This is the story of the seige of Troy from the perspective of Achilles best-friend Patroclus. Although Patroclus is outcast from his home for disappointing his father he manages to be the only mortal who can keep up with the half-God Archilles. Even though many will know the facts behind the story the telling is fresh and engaging.
Confession: I did not know the tale of Achilles other than some superficial pieces of information before reading this book. I am happy to have taken note of the people gushing about this book. It's been a couple of years since I read it but I still remember what I felt as I came to the end of the book. It was a powerfully sad yet happy feeling. It was overall an enjoyable lovely book and the two main characters are lovable (and dislikable at times). I think Madeline Miller did a wonderful job with the queer theme that should be digestable by everyone (at least everyone who is not homophobic). Writing this review makes me want to read it again and appreciate the story without trying to reach the end.
This is a really lovely (re-)interpretation of the Iliad through the lens of romance writing. I really enjoy how the author has made the characters come to life in an unexpected way. Really easy and stress-free read. Absolutely recommend this book.
Enjoyed this much much more than I had expected too. I initially intended on rating this book a 4/5 but I think that is merely because I am late in reading this and it is something I would have adored a few years back—not to say that this wasn't spectacular though.
I know it's not important in the scheme of things, but this book changes from past tense to present tense and then back again a couple of time MID PARAGRAPH and I am angry with all the editors and readers and judges to allow such an abomination against the gods to go unnoticed. I liked some some of the writing and the evocation of the world - esp with Chiron - and thought the Thetis characterisation was interesting. Patroclus was someone to care a bit about in the last quarter, when in the first half I would have abandoned the book as Do Not Care At All About These Boring Horrible People if I hadn't known the story gets good... the idealised Briseis relationship pissed me off so now I'm reading Pat Barker's Silence of the Girls to cleanse from that... But Odysseuss is great - perfect, actually, just like …
I know it's not important in the scheme of things, but this book changes from past tense to present tense and then back again a couple of time MID PARAGRAPH and I am angry with all the editors and readers and judges to allow such an abomination against the gods to go unnoticed. I liked some some of the writing and the evocation of the world - esp with Chiron - and thought the Thetis characterisation was interesting. Patroclus was someone to care a bit about in the last quarter, when in the first half I would have abandoned the book as Do Not Care At All About These Boring Horrible People if I hadn't known the story gets good... the idealised Briseis relationship pissed me off so now I'm reading Pat Barker's Silence of the Girls to cleanse from that... But Odysseuss is great - perfect, actually, just like the version of him in my head I've had for twenty years. The Iphigenia episode was really well done - I ended up wanting to read Miller's versions of all the characters except Achilles, who was just this flat absence. It's hard to rate this book, as it has reawakened my late-teens obsession with Greek mythology, which feels like a vast, complex, fucked up but beautiful home to return to. And reasons enough to look forward to reading Circe - but I wouldn't be recommending this one.
This probably isn't a book I would've read on my own but my queer/fantasy book club was reading it so I gave it a whirl and found it enjoyable. It was a quick read and, having not been assigned The Illiad for required reading in school (we read The Odyssey), I realized I wasn't actually that familiar with the source material beyond flashback to the atrocious film Troy.
The love story is the root of everything and it's handled very well. I'm particularly fond of the subtleties in how the characters change over time from their youth into young adulthood and how the main character has to reckon with his love for Achilles even as watches him become someone he probably wouldn't be in love with if he wasn't already.
The sticky wicket for me is, as with any historical story that hews to the brutality of the times, especially …
This probably isn't a book I would've read on my own but my queer/fantasy book club was reading it so I gave it a whirl and found it enjoyable. It was a quick read and, having not been assigned The Illiad for required reading in school (we read The Odyssey), I realized I wasn't actually that familiar with the source material beyond flashback to the atrocious film Troy.
The love story is the root of everything and it's handled very well. I'm particularly fond of the subtleties in how the characters change over time from their youth into young adulthood and how the main character has to reckon with his love for Achilles even as watches him become someone he probably wouldn't be in love with if he wasn't already.
The sticky wicket for me is, as with any historical story that hews to the brutality of the times, especially one that forefronts cis-masc characters, is having to power through all the violence done to women. It certainly helps that the narrator shows a lot of sympathy and empathy to the women that become pawns in the both the war games of men and the manipulations of gods, but no amount of kind thoughts can make it easy to digest every human female character being raped, enslaved, murdered or, at best, used horribly by the men in the story (when the woman that get impregnated, abandoned and then has her child taken from her has the best fate of any lady in the story, you know things are really bleak). I think the character of Thetis is meant to offset this a bit, but the fact that she is so very inhuman and serves largely as an antagonist, doesn't really balance the scales.
It was a strange time. Over us, every second, hung the terror of Achilles' destiny, while the murmurs of war among the gods grew louder. But even I could not fill each minute with fear. I have heard that men who live by a waterfall cease to hear it. In such a way did I learn to live beside the rushing torrent of his doom. The days passed, and he lived. The months passed, and I could go a whole day without looking over the precipice of his death. The miracle of a year, then two.
This is some of the most aloof and distant prose I've read in a while, I don't know how else to describe it. I felt like I was getting the story second- or third-hand, which is kind of impressive in its own way considering it's told entirely in first person narration. Just very detached …
It was a strange time. Over us, every second, hung the terror of Achilles' destiny, while the murmurs of war among the gods grew louder. But even I could not fill each minute with fear. I have heard that men who live by a waterfall cease to hear it. In such a way did I learn to live beside the rushing torrent of his doom. The days passed, and he lived. The months passed, and I could go a whole day without looking over the precipice of his death. The miracle of a year, then two.
This is some of the most aloof and distant prose I've read in a while, I don't know how else to describe it. I felt like I was getting the story second- or third-hand, which is kind of impressive in its own way considering it's told entirely in first person narration. Just very detached descriptions of the passage of time and entire chapters where there were maybe one or two lines of dialogue. And truthfully, I struggled through the first two thirds of this book because of a lack of interest, but I'm glad I powered through because the ending was satisfying enough that I don't regret giving this book my time.
I picked this one up as a genre palate cleanser to take a break from horror and because it has near-universal praise from my mutuals on here, although I'm left here scratching my head and thinking, "I mean, it was okay." This is definitely more of a retelling of an existing story than an all-out romance, and I don't begrudge the author for not wanting to stray too far from the source material; it'd be stranger if she did. I just did not connect with any of these characters and I didn't even get the sense they connected with each other until very late in the book.
I have a passing interest in Greek mythology so I knew the main story beats to expect going into it. The concept on focusing on a minor character in the Illiad rather than Achilles was interesting in concept, but I felt like Patroclus wasn't given enough agency here to be interesting. It's difficult me to get behind such a passive protagonist, and I'm also not a fan of themes of destiny and fate and honor and glory; there were so many massive egos to navigate around in this book that it was hard to root for anyone. Again, not ragging on the author because that's what Homer told us was happening on those plains in front of Troy, but maybe I'm just too used to modern fiction to get much enjoyment out of this kind of story.
Glad I finally got around to seeing what all the fuss was about, but this would not be a book that would immediately spring to mind if I were asked for historical gay fiction recommendations.
La storia tra Patroclo e Achille, raccontata dal punto di vista del primo e non dell'eroe greco. Una storia toccante e delicata, con la guerra e i combattimenti in secondo piano, e in primo piano invece i sentimenti di Achille, il più grande tra i greci, e Patroclo, il più grande di animo. Libro bellissimo, anzi di più. "Non sono riuscita a far di lui un dio" "Ma hai fatto lui"
THE SONG OF ACHILLES is the story of Achilles’s boyhood and (most of) the Trojan War, as told by his lover, Patroclus. Patroclus’ focus is ever on Achilles, for Achilles is Patroclus’ love and it’s so moving to tell this story through the warm glow of that adoration and desire.
I like how it handles the very high number of sexual assaults and consent violations which are, in many ways, the backbone of Greek mythology (or at least the family trees). Just giving proper context to this story and to events in Patroclus' and Achilles' lives requires some discussion of these themes, and I think it did as well as it could without feeling very anachronistic. This is a beautiful retelling of a tragic story, it makes me wish that Achilles, Patroclus, and Breisis could have been happy together, but it wasn't meant to be.
This retelling takes the stance …
THE SONG OF ACHILLES is the story of Achilles’s boyhood and (most of) the Trojan War, as told by his lover, Patroclus. Patroclus’ focus is ever on Achilles, for Achilles is Patroclus’ love and it’s so moving to tell this story through the warm glow of that adoration and desire.
I like how it handles the very high number of sexual assaults and consent violations which are, in many ways, the backbone of Greek mythology (or at least the family trees). Just giving proper context to this story and to events in Patroclus' and Achilles' lives requires some discussion of these themes, and I think it did as well as it could without feeling very anachronistic. This is a beautiful retelling of a tragic story, it makes me wish that Achilles, Patroclus, and Breisis could have been happy together, but it wasn't meant to be.
This retelling takes the stance that Achilles was definitely gay, with zero interest in women, and it seems to heavily imply that maybe Patroclus could have been happy with a woman but he has eyes only for Achilles. That does however lead to some interesting story decisions which have to be resolved, given the source material. It keeps one very notable instance of Achilles sleeping with a woman, and artfully dodges another that would be assumed to have happened but technically could be worked around. It did give it a kind of biphobic air to this retelling, like it's working so hard to show the love and devotion between Achilles and Patroclus that it shoves away any hint of intimacy or connection with women on Achilles' part. I'm not a Classics scholar and I don't know if the rejection is part of the myth, it just felt kind of bad in a few places because of it. It ends up working as part of Achilles' slow transformation from a kid who didn't want to hurt anyone into a stubborn asshole who let a lot of people die for his pride, but it did make me dislike him by the end. Patroclus' has a consistently rosy view of Achilles and mourns this change rather than rejecting him for it, which definitely helped me keep caring about the story even as I liked Achilles himself less and less.
I liked it overall and I'm glad I read it, anything that manages to make Achilles feel like slightly less of an asshole than most portrayals of him is doing a great job, and this manages that without stripping away the abrasive parts of his character.