Is Penelope Based On A Book Or Novel?

I just wanted to acknowledge how great of a character Penelope is. The name Penelope is associated with a few characters in literature, but none as powerfully as the wife of Odysseus in Homer’s ‘The Odyssey’. Her incredible patience and determination to wait for her husband’s return from the Trojan War after 20 long years while battling off suitors left and right makes for a great story that has been retold countless times in many different forms of literature and film.

I should note, however, that there is a relatively recent book (and subsequent 2006 film adaptation starring Christina Ricci) called Penelope, a whimsical, modern fairy tale in which a young girl with a pig’s nose searches for someone to love her despite her physical appearance. The book was written by Marilyn Kaye. It is a rather charming tale that attempts to spin a positive story of love and self-acceptance. It is rather different from the Penelope of mythology, and it is an interesting (and relatively modern) interpretation of an archetypal character. If you are into retelling classic stories, I highly recommend reading both the mythic Penelope and the modern YA novel of Penelope, for two very different views on the character.

I’m not entirely sure on the details of this one, but from what people have talked about in some of the discords that I’m in, this seems to be an adaptation from a web novel. I’ve heard lots of people talking about the novel and how it’s really different from the comic, and it sounds like it’s definitely worth a read. Is the novel completed and translated yet, or is it still a work in progress? My hesitation to start reading the novel is the worry that I’ll end up reading the bulk of the story a chapter at a time, while in the mean time the manhwa is released.

Yes, the web novel is the original work. It is very interesting to see how the manhwa adaptation influences people’s perceptions of the novel. New fans of the series will often imagine the characters when reading the novel as being depicted as in the manhwa. Thus the adaptation has become the fixed point of reference for the novel’s characters even for people who read the novel first. The novel brought the characters into being, and the manhwa gave them their iconic form, which in turn influences how people imagine the novel. This is how modern transmedia storytelling works.