Can Someone Recall Me From Exile

General Notes: Because of the discrepancy in the actual historical timeline of the destruction of Troy and the founding of Carthage (1184 BCE vs 814 BCE ala Timaeus of Taormina,), the author has chosen to push Dido's timeline back. She has also chosen to base Dido's story largely on the summaries of Trogus by Justinus Frontinus in the 3rd century CE, which detail her marriage of a priest of Melqart after her father's death and a joint rule with her brother was robbed from her. This is also a 'grounded' narrative, as in there are no direct interventions from gods.

The Good:

I always believe it is prudent to start a review off with what I enjoyed about a piece of media, because whilst I am a hater at heart I do not wish to overly indulge.

I liked that when Dido and Aeneas first meet, they speak Akkadian to each other, it's a fun choice to explore the language barrier that would have existed, and choosing Akkadian as the empire did stretch from Tyre to Troy is cool!

The choice of Dido as the storyteller in the relationship between her and Aeneas is also fun, she's the one who gets to dictate the flow of their relationship and it feels natural when they grow close.

The way that the book is structured, where the chapters refer to the location they are set in, really paid off during the voyage from Tyre to Carthage as the title of the chapter became blank to indicate a transitional period for both her people, and Dido's own identity.

Dido's journey strongly mirrors Aeneas' which is nice.

The author chose to make Iarbas a more fleshed out and sympathetic character, which I enjoyed.

Aeneas misery 4ever.

The Bad:

Okay now for the vastly longer list of gripes I have about the book.

The writing in this book is painfully heavy handed, and at multiple points it felt like I was reading the author's opinions on things rather than Dido's. It also feels like Heywood is trying to eat her cake and have it too, where she is trying to write for an audience that doesn't know the Aeneid but has nods for people who do. But it doesn't work at all, because she has to over-explain every reference to the Aeneid, and it still would not land without context. So it's just grating.

The chapters are really short, which is fine but I didn't feel like the majority of chapter breaks where we stay in the same city mattered? Like the scene transition was small enough that it didn't necessitate a whole different chapter. This is a nitpick though I will digress.

Heywood's writing style is deeply uninspiring, she tries at imagery and evocative prose but she does not succeed.

Dido hasn't heard about Troy. Like at all. I can buy that she wouldn't have murals up of the Trojan war, but like she just straight up has never heard of Troy the city. Ever. ?

Heywood does incorporate Aeneas' tears when he first walks around Carthage though, and it's just about how it reminds him of Troy. I would have rather she not include it at all, because the interesting part of sunt lacrimae rerum to me is not that he's crying at all... it's that he's doing it because of empty, and perhaps even hostile, depictions of his home burning.

The temple of Melqart is depicted as handing out alms to the needy, which I just feel is a really modern take on a "good" religion. There's also a lot of really Christian feeling evocations to Melqart, like "Melqart protect you." I don't know enough about Melqart worship in the Phoenician to really make a statement though.

In kind of the same vein I hate how books like this always shy away from the topic of slavery. Be real, that servant girl of Dido's who was brought to her as a child is not a maid she elevates to the status of basically a sister.

Anna is not Dido's sister here but the leader of a troupe of sex workers who pose as different things to scam people. Which is fine, I guess, but the scene where she meets Dido and Dido convinces her and her women to come with her instead of plying their bodies came off as very... modern day feminist. Also Anna is described as loving lightly and then immediately and awkwardly shoehorned as bisexual, which is just kinda weird.

Aeneas is... characterized really weirdly? At one point he says "I have not known many women to enjoy the hunt. Perhaps none at all, before you." Which is a crazy thing to put in his mouth because... this is the late Bronze Age, women hunted. We have a lot of myths involving women hunting, this is not Tudor England. The only reason why he would say this is to cement Dido as Not Like Other Women He's Met, which we as the reader don't need, because this is over 2/3 into the book and we already know that of her. He also has a lot of personality changes, which for a better author than Heywood I would attribute to DIdo's limited perception of him, but given the rest of this book... He gets really cold and cruel to Dido out of basically no where, and I think it's to serve as contrast for Iabras and Dido's previous husband, but it feels so forced and odd.

Dido's journey strongly mirrors Aeneas'. And it's done so heavy-handedly. Which is weird, because the author then insists that Dido and Aeneas are very different!!!!!! And that they don't mirror each other at all!!!!!!! Which again, I would attribute to Dido's limited knowledge but... After Aeneas' departure, Dido thinks this of him: "Aeneas did not love as she loved. His love did not stretch beyond convenience." This doesn't read like Dido's internal monologue, this reads as something the author believes and put into Dido's thoughts.

I hate the ending of this book. Dido chooses not to kill herself, which I guess works with this version of Dido because she isn't as heavily fate-bound as she is in the Aeneid and thus her cutting of her own thread is not a reclamation of agency (as I read it). But I don't know, it feels like such a cop out and a shittily done one at that, because she still spends the moments leading up wanting to kill herself, and is stopped by Anna who notices the blade (because she is "a liar and a cheat, and able to spot another.")