Every so often, I feel compelled to write a longer book review than I normally would. This isn’t always when a book immediately clicks with me, as is the case with this one. While reading the majority of the book, it felt like a 4 star read to me. It was only finishing it and writing up the review, that I understood the brilliance even more.
Here are my thoughts on The Hymn to Dionysus by Natasha Pulley.
The synopsis of this book felt like it was absolutely written for me. I’m a Classics graduate (I actually taught Classics, Latin and Ancient Greek for a while!) who wrote her dissertation on the evidence to support a mysterious cult to Demeter and who read and loved Greek tragedies in their original languages. The Bacchae, which this is based around, was always one of my favourites after reading it at “Greek camp” (an intensive 3 week Ancient Greek summer school).
We are introduced to Phaidros as a young knight who rescues a baby from a burning palace and then is commanded to leave him at a temple. For the majority of the book, he is a “Sown” commander, training new young recruits in Thebes, a city now ravaged by drought and famine, while a strange madness overtakes the knights. Meanwhile, he is guided by the witch Dionysus to help find the crown Prince, Pentheus, who has shirked his duty.
Rather than mythology, which is what many are expecting from this novel, for me it felt exactly like a crossover between a Greek tragedy and an epic Greek poem. Because I know The Bacchae, it felt a bit like I was reading with spoilers as I knew what was coming – I’m not sure how well known Dionysus and Pentheus’ backstory is. But this didn’t hinder my enjoyment of it at all.
It was cleverly written with fun little insights where the author breaks the fourth wall and speaks directly to the audience who are reading this in the future – it’s almost like a little nod to us to say: “Hey, isn’t it funny that they’re referring to something that you now know is true!” These were some of the highlights of the book for me as it had the feel of a real Greek tragedy where the characters would occasionally make little moves like this, letting the audience in on a secret, a nudge nudge, wink wink, sort of thing. Fans of Greek tragedy will love the nods to its classic storytelling techniques.
For example:
“And after all our world is gone and there’s no trace of us or marvels or Pylos and nobody knows if the war in Troy even happened, there it’ll be, and priests thousands of years from now are going to have huge gatherings about whether or not their ideas about us are supported by fourteen oxen and three barrels of apples to Poseidon!”
I enjoyed the use of words like deinos and xenia which threw me right back into the days of learning about these concepts at school – things that I had forgotten but were so integral to these cultures and storylines. It was nice to see them well explained and the importance placed on them to explain the motivations behind the storyline.
Some of the culture and themes are so different to ours that it’s hard to understand the motivations, but I loved how it threw you into a world that was similar but also so far removed that it feels alien. It’s a good eye opening experience to know that, even in the modern world, our culture can be so different from others.
I know some reviewers are not all that hyped up about this book being sold to fans of Madeline Miller, and I can see why the similarities have been pointed out by publishers but not understood by fans. I do think it is a very different style altogether, just like mythology and Greek tragedy would be. But personally, as a big Greek tragedy fan, this appeals to me even more than mythology based books.
And I know reviews have also said that it’s disjointed between the real world and the magical – tipping into magic realism – but that’s exactly what a Greek tragedy/epic poem/myth is. The writing is immersive, oppressive, and brilliantly evocative.
Her writing in this book has been described by others as modern and British, however I disagree. Pulley’s writing feels distinctly Ancient Greek, with its asides, satire, and rich world-building. As I’ve mentioned, the little asides to the audience, but also there are some fun, sometimes satirical, digs at the Athenians which the audience is meant to enjoy, and little passages which take the reader away from the main story for a moment or two to describe a situation as being alike to another situation – this had the epic Greek poem feel about it rather than a tragedy (or even comedy – with the digs at the Athenians!) play.
The setting in a drought and famine ravaged Thebes was oppressive and very well written – you could feel the desperation through the page. In addition to that, the characters themselves were well built – Phaidros is ravaged by guilt, he is a flawed character, but the relationship between him and Dionysus, how it grows and changes, is brilliant.
While I loved this, the book felt a little too long – at 60%, it felt like I’d been reading it forever, but that’s when it really got gripping and you felt like you got the meat of the story! There was a chunk of the book in the middle that seemed to drag on, where Phaidros and the story just kind of seemed to be meandering somewhat aimlessly. There were of course important parts in this for adding to characters’ personalities or storylines, little hidden references here and there, and these need to be interspersed with, for want of a better word, filler so that you’re not bombarded with important detail after important detail, but like I said, it felt a little longer than necessary. However, the writing was excellent enough and the world so fascinating that it didn’t make me even consider stopping reading it.
Thank you to Netgalley, the author and the publishers for an advance copy of this book.
This book will be published on 20th March 2025.
