“I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world.”

The Song of Achilles, by Madeline Miller

Summary

Achilles, “the best of all the Greeks,” son of the cruel sea goddess Thetis and the legendary king Peleus, is strong, swift, and beautiful, irresistible to all who meet him. Patroclus is an awkward young prince, exiled from his homeland after an act of shocking violence. Brought together by chance, they forge an inseparable bond, despite risking the gods’ wrath.

They are trained by the centaur Chiron in the arts of war and medicine, but when word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped, all the heroes of Greece are called upon to lay siege to Troy in her name. Seduced by the promise of a glorious destiny, Achilles joins their cause, and torn between love and fear for his friend, Patroclus follows. Little do they know that the cruel Fates will test them both as never before and demand a terrible sacrifice.

My Thoughts

When I first tried this novel out it was years ago, and I’m afraid I couldn’t get into it at first. The prose was jarring and I tried to work through it, but the plot just seemed too slow despite my previous knowledge of the myths of Achilles and Patroclus from my read of the Illiad. However, after reading author Madeline Miller’s second novel Circe, where she dramatically improved the pace of her writing, I got a feel for her prose style writing and decided to take a second look at the Song of Achilles. It did not disappoint, and it lives up to the hype.

The book is written from the perspective of Patroclus, Achilles close companion, as he grows up alongside Achilles and eventually follows him into the Trojan War. It’s written in Miller’s characteristic prose style and heavily features characters from across the Illiad: we meet Agammemnon, Iphigenia, Penelope, Odysseus, Thetis, and more. 

My favorite part of the book however, is Briseis. Achilles and Patroclus are in love (this isn’t even a spoiler, the book is clearly marketed as LGBTQ+). You’d assume that Briseis, who in the original Illiad, is claimed as a slave-girl by Achilles, would be treated horribly or with jealousy, but that could not be further from the truth. Patroclus is the one who pushes Achilles to claim her as a slave to save her from her horrible treatment at the arms of other war generals, and quickly befriends her. The friendship between Briseis and Patroclus is honestly one of the highlights of the book, and probably the reason I give don’t knock the book down another star. Despite the weird pacing of the plot at times, and the fact that I feel like we don’t get enough of an insight into Achilles’ mindset as we should, Patroclus and Briseis’s relationship is excellent. At times, Briseis feels more fleshed out than Achilles himself; part of this is obviously because Patroclus is in love with the other man, but even then, Achilles only truly begins to feel whole near the last ½ of the book, when we get to see more of his flaws and pride as he goes to war. Briseis feels whole from the beginning, as she learns Patroclus’s language, helps him rescue other women from slavery, and is basically a sister to him.

Enough about Briseis. I could rant about Miller’s genius writing and her subversion of tropes around jealousy in gay relationships for a while. It’s excellent, is the point. Apart from that, it’s a good book. Not as good as her second book Circe, and I think the characters other than Patroclus could use a lot more work, whereas in Circe, which I did a review of, the side characters we barely see like Circe’s brothers and sisters, still feel fleshed out and whole. That’s my biggest gripe with the book in the end; characterization. I give it 4 stars because of the Briseis and Patroclus thing mentioned above, but otherwise it would probably be at 3 stars.

This doesn’t mean the book isn’t well worth the read, however. Read it. It’s heartbreaking and gut-wrenching and is absolutely worth it. I’m nitpicking because characterization is important to me but the plot, once it picks up, is excellently done, well-written, and absolutely worth the moral dilemmas around love and duty we get to read about it. I loved the book overall.

Review: ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

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