The fourteen stories contained in Marianne Micros’ collection, eye, touch on ideas of Greek culture, mythology, superstition and lore as they relate to a modern sensibility.  Each entry references “eyes” in various ways, both literal and metaphorical.  Some of the themes that run throughout: 
•	Predictions and omens of death- The fear it produces despite a strong belief in an afterlife
•	Older generation’s rigid adherence to traditions vs. younger generation’s reluctant abandonment of them
•	Women as the perpetuators of culture through their roles as mother, midwife, herbalist, mourner and storyteller
•	Loss of connection to the natural world and the consequences that result
Micros is most successful in those stories that show the personal struggle between faith and a desire to evolve, as in “Paved” and “Invention of Pantyhose: An Autobiography.” These stories also happen to be the most interesting in terms of style and form. Some readers might be put off by the amount of repetition in the collection and the cynical portrayal of religion and its implied hypocrisy. Eye would be particularly appealing to those familiar with or interested in Greek lore and beliefs.
Thanks to Guernica and NetGalley for an ARC of this book in exchange for an objective review.

As a long-time English professor at the University of Guelph, Marianne Micros taught folktales among other things, and this influence is clear in her short story collection Eye, recently published by Guernica Editions. Also evident is the influence of her Greek mother, to whom the book is dedicated.

For these are short stories that weave folktales and mythology together with contemporary life. We start with a young boy seeing visions of the future after discovering the head of Orpheus on a beach, and in later stories we meet Ariadne in a labyrinth, Io transformed into a cow, and others.

There are also non-Greek legends and folktales. One of my favourite stories was The Changeling’s Brother, inspired by an English folktale about changelings—fairy children secretly substituted for human ones. In Micros’s version, Johnnie comes home from war to discover that his younger brother Willy, whom he last saw 20 years ago, is still a baby. What’s worse, he is “not the cooing, giggling, chubby brother I remember but some creature with a withered old face and wrinkled body. Pale, then, whining.”

Johnnie’s mother refuses to accept that anything is wrong with her 20-year-old baby, insisting that “He’s just a weak one, Johnnie. He’s always been like this.” At first, it seems as if this will be a straightforward confrontation between Johnnie and his mother, until we discover that Johnnie’s own motives are more complicated, thanks to an experience he had in the woods when he was sixteen, being invited to dance by a fairy woman with long golden hair who has haunted his dreams ever since. The story’s conclusion involves another substitution, but not the one we might have expected. It’s a clever twist on an old tale, which is what you could say about the collection in general.

In the dedication for Eye, Micros discloses that her mother was “a natural healer, who know how to repel the evil eye.” These healers appear regularly in the stories, either as the main character or as subsidiary ones. They are midwives, healers, nurses, brewers of potions, givers of advice. The modern world is intruding on theirs—this is a central theme of the title story, Eye—but the traditional healers still play an important role. They are guardians of a heritage that, like the legends passed down for thousands of years, serves an important purpose that is not diminished by our recent delusion of scientific omniscience.

By setting most of these stories in the present day, Micros creates a sense of all these traditional legends still existing in our contemporary world whether we admit it or not, whether we notice them or not. I don’t want to say that she makes them relevant, because I don’t think that things needs to be recent to be relevant. But reading Eye by Marianne Micros is a satisfying and thought-provoking experience. You get a sense of the melding of different cultures and different eras in a new form.

Eye by Marianne Micros  is a beautiful, enchanting, true book published by Guernica Editions about Greek folklore, customs, traditions and the so-called old-world. In the past people were more connected with the natural world and they believed in witches, fairies, the enchanted world, and the sphere connected with the unknown often spoused or the devil and creatures associated to him, or fairies.
This book is dedicated to Alice, the mother's author dead at the age of 91. She was an healer and someone in grade to repel the evil eye.
Let's start by here: why this title?

It was tradition, also in our land, to think that someone could curse with his/her eyes someone from the beginning (but people could be cursed also once adults) and so this baby would have always had a special eye, the evil eye; or someone, wishing him all the bad of this world, would have seen modified his/her future; in this case you searched for a healer in grade to see if it was true; they used water and oil and if the answer was positive the healer would have broken this curse with special prayers, herbs and lotions.
In this sense the first tale, involving a kid affected by this dangerous eye will reveal hidden answers able to be known just if the person had  that terrible eye.
In other tales we will discover the love of a mother for a magical creature, an intruder of the magical world in their family, while her son was back after 20 years of absence. The answer will be drastic.
Another short tale will focus on a girl transformed in a cow by Hera because jealous of the attention that Zeus, a great play-boy, (with all the respect) dedicated her.
In other tales we will meet  difficult realities, painful ones, sometimes, existences surrounded by mystery and superstition but every tale is magical, pure magical, trust me.
Go for it if you love these kind of books and stories. The stories, are narrated with the language and style of a story-teller; plus I love this book so badly because part of these stories are part of our folklore as well.

Highly recommended.

I thank NetGalley and Guernica Editions for the ebook.

Anna Maria Polidori

Dearest, dearest friends, I present a collection that is horrifyingly bad for someone who claims to have an interest in Greek culture and tradition, someone who is supposedly of Greek heritage. If this is true, she mustn’t love her ‘’heritage’’ very much…

The first problem that made me anticipate an avalanche of issues was the ''clarification'' of certain English words in Greek, all properly written in italic letters. Greek is my mother tongue and Greek words written acoustically (and incorrectly, as it were) in Latin characters isn't the way to go. This is a lazy technique, a gimmick in any language. In general, the writing is extremely bad, the dialogue wooden, unnatural. The writer must think that everyone in Greece speaks like an automaton or as a protagonist in a soap-opera. If you still want to read the rest of my absolutely horrible rant, then let me take you on a journey in some of the worst stories you'll ever read...

No Man: A boy believes his thoughts caused the death of his beloved grandma. A tale on the idea of the self-fulfilled prophecy, set in a village in the Greek island of Lemnos. Its end is haunting and frightening. I bet my beloved Juventus shirt that this story was written by a different writer.

The Sacrifice: This one was horrible. I don't think the writer has any idea of the traditions of the sacred (for Greeks) island of Tinos nor of the basic principles of the Orthodox dogma. This story was a mess of curses, vampires, demons, and disrespect towards the Virgin Mary. The custom she describes was supposedly taking place in the area of Argolis, miles and miles away from Tinos, and it is a legend that has no basis in reality. Furthermore, no Greek woman would ever, EVER think to curse the Virgin Mary. Ever. If you want to call yourself a ''writer'', do your research and don't project your atheism to a whole nation. You don’t believe? Fine, good for you. Respect those who do believe if you want to write about the traditions of a country and respect its people. Enough is enough.

The Midwife: A woman was forced to give up her daughter, finds herself haunted by her mother's ghost. Remind me to cry over how mundane and unoriginal this story was.

Thirteen: A story in which a Greek grandma says that ‘’Christ did His magic’’. Yes, you read that correctly. ''Magic''. Not ''miracles'', as we say in Greek, but magic. A grandma. I cannot stress this enough. And we certainly do not use the name ''Christy'' as a diminutive, apart from the occasional fake ''ladies'' who show off their wonderful ''lives'' on their porn-like Instagram posts. And the female version of the name ''Chris'' is not ''Christiana'' but ''Christina''. We don't use the name ''Christiana'' in Greece. Period.

Eye: A woman tries to find the answer to the suspicious death of an important man. And a foreign woman is suspected of casting the Evil Eye and goes around the village, declaring how ugly babies are in order not to let any harm come to them. We don't do that. We never did, we never will. Next one, please...

Paved: A confession written in stream-of-consciousness style because one has to be fashionable, right? 

...don't tell me you're not having fun…

The Secret Temple: An ancient artifact is accidentally discovered and a woman contemplates whether the discovery should be reported or not. First of all, what does this have to do with the theme of the Evil Eye? Secondly, thank you, dear ''writer'', for encouraging and justifying, with ludicrous arguments, criminal actions that have been a plague in my country. The shameless theft of archaeological treasures by lords and counts and laymen. Next time I visit Canada (the writer's birthplace) I'll make sure to steal an artifact and make all kinds of excuses over it.

One Hundred Eyes: In which Hera asks Zeus: 
What are you doing, Zeus? Are you after a young virgin again?''
Why should the Olympians escape the torture of being a part of this book? This is an attempt to (murder) tell the ordeal of Io who was transformed into a cow and guarded by Argus, the monster with 100 eyes. Io asks a god how did he know her name...Really? REALLY??

The Cave of Lust: A story supposedly inspired by an episode of The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser. After butchering the majority of Greek traditions, let us proceed to the murder of certain British ones, because Europe always sells, right? If you want to read a sex scene between a monster and a crone that has nothing to do with Spenser's epic poem, be my guest. I've just had lunch.

The Changeling's Brother: Based on the well-known myth and all I can say is Jesus Christ, she messed up this one as well!!! A young man returns from war and his mother informs him that he is ''home now''. Twice, in case he didn't understand it the first time. Later on, she says she hadn't expected him...No, really, I swear! Anyway, in a cradle near the fireplace (because we need to be cozy and atmospheric) there is the brother who should have been about fifteen but has remained a misshapen baby and his mother believes there is nothing wrong with him. He is just ''wrinkly''. I don't believe the writer knows what ''a changeling'' is…

The Minotaur: A woman wants to buy a house that contains a maze, Ariadne and, possibly, the Minotaur. We lost the thread but who cares? Oh, the woman is also divorced and unemployed due to the escapades of her married lover and what do all these have to do with the Evil Eye, don't ask me, I don't know.

The Birthday Girl: Okay, now. There is no custom in Greece that dictates how the dead return to claim a gift that was meant for them while they were alive. No! Just no! I don't know what country the writer had in mind but she certainly has no idea about Greek beliefs. We don't even believe in ghosts. In this tale (!), we meet a Greek-American woman who has occasional boyfriends from Ghana, China, the USA, Greece, etc. This isn't a love life, it's the United Nations in a sex contest. What do these young men have in common, you may ask? Well, they cannot stand the traditions of her homeland. Thank you, dear ''writer''. Your writing isn't much better than us ''prejudiced, old-fashioned people''.

Unfinished: Actual dialogue for your reading pleasure:
The woman smiled at Margo and said, ''Welcome''.
'Thank you'', Margot said. ''Do you have anything for children?''
''I'm sorry, not right now.''
Come back in a century or so. And another example in which the same women are now properly introduced:

'I'm Margo'', she said. ''What is your name?''
''Hi, Margo. I'm Anastasia but everyone calls me Anna.''

I will post the compositions of my 8-year-old students. They will win the Man Booker when compared to this!

And elsewhere, as Margo is utterly captivated by an unfinished musical piece, talking to a captivating but rude young man who is not what he seems but we never know who he is because we don't. (I can write a book too. Except not, but anyway...)

'I love it {...} But I didn't want it to end.'''

If this makes sense, I am a yellow unicorn solving the Times crossword.

So much for any ''extensive research'' but my thanks to the writer because I had so much fun writing this and finding all the lovely gifs for my blog post. This book is so bad that you all have to read it in order to understand. Can this be the worst, most offending, most misinformed collection I've ever read?

Many thanks to Guernica Editions and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

My reviews can also be found on https://theopinionatedreaderblog.word...

THE EYE contains fourteen short stories centered on Greek myths, lore, prophesy, and women healers. The writing is not straight forward, but open to interpretation by the reader. Eyes feature in many of the stories, often in the guise of the evil eye, but as the reader reflects on this, it becomes more of the eye into the soul. The first story is from a boy’s viewpoint when he finds a head on the beach with eyes that seem to look at him, and then he seems to be seeing things before they happen. Women help him overcome his distress. The remaining stories are mostly from the adult women, first person viewpoint. Some settings seem contemporary or recent past times, and one from ancient times about a woman who becomes an ancient goddess. Belief, inevitable change, and life are important concepts in the stories, along with how women cope with changing from child, to mother, to crone. They contain many elements most women will identify with as they go through life’s changes. These stories are also steeped in mystery about life, gods, and invisible forces and feel somewhat psychological with insights the reader must interpret. The writing can be a little convoluted but that is part of the interpretation process.

I suppose you could say the cover of this book… caught my eye. After reading it, I’m not quite sure what to make of it. Eye is a loosely thematic collection of short stories that mostly center around, you guessed it, the eye. About as strong is the focus on Greece: its myths, its history, and its superstitions, most prominently the “evil eye.” The author is a retired English professor of Greek heritage, and both of these facts come through in her writing.

The first half of the book includes stories that take place on various Greek islands, most of them about the evil eye, the advent of modernity in rural Greece, or both. The similarities between the stories make them tend to run together, especially when the same handful of names is recycled across stories. It’s unclear whether the author intended some characters to be present in different stories or if she simply wanted to emphasize how common these names are.

With so many stories in similar settings with similar topics, it becomes clear that some are weaker than others, less fleshed out, scraps that could easily have been excised from the collection. “No Man” is a decent introduction to the concept of the evil eye, so I understand why Micros chose to place it at the beginning, but as a story, it falls flat compared to the eerie tone that was likely intended. “The Midwife” and “Thirteen” are likewise unimpressive, and “Paved” is just difficult to read.

Here is where I may have a difference in opinion with someone with an M.F.A. Most notably with “Paved,” but also in some of the other stories, Micros uses experimental, semi-poetic formatting. Her previous publications have been mainly poetry. While I do enjoy poetry, I have limited patience for experimental formatting in prose or prose-like works unless it is done exceptionally well. In my view, Micros uses tired textual tricks that do little to enhance the stories and simply make them less accessible. If this sort of thing is your bread and butter, though, you may find it more interesting than I did.

Out of the swath of stories about traditional Greek life, the title story “Eye” is the most complex and complete, and it forms a clear nucleus to the other works in this section of the text. “The Sacrifice” and “The Secret Temple” also have some freshness to them, although they still aren’t top-tier.

The second half of the collection branches out into more diverse topics, both more fantastical and more realistic than the first. “One Hundred Eyes” takes something of a risk with perspective by telling the tale of Io, who was turned into a cow, in the first person, but ultimately not much is added to the myth with this retelling. “The Cave of Lust” is the most bizarre of the collection and leaves the reader with some food for thought. It is based on Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queene, which I have not read, and so I do not know how the original might inform the impression of someone who has read it. “The Changeling’s Brother” has a decent but predictable twist.

The strongest of the collection are “The Minotaur” and “The Birthday Gift.” “The Minotaur” has a unique protagonist and concept, and my only complaint is that the metaphor involved is a bit too ham-fisted. “The Birthday Gift” is a curious, insightful comment on the nature of superstition.

The final story, “The Invention of Pantyhose: An Autobiography” is another dive into the word salad-y prose that I disliked in “Paved,” which is a shame, because there is some good content in there.

So, what’s the verdict? These stories aren’t poorly written, exactly, not even the ones with disagreeable formatting. They are structurally sound, as meticulously pruned as one might expect the words of an English professor to be. In terms of content, though, many of the stories suffer from unbearable homogeneity, and that extends to the voices of the characters as well. Each of the first-person narratives reads the exact same way, which defeats the purpose of first-person perspective. I would like the author to have examined a bit more closely who each of her characters are and try to express that through their narrations.

This book is not my cup of tea, but if you are particularly interested in Greek culture or enjoy a poetic, university English department-approved style of writing, it might be for you.