Review: Song of Achilles

The Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller

["The Song of Achilles" by Madeline Miller (published by Bloomsbury Paperbacks 2012). Based on Homer's ancient Greek epic the "Iliad".]

This is a re-telling of the tale of the Greeks at Troy, one of the oldest legends in the Western tradition of Greek myths, with the half-human and half-equine centaurs, the birdlike Harpies with their human faces and so on.

The story of Achilles has been told many time before but this is a modern version. The others being equally modern in their time of course. Because it has been retold so many times in different forms and with different emphasises, it is difficult to ignore them when looking at a new version.

“The Song of Achilles” is narrated by Patroclus, Achilles’ companion, who is central to the action of the Iliad, (the original story) but is a shadow in it.

At the beginning of Homer’s exploration of “the wrath of Achilles,” the half-divine, half-mortal hero angrily withdraws from the Greek coalition that is invading Troy after he is grossly insulted by the overbearing commander in chief, Agamemnon, who has appropriated one of Achilles’ slave girls after having been forced to return a slave girl of his own.

In that time the affront to Achilles is more serious than it might appear to a reader of today. Patroclus says, “wealth and reputation were the things our people had always killed for.”

His reputation compromised, the greatest of the Greek warriors sulks in his tent while the Greeks start to lose the battle, thus demonstrating as he had intended, his own great worth. All the Greeks want Achilles to show his face and lead them again, but he is adamant. As a compromise Patroclus persuades Achilles that he should dress as Achilles in Achilles armour, take Achilles's chariot and charioteer, go onto the battlefield to strike fear and trembling into the Trojans. Achilles tells him to make a display, to en-courage the Greeks, and dis-courage the Trojans, but not to fight because he was no warrior. However when Patroclus saw the effect he was having, the red mist descended and he thought “this is good”, and he the paid the price, he was killed by Hector, the champion of Troy.

The grief stricken Achilles furiously re-enters the fray, finally bringing the war closer to its end. And also his own end because it had been prophesied that Achilles would not die until after Hector was dead. And Achilles himself had just killed Hector. (You cannot beat a good prophesy, no matter what you do, a foundation of a lot of Greek tragedy).

So there is the outline. The petulant arrogant youth Achilles, so full of himself, brought to his senses by the death of his friend, a death that might not have happened, if he had been seen how self-obsessed he was being. A death that he had a part in, and we see his conflict between honour and duty.

The Iliad does not say exactly, who Patroclus was, and what his relationship with Achilles was. But in this retelling there are suggestions. Patroclus was the elder, that he was exiled to the court of Achilles’ father after he had accidentally killed another boy. And Achilles refer to Patroclus as the “best beloved of his companions”.

There is a bit of soft porn that I thought was not really necessary, but maybe it was there to illustrate the physical aspect of their love, which the author thought needed to be underlined in the context of today.

From Greek writings after Iliad, there is reason for treating the relationship between these legendary heroes as a “love story,” which is how the author has referred to it. There are many references to male unions in ancient Greek times. Also neither Achilles nor Patroclus were exclusive, they both had women, if not as lovers but certainly sexually. But it would be wrong to label the characters as homosexual or bisexual. These sorts of categories are modern inventions that do not just denote a person’s sexual preference, but also define a person according to his or her sexual preference.

The Iliad has at its core, the question; what are honour and glory? Why do we fight and live? Retelling this tale as the autobiography of Patroclus and concentrating on the love, the story has to start much earlier and then catch up with Homer. The beginning is devoted to adolescent angst, but moves on to the established myth, the abduction of Helen, the formation of the Greek armada, the landing at Troy, and 10 years of warfare. And then the aftermath with both Achilles and Patroclus dead.

You often feel as if this or that famous episode is being added because it was in the original. Was it important to the love story that Achilles, and Patroclus, had a centaur as a teacher?

Patroclus dying before the end of the story makes the final pages a bit..... I cannot think of a good word, maybe “weird” would do.

Now I must comment on Achilles’s mother, the goddess Thetis, if I may be so presumptuous. She is hard, cold, frightening. Patroclus says “I had expected chimes, not the grinding of rocks in the surf.”

She hates her mortal husband Peleus. Not surprising after the way in which Achilles was conceived. Her inability to love is passed onto her son. She is never intimate or maternal. As soon as the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus develops into one of physical love, Thetis makes it clear she despises Patroclus and her son’s love for him. When they are both dead, she understands that without love, life itself, even immortal life, has no meaning, but it is too late.

There are many nice cameos in the writing such as when, in the men’s youth, Achilles, the guy everyone wants to be friends with, to whom things have always come easy, listens to the story of how Patroclus killed that other boy. Patroclus finally standing up to the bully. Achilles hears the story and remarks “No one has ever tried to take something from me, I think I would be angry.” And of course, Patroclus was taken from him.

I will leave you with this thought. Was “Achilles heel” his love of Patroclus or was it his arrogance, or none of the above?

This has been longer than I had wanted, but think yourselves lucky that I edited it down to this length! If I had gone on with the editing I would have just said. “Read it and judge for yourself” And maybe I would have added, “You will like it”.