House of Names or Fangirling Over Clytemnestra Hour

Once again, I am back to freak out over Clytemnestra. Welcome. Toibin gives Clytemnestra, Orestes, and Electra some more character and expands on the original plays of ​The Oresteia. They're a family, and he really makes you feel that family dynamic (at least until time and silence really divides them). Silence is honestly the antagonist of this novel. Clytemnestra (my queen) doesn't talk to her children and explain why she wants revenge on Agamemnon, which causes Electra to grow to hate her mother. Electra doesn't talk to Orestes and just try and ask him to help her with her revenge, but instead manipulates him into doing it. Orestes does not speak up to his kind of love interest, Leander, and tell him what he wants and instead follows him around. By the end, Orestes is being iced out by everyone for killing his own mother, so he'll live in silence for years. Rude honestly. Clytemnestra loved her children, questionably she may have love Iphigenia the most, but the madness of revenge caused her to view her remaining children as threats. Everyone sort of gets what they wanted, but it's hollow and ends up making them feel worse. Orestes comes home, but kills his mother. Electra gets power, but she has to share it with Leander. Leander himself gets to come home and get revenge but loses all of his family except for his sister. However, Toibin really gives all the character's their reasons. Even if the reader ends up hating someone they can sympathize with them and somewhat understand why they're doing what they're doing. Everyone except for Agamemnon. That man will never be written in a flattering light because everyone agrees the man sucks.