Weight by Jeanette Winterson (2005)

Another of the Canongate Myth series--seemingly published simultaneously with Atwood's. Regardless, I liked this one a great deal more than the Atwood. I've also never read anything by Winterson--the British getting in the way thus far--but I am enamoured with her style and language and manner of storytelling.

Weight is the re-telling, or "Cover Version" as Winterson wrote, of the Atlas and Heracles (the Greek version of the better known Roman counterpart, Hercules). The basic myth is that the gods punished Atlas, a Titan, and made him hold the earth, in essence making him the cosmos. One day Heracles visits Atlas (no one ever did) to ask his help. Hera (Hercule's stepmother) has cursed him and made him the slave of a worthless man who demands Heracles bring him the best items on earth, defeat the biggest monsters, etc. This time Heracles needs golden apples from Hera's tree which is planted inside the gates of Atlas's garden (on earth, from before he was punished) but Heracles cannot pick the apples himself. So, Atlas has Heracles hold the earth while he goes to pick the apples and then all manner of trickery, fate, and whatnot are evoked, just so I don't give anything away if the original myth isn't known.

Winterson's retelling focuses on retelling. The fact that we all want to tell the story again and again and again, which is especially clever because that's all these myths were and are, retellings whether the early oral versions or the various written versions or the versions we tell when trying to repeat the storyline. And, of course, it mimics the earth's revolution on an axis, and it's revolution around the sun both of which evoke Atlas. Tied in with the retelling of the older story, Winterson tells a contemporary version with humans and even brings Atlas into the twentieth century.

It's really a charming and compelling story (I read it in one sitting last night) that is tightly focused yet casts a wide enough net so that it can encompass the world whose story it tells. Really just lovely. I, of course, promptly sought out another Winterson so we'll see if my infatuation remains constant. And, of course, it gives me great hope for the rest of the Canongate series.