Where revenge ought to be slow, artful and elegant, payback is sudden and terribly crude. And when it comes to popular forms of personal justice, one is either Electra, swearing long and subtle revenge for her father’s death, or Clytemnestra, who started the whole thing off by killing Agamemnon in a moment of saliva-curdling jealousy. Some people argue that the king’s wife wasn’t bothered about his bit on the side and that she murdered him because she was guilty about her own. But that’s not how it worked in the Greek family romance. Guilty people killed themselves and jealous people killed others. When Agamemnon returned from Troy with his parliamentary aide, who was naturally a bit younger than Her Indoors, the scene was immediately set for an upscale slumber party with knives.

LRB 21 February 2013 | PDF Download