Review: THE SONG OF ACHILLES by Madeline Miller

FACTS ABOUT THE BOOK

Title: The Song of Achilles
Author: Madeline Miller

Publisher: Bloomsbury
Price: £8.99 

Pages: 352
Genre: Historical Fiction, Fantasy, Greek Mythology, LGBTQ* Romance
Year: 2011

BACK OF THE BOOK / WHAT IS IT ABOUT?

Greece in the age of heroes.

Patroclus, an awkward young prince, has been exiled to the court of King Peleus and his perfect son Achilles.

Despite their differences, Achilles befriends the shamed prince, and as they grow into young men skilled in the arts of war and medicine, their bond blossoms into something deeper - despite the displeasure of Achilles's mother Thetis, a cruel sea goddess.

But when word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped, Achilles must go to war in distant Troy and fulfill his destiny.

Torn between love and fear for his friend, Patroclus goes with him, little knowing that the years that follow will test everything they hold dear.

MY THOUGHTS ON IT

I had wanted to read THE SONG OF ACHILLES for a long time because it had always appeared in LGBTQ* book recommendations and I had only heard great things about it. I also knew beforehand that this was said to make the reader sad and so always knew that this would probably be quite an emotional read. However, it actually took me quite a while to get my hands on a copy of this book because I had specifically wanted the edition with the red and gold cover, which is not available anymore as far as I know. So when I finally got the copy I wanted of the book last year, I still didn't immediately read it because I never felt like dragging myself down by reading a sad book.

But after I've just finished rereading CALL ME BY YOUR NAME, I really felt like reading another emotional gay love story and so it was finally the turn for THE SONG OF ACHILLES.

The writing style of THE SONG OF ACHILLES is actually the complete opposite of the one in CALL ME BY YOUR NAME. While CMBYN is made of long, never-ending, infinite sentences, TSOA consists out of very short and concise sentences that make the book feel a bit like children's literature. The very curt and clear writing stood in stark contrast to the abundance of different, complicated, Greek names that were used throughout the book. Maybe a more intertwined writing would have made the story with all those different and difficult names even more complicated for the reader but I think it would have also made me as a reader be able to relate more to the protagonist.

I have seen many reviews that have started with stating that they knew how this book would end from the beginning because they know about the events in Homer's Iliad. I must admit that I did not know much about it except for some key names and elements. So I did not know how this story would end from the beginning but I could imagine parts of it since I knew that this book was said to make its reader cry. And as the story unfolded itself, I already expected certain things to happen because whether you know the full mythology or not, it just became quite clear where everything was leading to.

So I also wasn't sure whether this book was fantasy or not, until a centaur came along. However, it's probably more correct to classify this book as a mythology rewriting. The Greek gods are not just depicted as what the characters of the book believe in but they do actually appear within the story and get described as literally coming to earth and directly interfering into earthly matters. I must admit that I did not feel too comfortable with that and would have much preferred it if the gods had just been depicted as the belief of the characters but not as an actual fact. It was hard for me to try to imagine the Gods as actual supernatural beings that walked the earth.

I had a huge problem with the vast amounts of violence and cruelty in this book. This reminded me a lot of Game of Thrones and also of why I really don't like that. I can accept violence if it pushes forward the plot but I just don't understand the use of violence just for the sake of depicting brutality. I just don't want to read about violence in excruciatingly explicit details.

Women were treated worse than animals and objects and I understand that this is sort of justified by the time period in which this story is set but nevertheless I found it disheartening to read about so much cruel and repulsive violence against women written by a woman. And I do think that not every mention of these brutalities was necessary for the plot to move forward. This made me feel so repulsed that I sometimes had to force myself to continue reading the book. It just put me in a mindset that I did not feel comfortable in at all and that I desperately wanted to escape. So this book did actually reach a point where I just wanted it to be over with and read something comforting instead.

The main story of this book should actually be that of Patroclus and Achilles. The book is written from Patroclus' point of view and I had some issues with that. I did not know about Patroclus before reading this book, only about Achilles, and I was actually quite surprised to find out after I've finished the book, that Patroclus had not been an invention of the author to create this gay love story but does actually exist in Greek mythology. (I was generally quite surprised that actually everything in this book is taken straight from already existing stories and that the author did only put it in a more appealing form for modern readers.)

Writing the book from Patroclus' "normal" point of view was obviously the same method of  slowly introducing the reader/audience into a bigger and supernatural world that is also used in so many other such stories. (Dan Humphrey in Gossip Girl, Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit, Harry Potter in the Harry Potter series, Elizabeth Turner in Pirates of the Caribbean, Amy Pond [or every other companion] in Doctor Who, Anakin Skywalker/Luke Skywalker/Rey in Star Wars, and so on..)

Unfortunately, Patroclus himself was a very shallow character that had no depth himself to offer and who was characterised by his love for and admiration of Achilles only. It is often the case that this "normal" character that gets introduced into a bigger world finds someone or something to worship and romanticise but it is so important to still give this "normal" character depth and layers him/herself and to not just let him/her be the boring contrast to the extraordinary someone he/she adores. (This is perfectly done in CALL ME BY YOUR NAME - for Elio worships Oliver but still shows so much depth himself.) The way in which Patroclus described himself only with really negative attributes right at the beginning and gets only cast in a positive light by Achilles, really reminded me of John Watson and Sherlock Holmes, where John also is the one to tell the story and gets also described as being the unspectacular one to contrast Sherlock Holmes even more and make Sherlock's brilliance shine more brightly. But while both John Watson and Patroclus praise their partner, I still felt that even John Watson has more personality than Patroclus. But obviously this technique works to make the adored character very fascinating and much more interesting than the one telling the story for the reader. You fall in love with the worshipped character through the eyes of the character worshipping him. And so I really found Achilles to be a great character and often wished that the story was told from his point of view because Patroclus just didn't have a lot to offer and I didn't enjoy being stuck behind his point of view for the whole story. I think the book could have been much more interesting if it had been told from Achilles' point of view instead. (I also thought that in the Sherlock Holmes books by the way; that I would have rather read them from Sherlock's point of view.) And additional to Patroclus' shallow self came his incomprehensible decision making which made me not be able to relate to him at all. (I will quickly touch upon that in my spoiler section - considering what I mean exactly with that.)

The love story between Achilles and Patroclus was at times very beautiful and lovely to read, at others, and especially towards the end, it reminded me a lot of Anakin and Padme from Star Wars. Especially because the path that Achilles went on towards the end reminded me a lot of Anakin and in hindsight now of his whole journey. I found this to be bittersweet because on the one hand I think that such a journey adds more depth to the character, but on the other hand it is just heartbreaking for the character's loved ones to witness and for the reader to read.

Unfortunately, however, this book just did not make me emotional at all because I never had any connection to Patroclus and lost my love for Achilles in the end as well. The only emotion that this book made me feel was exhaustion from all the names and repulsion from all the violence in it. So I was in a rather depressed mood while reading it and couldn't even gain anything positive from this negative feeling because I didn't bond enough with the characters to make my suffering worth it.

I really liked that the first 200 pages had this constant restlessness in them, that Patroclus and Achilles were constantly moving to new destinations. This ongoing change of scenery and setting moved the story forward and made the reading exciting and adventurous. The two character were always on a journey and it was fascinating to accompany them on it. If you know the mythology, you know that this does stop being the case once they reach Troy. And it also felt like the story stagnated when they stopped moving onwards but remained at the same place for years and pages. 

I will talk about my thoughts on the ending in my spoiler section, after my rating. 

CONCLUSION

Unfortunately, I did neither enjoy this book as much as I thought and hoped I would, nor did it made me as emotional as I've heard that it made other readers. The lack of emotions was due to the fact that I couldn't relate or bond with Patroclus, the character from whose point of view this story is written. I found this to be very sad because I'm always trying to bond with characters but only managed to do so with Patroclus at few times.

However, I still enjoyed the love story between Patroclus and Achilles because I fell in love with Achilles through Patroclus' eyes and enjoyed their scenes together a lot. Achilles was a very fascinating character and I would have much preferred to read this story through his eyes, especially because I think that the last part of the book would have been much more riveting and interesting when the reader would have been allowed to see behind Achilles' facade instead of being stuck with Patroclus and his rather boring activities and dull mindset. 

The book was packed with an abundance of different characters who all had strange and complicated names that made it quite difficult to keep track of everyone and to keep in mind who was who and who had done what. Especially since some names were very similar to each other. The plain writing style helped to still make it not too hard to follow the story but simultaneously deprived the characters of becoming deeper and more layered.

The vast amounts of violence, brutality and atrocities sickened me and made it quite hard for me to want to continue reading the book at times because the book just confronted me with such disgusting details of deaths, rape and mutilation that I wish I had never read about and just didn't want to have stuck in my mind.

All the mention of Greek mythological figures like Achilles and Odysseus in this story really sparked my interest for ancient history. After having finished the book I looked up a lot of what was written about in the book and was really startled to learn that this book is actually just a modern retelling of Greek mythological events that already existed in writing.

I will talk in detail about my thoughts on the ending of the book in the spoiler section, after the rating.

RATING

I award this book with 3 out of 5 stars.

SPOILER 

SECTION

I just want to add my thoughts on some plot twists and the ending of the book. If you already know the events that happen in Homer's Iliad or generally know of the fate of Achilles and Patroclus, then you can read on. If you still want to read the book without knowing what will happen, do not read on. 

I really didn't understand why Patroclus slept with Deidameia. I generally couldn't relate to Patroclus too much but I just felt like I completely lost him when he did that because I could not understand his intentions and his reasons for doing that at all. And he also never spoke about it with Achilles which felt like a huge missing conversation between them. 

I enjoyed that Patroclus and Achilles' relationship did survive over so many years but I wished that there had been more scenes between them. The author could have really swapped some of her explicit violence scenes for more scenes between Patroclus and Achilles to deepen their bond. At first, I did feel like their love story was the focus of the story but towards the end the battle and the violence just overtook everything else. 

Without knowing of the exact details of the ending of Achilles and Patroclus, I still expected early on that Hector would threaten to kill Patroclus and that Achilles would kill Hector to save him. It was rather clear that Patroclus would in fact die when that other prophecy of "the greatest of the Greek warriors" came and especially when Patroclus left the camp to fight in Achilles' armour. This was also when my bond to Achilles shattered completely because it was so obvious that Patroclus would die and that Achilles still rather sent his best friend and love of his life to fight although he knew that Patroclus couldn't fight, just made Achilles really unlikable. But this obsession with his pride and power also really reminded me of Anakin and his following downfall. 

The deaths of them both didn't make me emotional or sad because this book consists out of so many deaths that I have become somewhat numb to them because otherwise this book would be even more depressing. And since I never had any bond with Patroclus, his death just didn't make me feel anything. And since the book prepares its reader for Achilles' death for a long time and since he ended up being rather unlikable and closing up to Patroclus and therefore also to the reader, I also wasn't sad about Achilles' death either. I think that it would have changed everything if the last part of the book had been written from Achilles' point of view because Achilles really wore a mask in the end and didn't even let Patroclus in anymore and if the reader could have still known Achilles' emotions and intentions and could have understood or relate to him, then his death would have had a much greater impact.

In the end I was only still sort of excited for the deception of the Trojan Horse, but sadly, the author only spent one sentence to allude to that and therefore just quickly brushed it off. I would have so much rather read about that in more detail than about all this violence that the author spent pages describing in unnecessarily vast detail. 

The only thing I knew about Achilles before reading this book was the myth of Achilles' heel. I have also visited the Dying Achilles statue in Corfu years ago but remembered that he died from a spear in his heel. Now I really don't understand why Achilles in THE SONG OF ACHILLES dies by a spear in his back then.. 

Please tell me your thoughts on the book in the comments or on my Instagram: @isleepnaked !