A To Z Blogging Challenge 2023: Folk Tale And Myth In Fiction - K Is For Kassandra

 Okay, I’m cheating with the spelling for the sake of having a K post. But it would be spelled with a K in Greek anyway, so there. 

In Greek myth, Kassandra/Cassandra was a princess of Troy. She was given the gift of prophecy by Apollo, but when she wouldn’t sleep with him, he took back a part of his gift. Yes, she could still prophesy, but nobody would believe her. 

And people have written about her in their Trojan War fiction. Here are a few. All of them are still available.

Marion Zimmer Bradley, best known for her Arthurian novel, The  Mists Of Avalon, also wrote a Trojan War novel, The Firebrand. Despite the title, which refers to Prince Paris, whose mother dreamed about giving birth to a firebrand which destroyed Troy, the story is seen from the viewpoint of his sister, Cassandra. This is a feminist reading of the story, like most of this author’s work. Queen Hecuba had been an Amazon. Cassandra spends time with them in the course of the story. The other women in the novel are shown as dominated by the men in their lives. It was certainly an interesting interpretation though there are others I prefer, such as Kerry Greenwood’s. Available at all good book web sites.

Kerry Greenwood, best known for her Phryne Fisher historical mystery novels, wrote a trilogy, the Delphic Women, Medea, Cassandra and Electra. Two of them have Cassandra in them. This interpretation is also feminist.

Cassandra is set during the Trojan War. Princess Cassandra is a much more interesting character than Bradley’s - and has someone she loves. The culture is not Greek a la Iliad. Girls have to prostitute themselves once, in a temple, as in some eastern cultures. Apollo doesn’t make a physical appearance. She manages to survive Agamemnon, unlike in the myth.

In Electra, she is not killed by Clytemnestra. Two men who care about her find her, and the three of them rescue Agamemnon and Clytemnestra’s daughter Electra and little Orestes, who was brought up as her younger brother, but has a much darker origin.

So, Kerry Greenwood manages to take Greek tragedy and give it a happy ending. Sort of, anyway. You may or may not care for that, but it worked for me. I like Kerry’s style.

These books went out of print for a time, but have been reprinted with lovely covers by  Australian small press ClanDestine Press. They are available in ebook - quite cheaply in Apple Books - and audiobook and Kindle.

A novel I like very much is Richard Powell’s Whom The Gods Would Destroy. In it, the Trojan War is seen from the viewpoint of Helios, the adopted son of the head groom at the palace of Troy. His late mother was a slave girl from Rhodes, where the sun god Helios was worshipped. He claims that King Priam is his father. Nobody is sure, but the king is flattered at the idea that he might have still fathered a son at the age of sixty, so he is educated with Cassandra, who becomes his friend and makes a prophecy about him; bit by bit it comes true. Whenever he is with her, he has visions himself. Cassandra is an intelligent young woman, but Helios is about the only person who does believe her.

Her fate in this novel is pretty much as it was in the myth, at least as far as Helios witnesses when Troy falls.

I will leave it at this, as I’d like to fit this novel into other posts.

I bought my copy years ago in hardcover. The print edition is not available now, but you will find it on Kindle. I have the Kindle app on my iPad, so if you are an Apple person, that is a possibility. 

It’s my favourite Trojan War novel. Do you have one?