Book review: Helen

As I’ve talked about, I’ve never been a fan of portrayals of Helen where she’s treated like the root of all evil. But in his Helen, Euripides tries too hard to redeem her reputation. In this version, it turns out that the promiscuous Helen was only a clone, while the gods dumped the real Helen in Egypt, to languish and await her husband’s return.

Like Iphigenia Among the Taurians, the premise is crazy and fun – this reading is amazing – but its plot turns out to be very simple and predictable. It feels like a comedy at first, but eventually the story is played so straight that it ends up just being a drag. However, I did find it more entertaining than Iphigenia for its absurdity and campiness, posing questions such as:

If your wife’s clone fucks another guy, are you still cucked?

Does the clone have... emotions? Feelings about the genocide committed for “her sake”? Or is it just... hollow?

So, the clone’s entire purpose is to have sex with the hottest man alive at that time?

If the clone is made of air, didn’t Paris notice he wasn’t fucking anything?

When Menelaus drags his clone wife by the hair, was his real wife phased?

Also, stereotyping Egyptians as barbarians who don’t care to perform rituals for thier dead is very rich.

Anyways – Star Trek did it better. That episode was soooo romantic.