Having recently read her delightful and empowering Circe, I felt that I should also read Madeline’s Miller first book, The Song of Achilles.

The book was a surprise hit and it won the 2012 Orange Prize for Fiction. It is about the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus, or rather Madeline’s vision of their relationship. Her interpretation is quite inventive and original. The story has all the characteristic of an epic drama. There is friendship and romance, sacrifices and death, feuds and war, powerful and selfish gods, cunning and heroic mortals.

There are, of course, historical inaccuracies, but, like in Circe, I don’t think Miller’s purpose was to write an academic thesis. Based mainly on Iliad, and by giving voice to a person (Patroclus) who in Homer’s Iliad remains in the shadows, she tells a nice epic story. She explores the conception of homosexuality in the ancient world, and she shows how reputation and the urge for eternal fame can drive someone to choose death instead of life. So unlikely with today’s celebrity culture which is focused on the immediate benefits of fame, such as attention, glamour and money.

I have mixed feelings about The Song of Achilles. I liked the interpretation of the story but in places it is over the top. I suppose that is true of all epic stories. I think it is a story more suitable for young adult readers.