# House of Names

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{{Short description|Novel by Colm Tóibín}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
[[File:House of Names.jpg|thumb|First edition (publ. [Viking Press](/source/Viking_Press))]]
'''''House of Names''''' is a 2017 novel by [Colm Tóibín](/source/Colm_T%C3%B3ib%C3%ADn), retelling the legend of the [Oresteia](/source/Oresteia), with divine elements largely removed and including a lengthy account of Orestes' absence after the death of [Agamemnon](/source/Agamemnon). There are three narrators: [Clytemnestra](/source/Clytemnestra), [Orestes](/source/Orestes), and [Electra](/source/Electra). The novel received mixed to positive reviews.<ref>{{Cite news |date=2017-05-22 |title=House of Names by Colm Tóibín – brilliant retelling of a Greek tragedy |url=http://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/may/22/house-of-names-colm-toibin-retelling-greek-tragedy-oresteia |access-date=2021-09-17 |work=The Guardian |language=en |first=Alex |last=Preston}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=2017-05-27 |title=House of Names by Colm Tóibín review – Greek myths made human |url=http://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/may/27/house-of-names-colm-toibin-review |access-date=2021-09-17 |newspaper=The Guardian |language=en |first=Kate |last=Clanchy}}</ref><ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Mendelsohn |first=Daniel |date=2017-07-24 |title=Novelizing Greek Myth |url=http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/07/31/novelizing-greek-myth |access-date=2021-09-17 |magazine=The New Yorker |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Rooney |first=Kathleen |title=Review: 'House of Names' by Colm Toibin |url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/books/sc-house-of-names-colm-toibin-books-0524-20170522-story.html |access-date=2021-09-17 |newspaper=Chicago Tribune |date=2017-05-22 }}</ref>

Tóibín commented to the ''[Kenyon Collegian](/source/Kenyon_Collegian)'' in 2017: "I took the story and every time I was stuck I went back to one of the versions just to get back into what happens next, how they're structured as drama rather than as poetry: Who says what? Who exits there? Who comes back into the room? So it wasn’t the language of them — I mean it wasn't the tone of them that I was using as much but the connection is… and you have speech you can get a funny sort of power with a heightened texture and a sort of eloquence that might come from the notion that the person speaking or writing is only doing them once and may not repeat this… The opposite of mansplaining is where [Antigone](/source/Antigone), [Medea](/source/Medea), [Elektra](/source/Electra), [Louise Glück](/source/Louise_Gl%C3%BCck), [Sylvia Plath](/source/Sylvia_Plath) … [Joan Didion](/source/Joan_Didion). A woman writing poem and so somehow or other she has not spoken before or said this before so listen to her now because it may not come again. In other words the opposite is garrulous. So that the poetry I was interested in in those texts – in [Sophocles](/source/Sophocles), [Aeschylus](/source/Aeschylus) and [Euripides](/source/Euripides)- was when the woman gets to speak – what that sounds like now. And I was getting energy from that" <ref name=kenyon>{{cite news |url=https://kenyoncollegian.com/arts/2017/11/record-colm-toibin/ |title=On the Record: Colm Tóibín |work=[Kenyon Collegian](/source/Kenyon_Collegian) |first1=Dan |last1=Nolan |first2=Kevin |last2=Crawford |date=2017-11-16 |access-date=2022-09-28 |name-list-style=amp |location=Gambier, Ohio}}</ref>

==References==
{{reflist}}

{{Colm Tóibín}}

{{Authority control}}

Category:2017 Irish novels
Category:Novels based on myths and legends
Category:Novels by Colm Tóibín
Category:Viking Press books
Category:Clytemnestra
Category:Adaptations of works by Aeschylus
Category:Orestes

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [House of Names](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Names) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Names?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.