Author: Rebecca Resinski

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Rainbow Rowell’s three Simon Snow books—Carry On (2015), Wayward Son (2019), and Any Way the Wind Blows (2021)—trace the ups and downs of a collection of friends on the cusp of adulthood. When we meet them in Carry On, they are students in their final year at the Watford School of Magicks in the UK. In Wayward Son they journey to the US, and in Any Way the Wind Blows they learn how to chart their way in the world beyond school. The main character, Simon Snow, seems like a typical “chosen one,” an outsider with extraordinary capabilities who is tasked with fighting the Humdrum, a being who threatens the magical world. All this may sound like standard, if magical, fare—familiar from the Harry Potter series and elsewhere—but surprises and subversions are in store. Simon’s trip to Watford at the start of Carry On is markedly mundane: no Platform 9 3/4 and Hogwarts Express here. In the course of Carry On, Simon and his friends come to realize that Simon’s spectacular uses of magic create dark spots of magic-less-ness and that the Humdrum is an echo of Simon himself. Though Simon defeats the Humdrum, he loses his formidable purchase on magic as a result. And as if Rowell is in queer conversation with the Twilight franchise as well as Harry Potter, Simon falls in love with the vampire Baz, his roommate and former nemesis. Throughout the Simon Snow series, Rowell both engages and twists expectations raised and solidified by popular books about magical schools and supernatural beings.

Classical mythology’s legacy of fantastic creatures and the frequent association of magic and Latin might well lead readers to expect that Classics will be part of Rowell’s picture. And, to be sure, Rowell populates her world with some ancient Greek and Roman mythological beings: chimeras, minotaurs, dryads, nymphs, centaurs, sirens, fauns, phoenixes, basilisks, and sphinxes. But she also includes plenty of non-Classical entities: the Humdrum, goblins, pixies, trolls, numpties, ne’er do-wolves, and worsegers. Not only are these beings not specifically Classical, but their very names—with the possible exception of “goblins”—are also not based in Latin or Greek. Germanic and Scandinavian etymologies counterbalance the Classically sourced names, adding linguistic variety to ontological diversity. I am particularly drawn to (even charmed by) the last two category names in the list, which both use solidly Old English components. “Ne’er-do-wolves” is a tweak of “ne’er-do-wells,” and “worsegers” is a play on “badgers,” the adjective “bad,” and its irregular comparative form. What are worsegers? “Like badgers but worse,” Penelope (Simon’s long-time best friend) explains in Carry On (132). With ne’er-do-wolves and worsegers Rowell seems to be making a point of creating non-Classical beings. Still, even the students at Watford seem to expect Classical creatures to be more central or privileged in this world than they turn out to be. The Watford coat of arms contains an image of the school’s winged goats, but Simon and others had assumed—throughout their Watford years—that pegasuses were being depicted. We may look to Classics for magic when it’s right under our non-Classical noses.

This holds especially true for spells in Rowell’s magical world. The antiquity of Latin and its associations with esoteric knowledge have made it a fitting candidate for a magical language in the popular imagination. The Latinate spells studied by Harry Potter et al. at Hogwarts are a recent manifestation of the long-standing connection between Latin and magic. The connection has become so traditional that it might be considered a given. In the Simon Snow novels, however, magic is channeled through turns of phrase popularized in everyday speech and quotidian contexts. Magicians learn how to tap into the power of expressions like “clean as a whistle,” Shakespearean tags such as “out, out, damned spot,” lyrics like “candle in the wind,” or well-known quotations from movies such as “these aren’t the droids you’re looking for.” These words’ popularity among non-magicians is what gives them strength, and their magic potential diminishes when or where they are not spoken. For instance, phrases that can be used as spells in England (like “ship-shape and Bristol fashion”) may not work in the United States, and in areas unpopulated by “Normals” magic isn’t available at all. In Rowell’s formulation, Latin’s current disuse makes it an unlikely magical language. Pig Latin, however, proves effective, and one of the British magic community’s most powerful spells (which prevents magicians from talking about Watford) is in Pig Latin: “Ix-nay on the atford-Way.” In the popular conception of magic, Latinate spells seems to transcend time and place; in the Simon Snow books, magic spells are rooted in the language of particular places and times.

By contrast, Latin is a common component in J. K. Rowling’s spells in the Harry Potter series. We might consider “Wingardium Leviosa,” which Harry, Ron, and Hermione practice in their Charms class in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. Although “wing” is derived from an Old Norse word, the “-ium” suffix makes the whole word sound Latinesque, and both the base and suffix of “leviosa” are Latinate. Rowling’s combination of elements is clever. The whole phrase has a Classical ring, but “wing” and “levi-“ (which readers are likely to know from words like “levitate”) clearly convey that the spell’s intended effect is to make things fly. Rowling harnesses the cachet of Latin so that readers get the gratification of encountering seemingly arcane knowledge while being able to stay on comfortably familiar ground. When Hermione tries to help Ron with casting the spell, her advice centers on his pronunciation: she tells him to emphasize the “gar” and “o” syllables in the respective words (171). That is, she steers him toward voicing the words according to Latin pronunciation rules. Even though the spell isn’t actual Latin, it is made to sound like Latin, and Hermione’s advanced knowledge and skill are demonstrated through her expertise at Latinate pronuncation. Rowling’s spells may incorporate non-Classical elements and made-up words, but within those confections Latin still has a privileged place. I think that the comparison between Rowling and Rowell’s spell-making underscores how much Rowell is working against expectation in her treatment of magical language.

Rowell dislodges Classics from the privileged place it traditionally occupies in magical utterances. While that displacement occurs in the register of Rowell’s world-building, within the narrative we can find a parallel move in the Mage’s educational reforms. As headmaster of Watford the Mage seeks to dismantle the exclusionary nature of the institution manifest in both its admissions policy and its curriculum. The academically accomplished Penelope may decry the Mage’s decision to shrink the role of Classics at Watford, but the Mage aims to insure that magic isn’t the province of solely the elite, and he works to align the school’s focus with the way magic, in Rowell’s world, is intertwined with the current language of everyday people. The Mage proves problematic (understatement!), and he commits villainous acts, but aspects of his educational modifications at Watford address concerns about academia and privilege (as well as the association of Classics with both of those things) that readers might share. Reflecting a commitment to inclusion, the Mage’s reforms complicate his character and may make him sympathetic to some extent. While Latin and Greek classes continue to exist at Watford, the very way in which they are present marks their past-ness: they are of historical interest, and thus relevant to scholars, but not central in the curriculum nor necessary for the successful use of magic.

That Classics can have associations with the scholarly and the aristocratic is evident even in the names of Simon’s three main companions throughout the novels, Agatha, Baz, and Penelope. Agatha—whose name is a feminine form of the Greek adjective meaning “good” or “noble”—comes from a wealthy family with longstanding status in the magical community. Baz’s first name is actually Tyrannus, Greek for “tyrant;” he doesn’t use it (preferring the shortened form of his middle name, Basilton), but the name is traditional in his family and Baz says that his mother “insisted” on it (380). Baz’s mother’s insistence on a Classical name for her son seems doubly fitting: not only was she a member of one of the “Old Families,” but she was also an academic. The head at Watford before the Mage, she made sure that Baz’s own Classical studies started early and continued beyond the classroom. As for Penelope, her name recalls the clever spouse of Odysseus from Greek mythology. In Penelope’s case, a Classically connected name isn’t a marker of upperclass credentials, but it may instead reflect the fact that both of her parents are scholars. Even if readers don’t consciously note the etymological origins of these names, the names’ Classical heritage provides them with a texture and attendant associations that dovetail with and reinforce Rowell’s use of them.

Classics remains available as a touchstone in Rowell’s world. When exclaiming, characters invoke historical magical figures, Classical among them, as in “Sweet Circe” (Wayward Son 347). The addition of a Classical reference may add flare or gravity to a utterance, making it more fitting for a paranormal context. For instance, Penelope refers to a demon-cursed character as being “up the River Styx without a paddle” (Any Way 246). And Simon makes use of a Classical comparison when he retroactively describes himself as having entered Watford like a kind Trojan Horse—a seemingly innocuous new student who poses a danger no one realizes at the time (Carry On 35). Simon also calls on Classics in Wayward Son, this time to express his exasperation with the group’s drive across the US. Simon replays his exchange with Baz:

“You’re supposed to get out and see things, meet people—lotus-eaters and sirens.”
“That’s not a road trip,” Baz says, “that’s the Odyssey. When did you read the Odyssey, Snow?”
“The Mage made me read it—I think he wanted it to rub off on me—and it is so a road trip!”
Baz smiles at me. Like he hasn’t in a while. Like he almost never has, in public—like it’s easy. “You’re right, Snow. Better tie you to the mast.” (103-104)

Though this moment passes breezily, it contains some interesting features worth lingering on. We see that, despite the Mage’s reforms, he wasn’t trying to get rid of Classics altogether. He wanted to promote some continuity or connection among Classical mythology, Classical learning, and Simon as the “chosen one.” Whatever the Mage’s grand intentions in having Simon read the Odyssey, Simon invokes it for his own purposes here, and it provides unexpected common ground for Simon and Baz. Baz even makes it the occasion for good-humored joking at the end of the passage when he casts Simon as Odysseus. Here Classics enables a good moment for a couple who has been having some challenges at relating as a couple. It establishes some shared experience and affords an opportunity for affectionate banter. And while Baz is right in some way—a road trip isn’t the Odyssey—so is Simon: their road trip isn’t Homer’s Odyssey, but it is their odyssey, filled with adventures of its own, analogous yet distinct. For Rowell’s characters, Classics, though past, is present, but not omnipresent nor soley present. It’s one component of their layered, manifold world. And while Classics can have problematic ties to privilege, it can also provide historical perspective and points of reference. For all its supernatural elements and fantastic scenarios, Rowell’s magical world reflects, and reflects on, the presence of Classics in our own.

Bibliography

Rowell, Rainbow. Any Way the Wind Blows. Wednesday Books. 2021.

—. Carry On. Wednesday Books. 2015.

—. Wayward Son. Wednesday Books. 2019.

Rowling, J. K. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. Scholastic. 1998.

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Grayson, the sixth-grade protagonist and narrator of Ami Polonsky’s Gracefully Grayson, is a girl, but she is seen and treated as a boy. Protecting what she feels is her secret, she isolates herself from her classmates and uses her imagination to transform her “boys’ clothes” into “girls’ clothes.” Tired of trying to be invisible, Grayson decides to audition for the school play and at the last moment reads for the part of Persephone rather than Zeus. When Grayson is cast as Persephone, her time spent practicing—and inhabiting—the role becomes a crucial step in privately and publicly owning her identity as a girl. I am interested in how Polonsky reshapes the myth of Persephone and how she makes Persephone and Grayson’s experiences resonate with one other.

Within the world of the novel, the script of the play—titled The Myth of Persephone—is written by Grayson’s Humanities teacher Mr. Finnegan, and Mr. Finnegan (called Finn by his students) also directs the production. Finn’s play presents the Olympian gods as basically good. Gone is the political maneuvering between Zeus and Demeter which escalates the conflict in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter or the imperial ambition of Venus that sets off the story in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Finn’s benign characterization of the gods on Olympus lends stability to the world: the powers that be are okay; they are even forces of light. Hades’ abduction of Persephone seems motivated by a desire for light in the dark Underworld, and the abduction itself becomes the kidnapping of a child rather than the rape of a maiden. While Finn’s adaptation does not un-gender Persephone, it does de-sexualize her. Distancing Persephone from the brink of matrimony and avoiding the portrayal of Hades as a potential husband reinforce Persephone’s identity as a child whose primary relationship is with her mother, Demeter. And Persephone eats the pomegranate seeds because her mother, the goddess of growing things, is on her mind. It is not a trick on the part of Hades (like in the Homeric Hymn), nor is it something that Persephone tries to keep secret (as in Ovid’s Metamorphoses). Instead, it simply stems from her longing for the comfort of home. A distraught Demeter longs for her daughter as well and enlists the help of Zeus in retrieving Persephone. Here again we see Finn’s play departing from ancient sources, which figure Zeus as Demeter’s antagonist (in the Homeric Hymn) or a neutral arbiter (in the Metamorphoses). In ancient myth Zeus is the father of Persephone, but Polonsky makes him Persephone’s grandfather. This move erases the parental tension between Zeus and Demeter and softens, while also securing, the positioning of Zeus as both familial and cosmic patriarch. Polonsky’s choice to present Zeus as a grandfatherly advocate for Persephone reinforces the general depiction of the gods as good and conveys a sense that things will come right in the end.

Characters in Polonsky’s novel repeatedly mention that the myth of Persephone explains the change of seasons. Although this is a common feature of post-antique retellings of the myth, neither the Homeric Hymn nor the Metamorphoses—the two most prominent ancient literary renditions—has this aetiological bent. In those works, Persephone’s cycling between upper and lower worlds coincides with seasonal changes but isn’t explicitly their sole, root, or original cause. In presenting the myth as the reason for the seasons, the school play naturalizes Persephone’s experience and thereby blunts the violence of the ancient story. The emphasis on the myth’s connection to nature may also implicitly contribute to the novel’s overall investment in cultivating empathy for Grayson: Polonsky works to get readers to see Grayson as a person rather than an aberration, someone who, like Persephone, participates in the natural order of things.

The Myth of Persephone is, fittingly, the spring play at Grayson’s school. We begin the novel in the autumn and move with Grayson through the winter to the spring. Like Persephone in the Underworld, Grayson at the novel’s start is lonely and going through dark times. Her grandmother dies, and her attempt to make a new friend at school—promising at first—proves disappointing. But as winter yields to spring, better days come for Grayson, and Grayson’s performance in the play leads to her flourishing beyond the stage as well. Grayson’s isolation dissolves as she finds support from various members of her community. Just as Persephone is attended by kindly Elves when she is above ground, Grayson makes friends with classmates who are also in the play. And various characters provide Grayson with Demeter-like or Zeus-like encouragement and aid. The teacher Finn realizes how important the play is to Grayson and remains committed to Grayson’s playing Persephone when other adults question the casting choice. In response to the flak that Grayson encounters at school, Paige, the eight-grader cast as Demeter, and her mother become protective maternal surrogates, all the more welcome because Grayson’s own mother and father have died years before the start of the novel. Yet they too provide crucial support when Grayson’s grandmother leaves behind letters which Grayson’s mother had written when Grayson was young, and those letters make it clear that Grayson’s mother would affirm Grayson’s identity as a girl. The reassurance of the letters is heartening, and the photographs contained in them fortifies Grayson’s recollection of her parents and their loving care. Grayson now lives with her aunt and uncle, and the uncle becomes Demeter-like in his desire to help Grayson live her identity openly. (Notice how Grayson’s grandmother and uncle echo the play’s Zeus and Demeter, but with a gender reversal.) Grayson’s aunt, however, is more skeptical of the situation than her spouse, and she becomes one of the blocking figures of the novel, along with some bullies at school. Like Hades and the Shades, they are representatives of the darkness at play in Grayson’s life. Just as Persephone oscillates between the Underworld and earth, Grayson repeatedly mentions experiencing alternations of dark and light, bad and good: “White and black. Light and dark. And me, in the middle of it all. Gray. There’s nothing else for me to do but walk through these columns of dark and light, so I do…” (215). I’ve tried to outline here, in broad strokes, the ways in which Polonsky makes Grayson’s experience reflect Persephone’s, but throughout the novel there are small details which connect Grayson’s life to the myth—for instance, mentions of feeling frozen or of the sun finally coming out, or Grayson’s memory of her mother handing her a piece of fruit. While some readers may be on the active look-out for such correspondences, for other readers they will go unnoticed but do real connective work nevertheless, knitting together the mythological and contemporary registers.

In Finn’s play, Zeus intervenes to deliver Persephone from the Underworld; she does relatively little to save herself. By contrast, while Grayson is supported and helped by a variety of people, she is the one who takes some critical steps in her own rescue. She decides to audition for the play as a bid for self, and she also reads for the role of Persephone because she doesn’t want to pretend any longer. She eventually goes shopping for actual “girls’ clothes” instead of imagining them. When her arm is fractured by bullies at school, she resolutely asks for a pink cast, and she persists in the role of Persephone despite the injury, the bullying, and pressure from her aunt. In the final scene of the novel, Grayson excuses herself from class to change her clothes; she takes the sequin-heart T-shirt she was wearing underneath a thermal shirt, puts it on top, and adds clips to her hair. Grayson carries into the rest of her life the courage she musters in playing Persephone onstage. The role is, in a way, like the pink cast: a temporary aid that helps Grayson to become whole again.

Although Persephone receives a lot of air time in Polonsky’s novel, the mythological phoenix—a bird reborn from its own ashes—is also a recurrent motif. A painting of a phoenix by Grayson’s mother hangs in Grayson’s room and serves as a touchstone to her lost parents as well as a symbol of freedom. We (and Grayson) learn from old letters that Grayson’s mother incorporated the phoenix into the painting because Grayson had loved the description of the phoenix in a book of Greek mythology which her grandmother had sent as a gift. The young Grayson’s interest in the phoenix proves prophetic. While the role of Persephone provides a Grayson with an intermediary step in understanding and owning her identity as a girl, the figure of the phoenix becomes a symbol for Grayson herself. When Grayson decides to lay to rest the assumption that she is a boy, she emerges openly and unapologetically a girl. Polonsky makes readers of Gracefully Grayson into witnesses not only of a figurative Persephone’s return to earth but also of a phoenix’s rebirth.

Bibliography

The Homeric Hymn to Demeter. Trans. Hugh G. Evelyn-White. theoi.com

Ovid. Metamorphoses. Trans. A. S. Kline. poetryintranslation.com

Polonsky, Ami. Gracefully Grayson. 2014. Little, Brown and Company, 2016.

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Mina is nine years old. She lives with her mother in Heston, UK; her father has died. Mina faces challenges. The very process of growing up presents difficulties, compounded by her grief for her father. She is also smart and unusual, which makes it hard for her to forge friendships at school and fall in line with the expectations and assessments of traditional education. After Mina has some run-ins with the school administration, Mina’s mother decides to homeschool her, and Mina begins writing in a journal. My Name is Mina is that journal; the print edition of the book even uses handwriting fonts to make readers feel like they are holding something personal and private. And in her private book Mina relates memories, catalogs wonders, writes poems, records observations, and more. She thinks on its pages. As she processes her past and present through her writing, Mina invokes three mythological figures repeatedly: Orpheus, Persephone, and Icarus.

Orpheus arises first. Mina explains that she used to imagine that a tunnel in a local park was an entrance to the Underworld and that she could succeed where Orpheus had failed by bringing her father back from the dead. One day she enters the tunnel. A stream in the tunnel represents the River Styx. A growling dog becomes Cerberus, whom Mina tries to soothe with a song. When a man at the other end of the tunnel calls out for his dog, Mina retreats. Mina reflects on the episode: “Did I really believe that the tunnel would lead to the Underworld? Did I really think I could bring Dad home again? I’m the one who did it and even I don’t know. I was a little girl. Awful things had happened and I was confused” (60). Mina’s experience in the tunnel makes her realize that her father’s death cannot be undone. Orpheus’ failure may be a crystallization of a hard truth, but myth offers some solace. Mina is not unique in her sadness; myth refracts her desire to retrieve her father from the dead so that it can be seen as a specific manifestation of a human impulse.

Persephone provides more comfort. Mina writes of the day that she, impatient for spring, knelt in her yard and struck the ground, calling “Come on, Persephone! Don’t give up!” (103) Mina connects her actions to ritual practices, recollecting that “in ancient Greece, they had music and singing to call [Persephone] back, to make sure that spring arrived again” (104). A mythical figure again allows Mina to put her feelings in a larger, transhistorical human context. When an old woman named Grace stops to talk with Mina, she joins Mina in calling on Persephone, and they even dance a little, despite Grace’s aches and pains. Mina’s conversation with Grace about Persephone connects Mina not only to the ancient past but to someone in her own present as well, and Grace offers Mina further consolation. She assures Mina that while sadness is “part of everything” (106), Persephone and spring will return. Grace also tells Mina of a dream she had in which both she and Mina were little birds, fledgling creatures of a fresh season. If the myth of Orpheus emphasizes the one-way road of human mortality, the myth of Persephone presents a cyclical experience of time through the seasons, fellowship across centuries and generations, and the possibility of symbolic rebirth and rejuvenation.

When David Almond has Mina mention Orpheus and Persephone, he makes sure that Mina explains enough about these mythological characters so that readers who may not be familiar with them can understand how they are functioning in the novel. Almond takes a somewhat different tack with the figure of Icarus. Mina refers to Icarus a number of times but does not give a full summary of his story—his escape from Crete on wings crafted by his father and his subsequent death when he falls from the sky after flying too close to the sun, whose heat loosens the wax holding Icarus’ wing-feathers together. Mina’s invocations of Icarus seem to focus on him as a powerful image: a human in flight. Grace’s dream of herself and Mina as birds is one instance of avian imagery in the novel, and it is by no means an isolated occurrence. For instance: Mina watches the birds who nest in a tree she loves to climb; she learns about prehistoric birds during homeschooling; she and her mother have an epiphany-like experience with owls in Mina’s grandfather’s old house; Mina notes the seasonal migration of goldfinches; she likens “people who trap the spirit, people who cage the soul” (180) to bird trappers; her mother jokes that a fallen feather must be from Mina’s own wings; and Mina herself writes, “I sit in my tree / I sing like the birds / My beak is my pen / My songs are the poems” (181). The catalog of examples could go on and on. Part of this associative web, Icarus is a mythological manifestation of winged spirit.

Near the end of the novel, Mina and her mother pause on a walk to look at the star-filled sky: “We try to make out the beasts and weird winged beings that the Greeks described up there: bears and dogs and horses and crabs and Pegasus and Daedalus and Icarus” (280-281). That night Mina dreams “of centaurs, of Pegasus / of Daedalus and Icarus / falling from the sky” (289). The constellation creatures come to Mina’s bedroom and urge her wake up. She does awaken—and not just physically. Mina has worked through her difficulties and sadness, spring has come, and she is ready to engage the world in new ways. Although Almond has not mentioned Icarus’ fatal mythological fall in the course of the novel, he implicitly revises or supplements it. Icarus’ (new) fall in Mina’s dream is now an intentional descent from the heavens, an encouragement or exhortation rather than a cautionary tale. Almond’s Icarus keeps his wings, and Mina gains her own.

Throughout My Name is Mina Mina writes about time, and especially the persistence of the past into the present: Heston’s old mining tunnels lie beneath the contemporary city; Mina and Grace’s dancing echoes ancient rites for Persephone; dust motes are flakes of skin, sometimes from people now gone; Mina’s father may be dead, but he’s present in and among the words of her journal; the light from the stars is millions of years old by the time we set our eyes on it in our present. “We’re time travelers!” Mina declares (281). When Mina says this, she is referring specifically to the time warp caused by starlight’s journey across the cosmos, but her exclamation conveys something about My Name is Mina more generally. Almond shows us that, while we may not be able to reverse the arrow of human mortality, we can also have other experiences of and with time. Like the stars, myth can collapse or confuse temporal distinctions, and its ancient characters and narratives may continue to shed light on the present. My Name is Mina models myth as a source of resonant symbols that can help us make sense of our particular circumstances and find the heart to move forward.

Bibliography

Almond, David. My Name is Mina. 2010. Yearling, 2012.