ElCicco#CBR4Review#28: The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

The Song of Achilles is the poignant, tragic love story of Achilles and Patroclus, and you need to read it this summer. Classics scholar Madeline Miller imagines the backstory of two characters made famous in Homer’s Iliad — Achilles, Greece’s greatest warrior and Aristos Achaion (“best of the Greeks”), and Patroclus, his closest friend and, as some scholars speculate, his lover. The Iliad doesn’t provide much of Achilles’ personal history and virtually nothing of Patroclus’, but Miller’s vibrant imagination and her knowledge and devotion to the classics allows her to create a beautiful story of two young men coming together as friends and then lovers against a backdrop of war.

Patroclus serves as narrator, giving his background and how he came to meet Achilles. Patroclus was a prince of limited skill and ability (based on warrior skills, which were vitally important to Greeks). His father, king of one of the many Greek city states, found him to be a disappointment and when Patroclus accidentally killed another boy, he was exiled from the kingdom to keep peace with powerful noble families. Patroclus ends up bound over to Peleus, father of Achilles, known for his excellence in battle and fairness with his people. Peleus takes in many boys as foster children to train to serve as his soldiers. Initially aloof, Patroclus attracts the attention of Achilles — a truly “golden boy” whom all the others try to impress. Achilles’ mother Thetis is a sea nymph, and prophecy says her child is destined to become the greatest warrior the Greeks have ever known. Achilles possesses god-like skills even as a child, and while aware of his own amazing talents, he can be kind and down to earth, especially with Patroclus. Everyone is surprised (including Patroclus) when Achilles names this quiet and undistinguished boy his therapon, a “brother-in-arms sworn to a prince by blood oaths and love.” The therapon has great prestige as one of the prince’s closest advisers and a member of his honor guard.

Patroclus was initially jealous of Achilles but soon became enthralled by his beauty, his ability to sing and play the lyre, his physical prowess.  Achilles treats Patroclus as an equal and with respect. The two boys’ love for each other grows with time and becomes a mature adult relationship that they must hide from their peers. The Greeks accepted homosexuality only between a man and a slave or boy, and it was expected that the man would still have a wife and have heirs. It was not acceptable for two men of similar class to have such a relationship. Thetis is especially repulsed by it (although she finds all mortals repulsive, including her own husband Peleus who raped her at the gods’ urging) and tries unsuccessfully to keep the two apart. Thetis’ focus is on making sure that Achilles fulfills his destiny and wins greatness and honor, and she will let nothing get in the way. Achilles, however, does not back down before his mother or popular convention. His love and devotion to Patroclus are strong and true.

The tragedy, as we know from the Iliad, is that fate has decreed that Achilles will die after achieving glory and renown for defeating the Trojan hero Hector. Achilles, Patroclus and Thetis all know of this prophecy, and the knowledge of impending death brings a special poignancy to Achilles’ and Patroclus’ relationship. Achilles desires fame and glory but he does not want to be parted from his love. It is Achilles’ hubris, however, his arrogance about his own reputation and worth, that ultimately leads to tragedy for the Greeks, Patroclus and himself.

Knowing how this will end does not diminish the power of the story, and Miller’s imagining of Patroclus’ activities during the Trojan War is brilliant. Despite the fact that he avoids battle, he becomes “best of the Myrmidons” (Achilles’ men) by saving lives as a healer and by saving women of the conquered tribes, in particular Briseis, who becomes his devoted friend. Patroclus also saves Achilles’ reputation at great personal risk at a critical point in the war.

It’s pretty risky to take a classic of world literature and try to build upon it, but Miller succeeds and creates a beautiful story of friendship and love that never dies.

The enhanced edition for iPad, Kindle Fire, etc. includes audio recordings of chapters; links to descriptions of the characters (plus gods, goddesses) with cartoon pictures of them and biographical information; information on ships and armor/weapons; and video clips of Gregory Maguire (author of Wicked) interviewing Miller on a variety of topics.

idgiepug’s #CBR4 Review #2: The Iliad and The Odyssey by Homer

I’ve tried, but I can’t really write a review of Homer’s The Odyssey without talking about The Iliad too.  I’ve taught The Iliad every year for the last 12 years, so it’s kind of close to my heart.  I teach The Odyssey as well, but it’s the severely truncated version you find in most high-school literature books.  I’ve always regretted not being able to teach the whole Odyssey, but having plowed my way through the whole thing these past two weeks (I read it in its entirety once in high school, but that was longer ago than I’d like to admit), I think that the classic epic actually benefits from the William Goldman “best parts” treatment.  I understand why The Odyssey is the more popular of the two, but I can’t help but like The Iliad better.  To me, it’s the more complex and interesting epic, despite its more narrow focus.

Plot-wise, The Odyssey is a bit more convoluted than The Iliad.  There are three main story lines: 1) Odysseus tries to get home from the Trojan war; 2) his wife and son do the best they can back home in Ithaca without him; and 3) Odysseus returns home to deal with the suitors who have taken over his home in a bid to marry his wife.  Odysseus’ journey is the most exciting (and therefore the most famous) part of the poem.  It’s here where he faces the Cyclops; saves his men from being turned into pigs; and survives other famous monsters and terrors, like the Sirens, Scylla and Charybdis, and the Land of the Dead.  Not surprisingly, the textbook versions of the story usually focus on these events and cut out nearly all of what’s happening at home with Penelope and Telemachus.  Maybe I’m just wearied from over-exposure to the journey portion, but I found the wife and son part of the story to be more interesting than the textbooks let on.  Odysseus’ final revenge on the suitors feels much more acceptable when you see how they’ve treated his son; they’ve even plotted his murder.  Homer’s never great at dealing with women, so we get only glimpses of Penelope, but what we do see of her is compelling.  She’s a desperately sad woman who’s trying to do right by both her long-lost husband and her son.  When she wakes one day and discovers that the gods have sent her son on a wild-goose chase to look for Odysseus, she is devastated and literally sick with worry that her son will never return to her.  However, The Odyssey has a better ending than The Iliad, and the morals are much more clear here than in the other poem.  Odysseus is unquestionably a hero who suffers because of his human flaws but is rewarded in the end.  The importance of hospitality in the ancient Greek world is emphasized over and over again, which is understandable given the fact that Homer was a wandering bard who would have relied on the hospitality of others. 

All of those things make The Odyssey more approachable than The Iliad, but I couldn’t help but miss the complexity of emotions and characters in The Iliad.  Unlike Odysseus, none of the Greeks in The Iliad is clearly good or bad.  In the ninth year of the Trojan War, the great Greek war leader, Agamemnon, enrages the young hothead warrior Achilles by stealing his favorite war prize, a girl named Briseis.  Achilles is so infuriated and his pride is so wounded that he prays for the destruction of his own comrades just to prove to Agamemnon how valuable he is to the Greek army.  Pouting, Achilles retreats with his own men to his tents and allows the battle between the Greeks and Trojans to rage around him.  If there’s one specific reason why The Iliad is not as popular as The Odyssey, it’s probably because of the lengthy battle scenes in which warriors on both sides, whose names were probably important to the ancients, fight and die without much fanfare but with a lot of gore.  To help my students, I give them a list of people to watch out for and tell them just to sit back and enjoy the gore without trying to remember and analyze it all unless one of those really famous people is involved.  Despite all these battles, there’s the very human drama going on between Achilles and Agamemnon and the other Greeks who are scrambling to recover and fight without one of their best warriors and without offending their king.  Although Agamemnon is clearly wrong in the beginning, Achilles’ lasting anger costs the lives of hundreds and Greeks, so it’s hard to choose a side in their argument.  On the other hand, you do have a clear good guy on the other side of the war:  the Trojan prince Hector is both a great warrior and a caring family man who frequently chastises his brother Paris for having stolen Helen and gotten the Trojans into this mess.   Most people who’ve read The Iliad probably remember the bloody battles, but it’s these complicated relationships that make the story great.  The ending is rather anti-climactic, especially when compared the “happily ever after” we get in The Odyssey, but I think that makes it more interesting.

 I love The Iliad even though, or maybe because, I’ve read it so many times, and I enjoyed parts of The Odyssey.  I know why The Odyssey has become the more famous and popular of the two, but I recommend The Iliad over its more famous sequel.  Both epic poems offer an interesting insight into the world of the ancient Greeks, their complicated relationships with their gods, and their values, both familiar and foreign.  The characters, though, make The Iliad more compelling in my opinion.