But what about Penelope?

I have read Homer’s The Odyssey; I have studied it; I have taught it, yet at the end of every reading of the epic story, I always find myself staring at the ceiling in the middle of the night asking myself the same question. But what about Penelope?

Don’t get me wrong, in classical literature, Homer’s Penelope is an anomaly. Not only is she the prize at the end of Odysseus’ long journey home, surprisingly, she is given a life of her own in the story. Relative to other works of classical literature, Penelope is a woman who exists in the narrative in notable and real ways. She has a point of view, somewhat of a personality, and she even commands her own heroic acts as a woman-in-waiting, using her wiles to weave and unweave to protect her husband’s kingdom on the island of Ithaca.

While her own heroic acts of loyalty and resistance are given minute space in comparison with her husband’s journey, she does share the stage with him a bit. Yet, I am always left wanting more for her. After all, Odysseus spends 20 years returning to Ithaca from the Trojan War.

I suppose it is Penelope’s conspicuous absence of story and voice that nags at me during the night. Homer leaves so many gaps in her narrative, and my imagination is left to fill in the blanks of her 20 years left in-waiting. 

I started outlining my book that would become The Measure of Gold just after I gave birth to my daughter. While my husband and I did not name our daughter Penelope, I did spend a great deal of time imagining how our daughter’s life might evolve. As an avid reader in my own childhood, there was a distinct lack of epic, heroic adventures told from the perspective of a woman. I created my protagonist Penelope during these late night musings about Homer’s Penelope, my daughter’s life, and my book.

Homer’s The Odyssey has always beckoned the muses. The narrative asks so many big questions at once and is one of the most imaginative stories I have ever known. Like so many authors before me, my novel, The Measure of Gold, is a response to The Odyssey. Most specifically, my novel offers a response to my question— But what about Penelope? 

I decided to name the heroine of my novel after Homer’s ambiguous yet brave character. However, I decided to set my Penelope’s story in France during World War II (WWII) because of the similarities I saw between the narratives of Penelope in The Odyssey and the women of the French Resistance.

Homer describes Penelope with the age-old feminine virtues of beauty, passivity, loyalty, and patience (also she is good at weaving). She does not leave Ithaca, rather, she stubbornly resists, weaving in and out of the loom and public sphere in a brave and stubborn resistance. She is underestimated while the men just wait. I suppose they assume one day she will finish the most magnificent craft project they have ever seen. 

Much like Homer’s Penelope, every day the women of occupied France quietly resisted the Nazis. Astute and innovative, they maneuvered in the shadows of their homeland. Like Homer’s Penelope, their battlefront was their home. Like Homer’s Penelope, they did what they had to do to survive in a powerless and unprecedented situation. In WWII, throughout France, women organized networks, rescued and transported Allied soldiers to safety, transmitted radio messages, couriered classified intelligence, but most importantly they listened and transmitted that intelligence to Britain. The Germans made the mistake of underestimating these women again and again because of the Nazi’s deeply misogynistic beliefs. 

The Germans must have believed the stories from classical literature which portrayed woman as domestic and decorative, so it took the Nazis years to understand that French women were using their distinctly feminine powers to subvert the German occupation in plain sight. Homer’s portrayal of Penelope’s acts of resistance and defiance and these stories of the French women from WWII offered profound inspiration for my book The Measure of Gold. 

The parallel stories of Penelope’s resistance over suppression were just the beginning though. As we know from Odysseus’ long journey, true epic, heroic adventures are a twelve-step process. Invited to France by a pleading letter from her childhood friend, The Measure of Gold’s Penelope receives her call-to-adventure in an instant. She hesitates then leaves America for France. My Penelope journeys across the Atlantic to Paris to meet her mentor Fulcanelli, a wild-eyed alchemist who is organizing the initial elements of the resistance to the Nazi occupation. Though she does not realize it at first, her arrival in Paris is a distinct point of no return for my book’s heroine.

Not only does she quickly become involved in the disorganized sabotage of the early Parisian resistance, she sees how the Nazis are an existential threat to life and freedom and feels an unshakable, moral call to action. She also falls in love as she is repeatedly tested by both her allies and her enemies. Alchemy, love, voice, betrayal, courage, The Measure of Gold’s Penelope checks all of the boxes of an epic adventure as her narrative unfolds through WWII to her moments of atonement and revelation. 

The French women in WWII worked tirelessly to undermine the Germans, understanding they would likely be caught and horribly tortured before they were killed. They knew their names would never be known and their important efforts of heroism would never be acknowledged. They resisted and fought anyway, not because they ever thought books, both fiction and non-fiction, would be written about them, but because they were truly noble and heroic.

I was inspired to write The Measure of Gold because I want epic and heroic stories about women to be the norm, not the anomaly. The women of the French Resistance faced the same analytical predicament as Homer’s Penelope. Because Homer’s Penelope and French women could not easily transgress gender lines, their stories became muffled and buried, and what we know is largely based upon a quickly fading oral history. Many researchers are now scrambling to do the important work of telling their stories, but a lot of details have been lost along the way. 

Without a doubt these heroic women helped turn the tide of history— Virginia Hall, Faye Schulman, Nancy Wake, Josephine Baker, Violette Szabo, Marie-Madeleine Fourcade, Madeleine Truel, Lucie Aubrac, Simone Segouin, Claude Rodier, Delphine Aigle, Helene Viannay… just to name a few. Yet, out of the 1,036 members of the Resistance who were honored by Charles de Gaulle in the Order of Liberation, only six were women. By contrast, it is understood that women represented 15-20% of the Resistance. I wrote Penelope’s story for my own daughter and as a tribute to these brave women.

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Sarah Patten grew up in Chattanooga, Tennessee. She lives and writes in Asheville, North Carolina with her husband and three children. To learn more about Sarah and her work, check out her website www.sarahcpatten.com

THE MEASURE OF GOLD

No magic is more powerful or dangerous than the spell of love.
It is 1940, and Germany has just invaded France. Across the ocean, in Sweetwater, Tennessee, Penelope, a beautiful alchemist, receives a letter from her childhood friend, Naomie, urging her to France. Bereft from the loss of her widowed father, Penelope leaves her life and travels to German-occupied Paris. There, she meets Naomie’s brother, the brilliant alchemist Fulcanelli and his mysterious apprentice, Lucien.

Falling headlong into the alchemy’s esoteric world, she helps Fulcanelli and Lucien resist the Nazi forces. She trains as a spy and infiltrates a powerful brothel, Le Chambrement. As the horrors of war close in around her, Penelope must seduce a murderous Nazi officer in a desperate calculation to save her lover, Lucian. Through the devastating magic of life, Penelope learns that alchemy has far more to do with the person than the element.

The Measure of Gold is an epic story of alchemy, betrayal, courage, and transcendent love.

“Compelling…Patten examines the link between the mysteries of alchemy and love through passionate romance that develops at the height of WWII.” -BlueInk Review

“Fascinating… a powerful tribute to the brave women of the French Resistance” – BlueInk Review

“Poetic…A touching novel that features both fantasies and cruel sacrifices [of World War II].” -Foreward Clarion

“[An] absorbing, bittersweet novel…intricate, metaphorical descriptions of mathematics, alchemy, and Newton’s ideas thread with reflections of love.” -Foreward Clarion

“Poetic elements…make the story’s environment fantastical.” -Foreward Clarion

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Category: On Writing