The Song of Achilles (original 2011; edition 2011)

After a number of recent interpretations of Homer's Iliad that portray Achilles as a brat and a bully, Miller gives us a slow-building love song to Achilles the hero. Smart, effortlessly talented, and a natural leader, this is Achilles as seen through the eye of his companion and eventual conscience Patroclus. Worn down by destiny, pride and his mother's ambition, Achilles slowly hardens into the vicious avatar of vengeance who will keep the Greeks at war for 10 years to avoid his own fate, and ultimately drag Hector's body by the heels around the walls of Troy. Miller collects the key points of Homer's tale along the way, and is unafraid to portray the gods as active forces within her tale (although this didn't really work for me - especially the battle between Achilles and Scamander). Ultimately a readable retelling of the ancient myth from a new perspective, with a little gay loving and lot of pathos. Fine, but no more. ( )

The Iliad is essentially the story of Achilles' rage and its result in almost destroying the Greeks who had put Troy to siege for 10 long years. Salvation came when Achilles allowed Patroculus to go into battle wearing his own armor and was killed by Hector. Achilles forgot his own rage against Agamemnon and instead raged against Hector who has killed his best companion and thus sealing the fate of that city.

What Homer paints in broad, epic strokes, Madeline Miller fills in with delicate and very human fine brush strokes. Achillles comes alive as a unique and flawed man. The Achilles of legend and myth is a warrior but we see him here through Patroculus' eyes. Achilles was the best of the Greeks by virtue of his godhead and prophesy but he is a better man for having P' love.

The Song of Achilles is a compulsive read - beautifully real. Miller has breathed love, compassion and understanding into one of the world's most famous stories. The ancient world is so immediate, so alive in her book. I could feel the brutality and practicality of that world just in the fact of the Anatolian farmer teaching his daughter some serviceable words in Greek so she could survive as a slave when the Greeks killed all the men and took the women and farms as their right.

The world of Homer was sculpted by the hubris and arrogance of great kings and warriors who took what they wanted from weaker people. Life was not valued unless it was your own kinsman. Booty, reputation and your legend was far more important.

Patroculus begs Thesis not to let Achilles tomb reflect only this but also the man behind the warrior, the man that Patroculus loved and after listening to Patroculus' image of the man, Thesis makes her son human by writing Patroculus' name on the tomb next to that of Achilles. Thus she honors the man as well as releasing Patroculus form this plane to be with Achilles in the Underworld

I think Miller gives us that human spark to illuminate the ancient world and make it real for us modern readers very much like Mary Renault did for the myths of that same ancient world or Mary Stewart did for Merlin and Arthurian Britain. She breaths life into these two men and gives us a story we can identify with: two people in love. The great deeds of gods and heroes and kings are stuff of myth and legend but all are at a remove from us poor mortals; beings we cannot relate to. We can easily empathize with Achlles and Patroculus of this story. ( )

A very beautiful book. I found the final paragraph deeply moving. One of those books I will read again and again. ( )

Let me begin by saying that Greek and Roman mythology has always interested me. I have a vivid recollection of being in sixth grade and renaming all of my stuffed animals after Greek gods after I become aware of mythology and the stories involved in it. With that being said, I am by no stretch a classics enthusiast - indeed, I have never read the Iliad, the Aeneid, and while I'm certain I had the Odyssey assigned to me multiple times in school, I cannot for the life of me tell you if I did, indeed, read it (I am sure I've read parts - Circe and the Sirens in particular I can recall). So I should have been the ideal reader for [b:The Song of Achilles|11250317|The Song of Achilles|Madeline Miller|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1331154660s/11250317.jpg|16176791]; I like Greek mythology, but I'm not so imbued with it that I already know the story Madeline Miller is going to tell and thus find it dull.

And yet, I found this wanting at parts and extraordinary at others. I cannot say whether it's the fact that Ms. Miller is working with a story that is milleniums old, but there were parts that just dragged. From the point of Achilles deciding to go to Troy to the conflict between Agamemnon and Achilles over the plague, I literally felt like almost nothing happened of consequence. Sure, there was a human sacrifice (which seemed to be forgotten about five pages later) and a bunch of nameless Greeks and Trojans dying and Achilles going on raids, but it really felt like a very, very slow boil for those 100 or so pages. I also could not understand from the get go what attracted Achilles to Patroclus. He's "surprising"? Seriously? It would have made more sense I think if there had been some more interaction between the two before that scene to give some reasoning to Achilles's decision.

All that said, Ms. Miller writes very well, with her prose sparse but beautiful (I worry this is a description I have used in the past, but hey, if the shoe fits...) and there's a reason this story has lasted as long as it has. The fundamental choice of Achilles between his desire for fame and honor and respecting the counsel of his companion is starkly painted and elegantly displayed. He is presented with an impossible decision, and perhaps this speaks to the theme of destiny that is present throughout so much of Greek mythology. Could Achilles have chosen differently and somehow made this story turn out happily? Perhaps, but then his name would have never been written in our books so many ages later. Ultimately, the entire story turns on his decision to go to Troy and pursue what he was made for, and Ms. Miller has done a wonderful job in making this clear.

In the end, I thought this was good, but whether it be the source material or Ms. Miller's choices, it was not as great as the reviews I have read made it out to be. ( )

Grr, GR ate my review last night. Never mind; I didn't have anything special to say anyway. It took me a long time to finish this, because obviously you know where the plot is going to go (if you've read your classics, anyway). And this isn't really the story of the Trojan War, it's certainly not a straight (heh) retelling of The Iliad: it's a story based on the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus. So that naturally puts it into doomed territory.

I liked it quite a lot, though the pacing can be quite off. Once we actually get to Troy, it moves from a slow unfurling of love and desire into a headlong rush into fate. For a book that starts out seeming fairly gentle (bar one event in Patroclus' childhood), I was impressed with how well Miller writes battle scenes. They're actually exciting -- and a little frightening too, thanks to the point of view.

I loved what she did with the characters: Patroclus' youth, how he gets to know Achilles, the sympathy with female characters like Iphigenia and Briseis, and how Patroclus acts toward them. I liked the way she dealt with Thetis, too, how very inhuman she is, and how unknowable.

I didn't find it life-changing or a favourite or anything like that, but I did enjoy it a lot. It's a fairly quick, easy read, once you get past the pacing issues. ( )