Korinna - Daughters of the Fire, I, is an intense tour-de-force into the history of Ancient Greece, Rome, Anatolia, and the plight of women in those times. Women who had no say in the running of their own lives, and women who only lived for their men who were then slain in battle. Proud of and motivated by for being named after Korinna, a 5th Century B.C. Greek poet, our heroine is driven to defy a woman’s traditional, unquestioningly subservient role in order to be independent, and battles to chart her own course in life.
KORINNA begins during the first of the three Mithriadic Wars fought between the Kingdom of Pontus and the Republic of Rome for control of Anatolia/Asia Minor, from 89 B.C. onward. Ephesus, Sardis and Pergamum, three famous cities of Antiquity, provide the stage upon which the novel revolves. By Roman times, the matriarchal religion of Anatolia had changed, though the female principle was still dominant. The original mother-fertility goddesses were now identified with the love goddesses of Greece and Rome, Aphrodite and Venus. Korinna, an orphan novice of Artemis, and the Holy Women (priestess-prostitutes of Aphrodite) Melitta and Chrysanthe, born during a time of chaotic transition in Anatolian history that pitted not only nation against nation, but parent against child, were truly Daughters of the Fire that had swept this ancient land.
So, yes, KORINNA is Mainstream Historical Fiction. But I entered it in the Women’s Fiction category. This category is not ROMANCE, per se, although it may very well contain a love story. By the way, I understand that while publishers do have a category called Women’s Fiction, bookstores do not, and place these novels in General Fiction area. In addition, due to being placed in this section (a practice I agree with, for this way we can appeal to readers of both genders), publishers and book sellers cannot quite analyze its sales.According to Wikipedia, Women’s fiction is an umbrella term for a wide-ranging collection of literary sub-genres that are marketed to female readers, including many mainstream novels, romantic fiction, “chick-lit” and other sub genres.
Well, as I’ve said before, I do not see Women’s Fiction as of interest to only female readers. Women’s Fiction is more about the empowerment, or lack thereof, of women, delved upon in a thought-provoking story that might be placed in the past or the present. This genre reflects the female trial and tribulations throughout the ages, her rise and fall in the social strata of humanity in general, from the distant, misty past, to the Bronze Age and forward, but also, how the female’s standing affects the lives of men.
Yes, truth is, while men might be from Mars and women from Venus )), we are closely interrelated, and the overall female empowerment or lack thereof deeply influences the fortunes of the men in any given society.
Let me make a simplified statement: Dumbed down women, give birth to and raise, dumbed down sons.
All right, yes, this is a simplified statement. Better said, women who, generation after generation, have been robbed of their personal and intellectual freedom, raised in a society as chattels and servants of their men, forbidden—be it through lack of money or tolerance—from having an education, or a skill with which they can earn the means of financial independence, who are forbidden to be in charge of their own lives/destiny, are forced to breed children who grow up to
be cheap slaves and soldiers, used in service of their mass-manipulator overlords. Hmmm. Doesn’t it all boil down to The User and the Usee?
To be continued ......
