Plot Summary
House of Names
Colm Tóibín
House of Names
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2017
Plot Summary
House of Names is a 2017 novel by Irish author Colm Tóibín. A retelling of the ancient Greek play-cycle the Oresteia, Tóibín’s eleventh novel follows the cursed family of Agamemnon, King of Mycenae. When Agamemnon sacrifices his daughter Iphigenia to appease the gods, his wife Clytemnestra swears revenge. After she succeeds in murdering her husband, her son Orestes murders her to avenge his father. Publishers’ Weekly hailed House of Names as “a dramatic, intimate chronicle of a family implosion set in unsettling times as gods withdraw from human affairs.”
The novel begins as Clytemnestra and her children Orestes and Iphigenia arrive at Aulis. They believe they are there to attend Iphigenia’s wedding, but Agamemnon has lied to them. His soothsayers have told him that he must sacrifice his daughter, or the gods will not grant him the winds he needs to sail to Troy. Clytemnestra and Iphigenia are seized and gagged so they cannot curse Agamemnon. Iphigenia’s throat is cut at the altar while Clytemnestra is imprisoned in a grave. She swears revenge.
The winds change and Clytemnestra is sent home under guard. Her daughter, Electra, blames her for failing to prevent Iphigenia’s death. After many days in silence, Electra begins to talk about a man who appears in her bedroom at night. This man, Aegisthus, is a murderer, imprisoned in the palace dungeons. Clytemnestra recruits him to kill her guards. Soon they become lovers.
When Agamemnon returns from his victorious war, Clytemnestra and Aegisthus brutally murder him.
From here, the narrative follows Orestes, who is taken by Aegisthus’s soldiers to a camp for the male heirs of Agamemnon’s nobles and elders. There he befriends two boys, Leander and Mitros, and together the three escape the camp.
After days of hazardous travel, the boys are attacked by ferocious dogs. The boys fight them off, only to find that they belonged to an old blind woman. She offers to let them stay with her, on condition that they stay until she dies.
For many years, the boys live with the old woman, working on the land and listening at night to the old woman’s stories. Orestes and Leander tentatively strike up a relationship, which blossoms into a full sexual and romantic affair.
One day, Aegisthus’s soldiers arrive and the boys are forced to kill them. Shortly afterward, the old woman dies, followed by Mitros (who has been ill since they left the camp) and the old woman’s dog. Orestes and Leander bury the three bodies and decide to return to Mycenae.
The point of view switches to Electra. Since Agamemnon’s death, she has been silently hoping for Orestes’ return. In the meantime, she has witnessed Clytemnestra’s relationship with Aegisthus deteriorate.
We return to Orestes as he makes his way toward Mycenae and is reunited with his mother and sister. He witnesses plots and affairs involving them and Aegisthus, without understanding anything. Finally, Leander sends him to his father, Theodotus, who tells Orestes the truth about Clytemnestra. When Orestes returns to the palace, Clytemnestra decides to send him away for his own good.
That night, Leander’s messenger tells Orestes to go to Theodotus again: he finds Theodotus and his whole family dead, except for his daughter Ianthe. Orestes takes Ianthe back to the palace and places her in Electra’s care.
After dinner that night Electra comes to Orestes with a knife. Aegisthus is going away: tomorrow is the time for Orestes to kill his mother. He takes her for a walk and stabs her to death.
Leander, at the head of an army, imprisons Aegisthus and comes to live at the palace. Leander and Electra struggle for political power. Instead of executing him, Leander breaks Aegisthus’s legs, so that the former ruler can guide him.
Orestes begins to feel alienated. No one wants to be alone with the matricide except Ianthe, Leander’s sister. They begin sleeping together, and Ianthe tells him she is pregnant, although not with his child: she was raped when her family was murdered. Furthermore, the sex Ianthe and Orestes have been having, she tells him, is not the kind that results in pregnancy.
Leander arranges a marriage between Orestes and Ianthe. It is the only way Orestes can remain in the palace because the Elders despise him as a matricide.
The guards begin to hear Clytemnestra’s ghost asking for her son at night. Orestes waits for her in the hall. She tells him she is all alone.
Ianthe goes into labor. Orestes and Leander fetch a midwife, and then “almost afraid to look at each other, the two went back into the corridor and stood together without saying a word, listening to every sound.”
House of Names explores themes of grief, isolation, repression (sexual and otherwise), and failure, as well as the unending consequences of family dysfunction and violence.
The novel begins as Clytemnestra and her children Orestes and Iphigenia arrive at Aulis. They believe they are there to attend Iphigenia’s wedding, but Agamemnon has lied to them. His soothsayers have told him that he must sacrifice his daughter, or the gods will not grant him the winds he needs to sail to Troy. Clytemnestra and Iphigenia are seized and gagged so they cannot curse Agamemnon. Iphigenia’s throat is cut at the altar while Clytemnestra is imprisoned in a grave. She swears revenge.
The winds change and Clytemnestra is sent home under guard. Her daughter, Electra, blames her for failing to prevent Iphigenia’s death. After many days in silence, Electra begins to talk about a man who appears in her bedroom at night. This man, Aegisthus, is a murderer, imprisoned in the palace dungeons. Clytemnestra recruits him to kill her guards. Soon they become lovers.
When Agamemnon returns from his victorious war, Clytemnestra and Aegisthus brutally murder him.
From here, the narrative follows Orestes, who is taken by Aegisthus’s soldiers to a camp for the male heirs of Agamemnon’s nobles and elders. There he befriends two boys, Leander and Mitros, and together the three escape the camp.
After days of hazardous travel, the boys are attacked by ferocious dogs. The boys fight them off, only to find that they belonged to an old blind woman. She offers to let them stay with her, on condition that they stay until she dies.
For many years, the boys live with the old woman, working on the land and listening at night to the old woman’s stories. Orestes and Leander tentatively strike up a relationship, which blossoms into a full sexual and romantic affair.
One day, Aegisthus’s soldiers arrive and the boys are forced to kill them. Shortly afterward, the old woman dies, followed by Mitros (who has been ill since they left the camp) and the old woman’s dog. Orestes and Leander bury the three bodies and decide to return to Mycenae.
The point of view switches to Electra. Since Agamemnon’s death, she has been silently hoping for Orestes’ return. In the meantime, she has witnessed Clytemnestra’s relationship with Aegisthus deteriorate.
We return to Orestes as he makes his way toward Mycenae and is reunited with his mother and sister. He witnesses plots and affairs involving them and Aegisthus, without understanding anything. Finally, Leander sends him to his father, Theodotus, who tells Orestes the truth about Clytemnestra. When Orestes returns to the palace, Clytemnestra decides to send him away for his own good.
That night, Leander’s messenger tells Orestes to go to Theodotus again: he finds Theodotus and his whole family dead, except for his daughter Ianthe. Orestes takes Ianthe back to the palace and places her in Electra’s care.
After dinner that night Electra comes to Orestes with a knife. Aegisthus is going away: tomorrow is the time for Orestes to kill his mother. He takes her for a walk and stabs her to death.
Leander, at the head of an army, imprisons Aegisthus and comes to live at the palace. Leander and Electra struggle for political power. Instead of executing him, Leander breaks Aegisthus’s legs, so that the former ruler can guide him.
Orestes begins to feel alienated. No one wants to be alone with the matricide except Ianthe, Leander’s sister. They begin sleeping together, and Ianthe tells him she is pregnant, although not with his child: she was raped when her family was murdered. Furthermore, the sex Ianthe and Orestes have been having, she tells him, is not the kind that results in pregnancy.
Leander arranges a marriage between Orestes and Ianthe. It is the only way Orestes can remain in the palace because the Elders despise him as a matricide.
The guards begin to hear Clytemnestra’s ghost asking for her son at night. Orestes waits for her in the hall. She tells him she is all alone.
Ianthe goes into labor. Orestes and Leander fetch a midwife, and then “almost afraid to look at each other, the two went back into the corridor and stood together without saying a word, listening to every sound.”
House of Names explores themes of grief, isolation, repression (sexual and otherwise), and failure, as well as the unending consequences of family dysfunction and violence.