Sirena by Donna Jo Napoli Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Sirena
Book Review: Inventing Mythology
Summary: 4 Stars
Retelling fairy tales and legends is quite popular these days, and they're not just for the little kiddies. Some, like stories about mermaids and Greek myths, make great material for novels aimed at a Young Adult audience.
Donna Jo Napoli is a veteran crafter of fiction for this market. She excels at two things: digging up historical and cultural material from the past, and then finding a voice and a character to bring this material to life. In particular, she finds characters who must surmount hardships only by experiencing self-revelation. Napoli really gets into her main character's head and heart, and I can't think of a writer filled with more compassion for those suffer. With Sirena, she gets into the head and heart of a mermaid who finds that the whole purpose of her life--to mate with a mortal man in order to achieve immortality--isn't what it's cracked up to be. Along the way, Sirena challenges her fellow mermaids and her immortal sea-goddess mother, but ultimately to no available: though she will now live forever, her efforts to intercede with the gods and achieve immortality for her lover Philoctetes fail; his fate is to go the Trojan War, where he will find his own immortality of sorts in Homer's Iliad.
Napoli grounds much of her story in accurate Greek mythology. The nymph Thetis (mother of famed Achilles), the goddess Dora, and Posedion's wife Amphitrite make up a convincing maternal oceanic triad. Sirena rebels (typical teenager!), leaves home, and discovers her lover dying of a snake wound (the work of the goddess Hera) and abandoned by his fellow Greeks on an island. She nurses him back to health, but resists seducing him immediately with her magical song: she realizes that she wants true love, not just sex and immortality. But then he hears her song anyway, by accident, and it isn't long before they couple.
Which is done...how, exactly? The anatomical difficulties inherent in mermaid/human coupling has been the basis of jokes for years; a recent cartoon in the New Yorker, part of their Cartoon Caption Contest, showed a jealous mermaid asking her partner, "And what does she have that I don't?" Napoli's answer: "soft thighs." Well, yes, that and more. I was hoping that Napoli would provide a more complete solution to the problem, but perhaps there is no solution.
She also doesn't explain how or why, exactly, this coupling leads to an immortal mermaid--it's a whim of the gods, apparently. In Greek mythology, the Sirens aren't mermaids at all, but harpy-like bird women whose songs lure sailors by pretending to tell them their futures (it's a wonder they didn't set up shop at Delphi). Napoli gets around this somewhat by positing three vultures as the mermaids' guardians, who warn them when ships approach so they can get ready to strut their stuff. Teenage girls (and their parents) can probably relate to this part: the mermaids vie for attention, nurse pet jealousies, and don't really consider the consequences of their actions--except for Sirena, of course.
For most of the story the other mermaids fade into the background as Sirena and her man spend ten years on the Island of Lemnos, where the ins and outs of their relationship get explored. Some readers, accustomed to cliff-hanger chapter endings and the mythological equivalent of car chases, might complain that this middle section suffers from not much happening. Perhaps some of it is a bit repetitious, but by the time I got there I was thoroughly invested in Sirena as a character, and I had fun seeing her exchanging wits with Philoctetes, challenging his assumptions and learning to love him in spite of his faults. Others may also take exception to the end of the story, when they inevitably go their separate ways and their ultimate fates are left open to conjecture. But I thought the story had to end this way.
In conclusion, Napoli's story is a very modern take on the mermaid myth. While borrowing facts and themes from Greek mythology, she feels free to tweak it for her own purposes. The most telling example is that no Greek myth says anything about mermaids achieving immortality by coupling with mortals; the sole function of the Sirens is to lure sailors to their deaths. But with this tweak Napoli lays the whole groundwork for her story, so I can't complain. After all, no myth is truly genuine--a myth is what we make of it for ourselves.
Book Review: It was the best book I ever read.
Summary: 5 Stars
I loved the descriptions, the story was so moving.
Sirena, a young siren, lives with her sisters in the ocean. They are friends and foes with the Greek gods. To become immortal and live underwater without air the sirens must sing a song of lure and have a human man fall in love with them, and they must fall in love with him. After a terrible accident, Sirena leaves home off to a remote island. There she meets a young man, and the two fall in love.
It was a very well written, touching story.
Book Review: Lovely book
Summary: 5 Stars
If you enjoy reading some Greek myths, or about mermaids, you will very likely enjoy Sirena.
I read this book several years ago, as a teen in high school. I found it sad, but not depressing. There is death early on in the book. A nice love story, there is some violence and sex (not described in detail). Not recommended for children under age 13. Over all a lovely story.
Book Review: Mind candy
Summary: 5 Stars
Sirena is a charming, sweet and romantic fantasy. I fell in love with this book and now I have to buy it. This book is about a mermaid who lives with 9 of her 49 sisters on an island. They sing to lure sailers to the rocks. They must become loved to become immortal. Sirena sees the dammage and deaths they cause in their quest to be loved and wants no part of it. She leaves to live out the rest of her mortal life alone but doesn't succeed. I recomend this book to everyone!Book Review: My Sirena Experience
Summary: 5 Stars
Sirena is a siren living on a greek island with her 49 sisters. Related to the greek gods and goddesses she yearns to become immortal. But she can't be immortal unless a human man loves her. With her fish tail, how is that possible? She uses her enchanting voice to lure sailors to her. After a tragic accident she flees her island and goes to live on another far away. She soon spots a sailor marooned on the beach. He was bitten by one of Hera's serpents and left to die. Sirena wants to sing to him but holds herself back. Slowly, over time, she becomes friends with him. But does he love her? You'll have to find out for yourself. I give this book 5 stars. It's one of my favorites!