The first thing to explain is what this book is not. It's not a retelling of the Greek myths, nor is it an introduction to the women of Greek mythology. On the contrary, Haynes assumes that the reader has at least a passing familiarity with each of the stories and characters featured; and while it is not strictly necessary to have (for example) read Homer or seen performances of plays by Sophocles or Aeschylus, readers who have done so may perhaps get more out of this book than those who have not. 

The focus of Pandora's Jar is on how the stories of key mythological women have changed and been changed over millennia; how different writers, both ancient and modern, have chosen different versions of their stories to fit the writers' own needs, politics, beliefs or interests, or those of their audience (including, for example, simplifying and sanitising stories in order to make them suitable for children). The book highlights the way that, due to these choices, sometimes the version of characters and stories most famous in popular culture today may actually not be the same as those known to people in the ancient world. This is a topic which has interested me for years, and while I've read other books which address it (for example, Bettany Hughes' excellent Helen of Troy), this is the first time I have found one where it is the main focus. To quote Haynes, "As we change, so these characters have also changed to match us". 

It's fascinating hearing about radically different versions of characters' lives, many of which were new to me. I also appreciated the insights into how Greek writers were inspired by other works which predated them sometimes by centuries, many of which do not survive today. 

The book also addresses how these women have been featured in books, movies, art and other media in the modern world (it's a shame that there are no photographs for the majority of the art described, though I did utilise Google on occasion to look them up). One criticism I do have is that sometimes the connections to modern pop culture were rather tenuous - I understand talking about Wonder Woman in the chapter devoted to the Amazons, but Buffy the Vampire Slayer seems something of a stretch! 

There is of course a feminist angle to the book, with its focus specifically on female figures. The book examines how these women are seen through male eyes, and how they have so often been ignored in favour of male heroes. This is a subject that has received a fair bit of attention in the past few years; but what has not been addressed elsewhere (at least, that I have seen) is the extent to which this is a modern phenomenon. Many people today will have seen the film Jason and the Argonauts; few, perhaps, will have realised the much greater extent to which Medea featured in ancient versions of this tale. 

As Haynes states, "there is no 'true' or 'real' version of any myth because they arise from multiple authors across multiple locations over a long period". I am always fascinated to hear new versions of stories I believe I know so well, especially when these 'new' versions are actually thousands of years old. I sped through this book in just two days, and if Haynes ever wanted to write a second book of this sort, I would snap it up in an instant.