the tortures of athena

I love it when a word from a recent crossword puzzle emerges in real life. I got that same feeling when "The Witch of Portobello" mentioned the tortures inflicted on supposed witches during the Inquisition. I was glad I had scrolled through pages of foot-roasting, knee-splitting and subjection to the "pear of anguish" (thanks to a link from Jezebel.com). I couldn't feel their pain, but I sure could visualize it. Athena is, of course, not punished like the witches of old, but she does apparently experience a modern version of witch torture that involves its own humiliation and ridicule. I haven't read far enough for the particulars, though.

Athena was no saint, though. Andrea, the second narrator, describes a woman who used people to make herself feel powerful. "Athena played with other people's feelings in a quite terrifying way," she says (8). It was a "competitive exhibitionism" Athena expressed through seduction (9). Andrea speaks of an unfinished work she and Athena had begun, but again the "suspense" is just being built up by the author.

Here, a few standout lessons from the opening pages:

• People will believe what they want to believe. (3)
• "If there is any possible consolation in the tragedy of losing someone we love very much, it's the necessary hope that perhaps it was for the best." (5)
• "They say that extroverts are unhappier than introverts and have to compensate for this by constantly proving to themselves how happy and contented and at east with life they are." (9)
  
• "Don't confuse the teacher with the lesson, the ritual with the ecstasy, the transmitter of the symbol with the symbol itself." (11)
• "Our time on this earth is sacred, and we should celebrate every moment." (11)

Edda, Athena's mentor, speaks of the title character as though she has somehow gotten in touch with some special powers we all possess but will not realize for at least another century. She says Athena embodies four archetypes of a woman searching for meaning: Virgin, Martyr, Saint and Witch (12).

We find out soon enough that the biographer/editor narrator is not just an anonymous storyteller but someone who actually lived with Athena at some point for eight years. But that story has yet to be told while room is made for tales of Athena growing up with her adoptive parents, moving to London because of the Lebanese civil war, and marrying Lukas Jessen-Peterson because she wanted to have a baby. The ex-husband describes how Athena claimed roots within the church but displayed contrary views at times. "Athena always lived between two worlds: what she felt was true and what she had been taught by her faith" (27).

And here, a lesson from the priest: "Surrendering completely to love, be it human or divine, means giving up everything, including our own well-being or our ability to make decisions. [...] The truth is that we don't want to be saved in the way God has chosen; we want to keep absolute control over our every step, to be fully conscious of our decisions, to be capable of choosing the object of our devotion." (30)

Finally, we start getting inside Athena's head when she decides she wants a child. She sounds half witchy, half delusional little girl: "When I come here to praise the Virgin with my music, I'm not bothered about what other people might think, I'm simply sharing my feelings with her. And that's how it's always been, ever since I was old enough to think for myself. I'm a vessel in which the Divine Energy can make itself manifest. And that energy is asking me now to have a child, so that I can give it what my birth mother never gave me: protection and security." (33)

Lukas tells us how important music was to Athena, and I'm curious to see what role it will play as the novel unfolds. Athena danced her message to her parents about the coming of blood, she sings her way to spiritual orgasm in the church with the priest, plays guitar for her unborn baby. Lukas says music was the only thing that helped them through their marital arguments, albeit "in some kind of hippyish way" (35). "Music isn't just something that comforts or distracts us, it goes beyond that--it's an ideology. You can judge people by the kind of music they listen to."

Whatever it was the music provided them got lost eventually, and the two parted ways. Lukas tragically realizes that Athena probably never loved him, but equally pitifully regrets abandoning the two most important things in the world -- his wife and son. His reminiscence tugs at the heartstrings when he tells of asking her why she left so willingly, and she finally breaks down and cries. "Because all my life I've learned to suffer in silence," she says (41). I don't know quite enough to want to wonder what might've been, but I have been told enough to be a little skeptical of her suffering. I'm not sure yet whether I'll want to hate her or pity her, or just love to hate her.

• Implacable = not to be appeased or pacified
  
• Spectral = ghostly
  
• Engendered = brought into existence
  
• Vale (of tears) = mortal or earthly life
  
• Filial = pertaining to a son or daughter