palace and their lives. The secrets that are kept and the deceptions that are planned lead to more and more confusion, rumor and disloyalty. Toibin breathes life into their introspection and behavior. In this retelling of the story, the characters deal with all the pain of human suffering and the duplicity of those around them. The narrators brought them to life as their performance was not only insightful, but their portrayals felt genuine. I could actually see the shade of Clytemnestra walking in the corridor, feel the blade plunge into the neck of Agamemnon, hear the cries of Iphigenia as she was brought to the slaughter, feel the fear of Orestes as he tried to pretend to be brave and grown up when he was kidnapped and didn’t fully understand his position, and the deceitfulness of Elektra as she carried out her own plans. I wondered how it would have turned out if Orestes had been a more active participant in the entire process of the palace intrigue. Although he is not, and is rather an observer forced to be on the sidelines, it felt to me like Orestes was the dupe, the foil, the Job like character who was the catalyst for bringing about the events that would take them all into the future. At the end of the novel, there is a germ of greater freedom planted and the yoke of slavery begins to be questioned. Each character modeled his/her behavior on someone who may or may not have been worthy. Power was constantly changing hands. Fealty was questioned, people were murdered. Elektra’s character was hard to read as she seemed to be part heroine and part villain, as did Aegisthus and even Leander. Orestes seemed to be caught in the trap each laid. I believe the author has done a wonderful job of reimagining this myth, making the inner workings and feelings of the palace and the characters real, rather than objects of imagination.I am not sure if it is as good a read in a print book, but as an audio, I found it captivating. I could not stop listening and felt regret when I was forced to put it down for awhile by other earthly needs.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Powerful novel in modern language and a good dose of author's imagination of the epitome of dysfunctional families, the House of Atreus. In first person, Clytemnestra tells us how she and daughter Iphigenia are lured to Aulis with false promise of marriage by Agamemnon and the girl there sacrificed. We suffer Clytemnestra's mental torments. Her little son Orestes is lured away by his mother by the talk of a promised feast and spends time in a sort of prison for juveniles with other boys. Afterwards he and two companions, now young men, escape from its cruelty and spend years with an old woman in her house by cliffs near the sea. One, Leander, becomes a dear friend; a note of subtle homoeroticism pervades the book. We also see Elektra, the sister, convince Orestes to murder her mother. We then hear Clytemnestra as shade, haunting the corridors of the palace. With the ending of Orestes' story there is held out a chance for this family to escape its so far dark fate.Gods may be invoked but they are either indifferent to humankind or they are dying. This novel had a good bit of creativity on this story; it was brought down from myth to tale of an ordinary family, with its greed, duplicity, manipulation, and yes, love.Highly recommended.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Colm Toibin can always be counted on for excellent writing and intriguing topics. In this new novel, he retells the story well known from the Oresteia in sections focused on Clytemnestra, her son Orestes, and her daughter Elektra; only Clytemnestra's sections employ a first person narrator (and one is a ghost). The novel begins with the familiar story of Agamemnon sacrificing his daughter Iphigenia to appease the gods and gain a fair wind to pursue his enemies. While his action led to victory in the Trojan War, it also spurred the downfall of his house as Clytemnestra carries out her revenge and together, years later, Orestes and Elektra avenge their father's murder. In addition to giving the reader a deeper window into the psyches of these characters, Toibin fills in the missing years, imagining what had happened when Clytemnestra sent her son into safety, only to have him spirited away by the henchmen of her lover and accomplice, Aegisthes, with a group of kidnapped boys. One of the book's most interesting sections is when Orestes escapes with two friends, Leander and Mitros. The three end up settling for five years with an elderly blind woman whose sons have been conscripted to the wars. This unexpected pastoral sojourn ends up being one of the few positive representations of family in the novel--but, alas, it is all too short.Orestes grows into a man of promise with the potential of being a better warrior and a better king than his father, yet, regardless of what he does, he can never quite fill the place that was meant to be his. Toibin leaves the reason for his failure somewhat vague. Is it because he succumbs to the control of his vengeful sister, Elektra? Or because he loses the respect of Leander, his friend and lover? Perhaps he has just been away too long, or perhaps he and his family are cursed?Initially I wondered why Toibin didn't include the points of view of Aegisthes or Agamemnon. I can't be sure, but I think it may be because he wanted to focus on blood--blood spilled and blood as one's genetic inheritance, and the way that blood influences a family and the events surrounding it for generations. To do that, the focus clearly had to remain on Clytemnestra--herself the result of a violent rape--and her offspring.My only complaint with House of Names is that is has a rather abrupt, somewhat unfathomable conclusion that left me unsatisfied. I feel like I need to go back and reread the last section, since I don't quite know what Toibin was attempting to do here. But all in all, it was a good read (especially on the heels of some really bad ones).