Scorned and rejected, Circe grows up in the shadows, at home in neither the world of gods or mortals. His character development—which comes too late, at the expense of Patroclus—is in the form of the realisation that he can’t sulk indefinitely in his tent, but he actually has to fight in the war in which he was conscripted.

Madeline Miller Books | Waterstones Madeline Miller Books | Waterstones

Breathing life into the ancient world, Madeline Miller weaves an intoxicating tale of gods and heroes, magic and monsters, survival and transformation. The Homeric Patroclus was an excellent fighter in his own right, but Miller’s Patroclus is a waifish pansy who can barely lift a spear. If I were to give a prize for the best work of fiction I've read this year, this would be the runaway winner. He tricked her and raped her, at which point the gods forced her to marry him and stay with him for a year, during which time he continued to abuse her. It was enough to watch him win, to see the soles of his feet flashing as they kicked up sand, or the rise and fall of his shoulders as he pulled through the salt.It’s made even worse because Miller herself has an Ivy League classics degree and, while we’re all well-accustomed to seeing bastardisations of the classics in popular media (think Troy or 300), I expect better from someone who matriculated from Brown University. So it shouldn't be surprising to anyone who is familiar with me that this book didn't make me feel much of anything. The Song of Achilles can serve as an excellent introduction or counterpoint to the study of the Iliad. In fact he seems to have made a business of re-treading unwanted, or in-need-of-training blue-bloods, running a sort of island of lost royalty, a military training camp for boys.

The Song of Achilles - Booktopia The Song of Achilles - Booktopia

Guard your heart and mind carefully; there’s a prophecy conjured that they won’t remain unscathed after you read the breathtaking lyrics written in The Song of Achilles.

Those moments were so precious I couldn’t get enough of them and all I wanted was for them to be happy. My resting temperature is 35 degrees Fahrenheit and I have a deep abyss where my cardiac system is supposed to be. Patroclus could be replaced by a woman and it would change absolutely nothing about the story Miller has written. But as you finish through the last chapters, those seemingly uneventful - though quite emotional - first half will deepen the reader's emotions profoundly. I’m a total mess after reading this and my emotions are still all over the place, to say I regret reading it would be one hell of a lie though.

The Song of Achilles - Bloomsbury Publishing The Song of Achilles - Bloomsbury Publishing

But he has more power than he thinks, and the moments where he reaches out to others and offers what he sees as his very modest assistance have huge positive ramifications. Patroclus works in the medical tents, and he sees the men begin to turn against Achilles, blaming his hubris for their deaths. Fun Fact of the Day: I was in a Latin class my freshman year where the teacher mentioned how gay Achilles was every single sentence.She’s a fascinating figure, a rape victim who never wanted children and fled from her abusive husband as soon as she could, but still loved her son and visited him whenever possible, trying to protect him from being conscripted into the war and then, when it was inevitable, pulling strings by exploiting her godly connections to convince Hephaestus to forge Achilles’s shield. I read a New York Times review of this book which I thought patently unfair, complaining that the style made the book seem like a fast-food version of the Iliad.