Stone Blind

the breathtaking Sunday Times bestseller

De: Natalie Haynes

Narrado por: Natalie Haynes

Longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2023.

This audio edition is read by the author, Natalie Haynes.

In Stone Blind, the instant Sunday Times bestseller, Natalie Haynes brings the infamous Medusa to life as you have never seen her before.

'Witty, gripping, ruthless' – Margaret Atwood via X (Twitter)

‘So to mortal men, we are monsters. Because of our flight, our strength. They fear us, so they call us monsters’

Medusa is the sole mortal in a family of gods. Growing up with her Gorgon sisters, she begins to realize that she is the only one who experiences change, the only one who can be hurt.

When Poseidon commits an unforgiveable act against Medusa in the temple of Athene, the goddess takes her revenge where she can: on his victim. Medusa is changed forever – writhing snakes for hair and her gaze now turns any living creature to stone. She can look at nothing without destroying it.

Desperate to protect her beloved sisters, Medusa condemns herself to a life of shadows. Until Perseus embarks upon a quest to fetch the head of a Gorgon . . .

‘A fierce feminist exploration of female rage, written with wit and empathy’ – Glamour

'Natalie Haynes energizes the melodrama of ancient Greek gods with a divine level of storyteller’s flair . . . Listeners who enjoy transformative retellings of Greek myths will find much to relish in this production' - AudioFile

Reseñas de la Crítica

Witty, gripping, ruthless (Margaret Atwood via X (Twitter))

The rollicking narrative voice that energises Stone Blind . . . is a voice that feels at once bitingly (post)modern and filled with old wisdom . . . The Gorgon’s head will take on a new and powerful resonance as a symbol of the way stories can be warped by time. Stone Blind acts as a brilliant and compellingly readable corrective.

Stone Blind is an exceptionally powerful retelling of Medusa's story, an emotional gut punch of a novel. Haynes brilliantly pulls off the feat of seamlessly alternating humour and heartbreak, creating characters that stay with you long after the novel's end. It is a dazzling achievement (Elodie Harper, author of The Wolf Den trilogy)

With this, her third novel based on ancient myth, [Haynes] has found a way of using all her classical erudition and her vivid sense of the ambiguous potency of the ancient stories, while being simultaneously very, very funny

A fierce feminist exploration of female rage, written with wit and empathy. Haynes makes the classics brutally relevant, and we reckon this one is going to be huge

It is no exaggeration to say that Haynes is the modern embodiment of the best of Homer. She is a proper, classic storyteller, whose linguistic skills and wit will have you hanging on every word

Stone Blind is inventive and playful . . . [and] very funny (Antonia Senior)

Pat Barker, Margaret Atwood and Madeline Miller have all successfully picked at the seams of the traditionally male take on these fantastic tales. But Natalie Haynes’s genius, this time with Stone Blind, her third Greek myth novel, is to not just focus on the female experience of Greek myth but also to add zest, humour and more than a little mischief . . . The ride is gripping, funny and heartbreaking. Love, sorrow, adventure and humour - Stone Blind has it all

What makes a monster is the central question in Natalie Haynes’ wry, spry feminist take on the Medusa myth . . . an earthy, playful yet rage-filled upending of the Greek hero trope

With wit, humanity and extraordinary imagination, Haynes breathes life and meaning into myths as she has done so brilliantly before (most famously with A Thousand Ships). She also shows that monsters can be divine or mortal. Not all heroes wear capes – and not all villains have snakes

Haynes’ clever, empathetic writing transforms Medusa from Gorgon into a girl, who’s a victim of the cruel machinations of the gods and of circumstance (Sarra Manning)

Natalie Haynes has made a contemporary classic out of a classic . . . and it should win prizes (Monique Roffey, author of The Mermaid of Black Conch)

There’s real tenderness in Haynes’s portrait of Medusa, a mortal abomination born into a family of divinities, and the efforts of her immortal Gorgon sisters to protect her from herself (Daisy Dunn)

Spectacular!

Something special happens when authors narrate their own stories. The author knows every little thing about each character. In this case Natalie Haynes brings the story to life in a way that is only possible with the intimate knowledge she has not only of her story but also the myths and legends from which they were born.

Beautiful book and narration

I enjoyed this book so much and the narration is one of the best I've heard. Beautiful written moving, and entertaining. I will probably read it again at some point.

excellent!

A refreshing, entertaining and enlightening retelling of the Medusa story!
Natalie Haynes injects the right mix of tragedy, comedy and respect to these varied characters and perspectives.

Exceptional

Left me in real tears.
Only one part i truly wished for a more gut wrenching sequence of events - and that is only because Natalie proved quite early on that she could easily bring my heart to its knees - but i dare not spoil anything with my own preference.
Could not recommend more - hit all the sweet spots for a great lover of Madeline Miller and Jennifer Saint

Not bad but not great

There were parts of this book that were very funny and well written while the rest was a bit of a let down. For those of you hoping for a full story from Medusa’s perspective let me save you from disappointment now and let you know that it’s definitely not the case for Stone Blind.

The head hopping in this book almost gave me whiplash. While as a mythology lover I can appreciate what Haynes has attempted with this book in all the different perspectives but it feels too all over the place. Overall I think the whole book would be much better as a play because it is very much written that way. As a book it’s a little lacklustre and I don’t feel the writing was strong enough.

Haynes also narrates the audiobook and while she does a passable job, in comparison to some of the other narrators I’ve spent time with on Audible, she is one note in her narration and her writing.

Overall not a bad book but it did not blow me away like some of the other mythology retellings I have read in the past from some of Haynes’ contemporaries.