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A Thousand Ships (2019)

by Natalie Haynes

Other authors: See the other authors section.

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1,5434511,531 (4.08)112
Classic Literature. Fiction. Literature. Historical Fiction. HTML:

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

An NPR Best Book of the Year

"Gorgeous.... With her trademark passion, wit, and fierce feminism, Natalie Haynes gives much-needed voice to the silenced women of the Trojan War."â??Madeline Miller, author of Circe

Shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction, a gorgeous retelling of the Trojan War from the perspectives of the many women involved in its causes and consequencesâ??for fans of Madeline Miller.

This is the women's war, just as much as it is the men's. They have waited long enough for their turn . . .

This was never the story of one woman, or two. It was the story of them all . . .

In the middle of the night, a woman wakes to find her beloved city engulfed in flames. Ten seemingly endless years of conflict between the Greeks and the Trojans are over. Troy has fallen.

From the Trojan women whose fates now lie in the hands of the Greeks, to the Amazon princess who fought Achilles on their behalf, to Penelope awaiting the return of Odysseus, to the three goddesses whose feud started it all, these are the stories of the women whose lives, loves, and rivalries were forever altered by this long and tragic war.

A woman's epic, powerfully imbued with new life, A Thousand Ships puts the women, girls and goddesses at the center of the Western world's great tale ever told… (more)

  1. 10
    Circe by Madeline Miller (jonathankws)
  2. 10
    The Iliad by Homer (bjappleg8)
    bjappleg8: The Trojan War told from the point of view of the women who were only background in Homer's story.
  3. 00
    The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker (bjappleg8)
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» See also 112 mentions

English (41)  Italian (1)  Hungarian (1)  Spanish (1)  All languages (44)
Showing 1-5 of 41 (next | show all)
I just finished this and have taken a look at a bunch of reviews, and I find myself agreeing with a lot of the negative reviews in content, if not in energy. For me this is a true three out of five, two would be too little and four would be too much.

I think this novel suffers from the classic issue of too much and not enough. For me there are just too many characters, points of view, and varying tone and quality of prose for this kind of story. It might just be my personal taste, but the hybrid epic and modern historical fiction struggles to convey the emotion, depth, and connection with the characters, ultimately being more like zoomed out epics, rather than the captivating and intimate character studies of historical fiction. I think a novel with a focus on Briseis and Chryseis would be incredible and found their chapters far and above the quality of everything else. This could have been a while series of novels focusing on the viewpoints show here and including the one Haynes actually left out that is mentioned in the afterword. Otherwise, committing to these perspectives as short stories and making this an anthology might have been more effective. I just think giving these women and their stories a chance to actually breathe and have context would be amazing. Penthesilea being given the in depth and backstory treatment of Jocasta would be incredible!

I don't mean to get so nitty gritty with this, but I think Haynes is a great writer whose knowledge and passion for this period and its characters (historical, mythological, and fictional) that has a few moments to shine here, but is incandescent in The Children of Jocasta. This being a much more focused story and emotional journey of primarily one character is so powerful and really plays to Haynes' strengths as a writer. In contrast having so much here diluted everything from the characterisation to the emotional weight and impact of the events.

I'm being so critical because I did like this book. Until recently, I have been on a painfully long DNF streak and there was never a moment I considered DNFing and would still recommend this with some caveats and generally say read The Children of Jocasta instead if you're only doing one. The book is entertaining and informative, I just think the split focus and engagement after about halfway in did leave me a little bored and zoning in and out.

Folx seem real divided on the Calliope chapters. Personally, I really enjoyed them and could have even had more perspectives of the gods (in a more focused version, as is this book cannot have any more perspectives!).

There seems to be some real contention and hostility around the 'untold women's stories' element, which seems wild to me. Yes, contemporary and modern tellings of this story have included and/ or focused on the perspective of some of these women. No, it absolutely has not been anywhere near as much as the men. This seems to be some real gender bias going on here with a skewed perspective because some examples do exists, though absolutely not proportionally. I also think it's worth pointing out that publishing and marketing are a nightmare and decisions are made and narratives pushed that don't necessarily come from the author or that they can even do much about. This whole thing seems like a nothing burger and a case of 'being fine with it, just don't shove it down our throats'. Grow up.

There are some kinda cringy aspects that detract from the stories of these women and the feminism of it all. There are a few remarks characters make about other women that are said without context (beyond upset) that are some real internalised misogyny and deflecting animosity at the men on the innocent women -- this is absolutely a thing that happens, but I would have thought there would be some discussion or reflection on it in a book like this, but they just pass without comment and really clanged for me.

Others have mentioned the Penelope chapters largely being just her letters to her husband, discussing his exploits and kinda passively aggressively venting her frustrations. Acknowledging the misogyny inherent in this term, it kinda comes across as nagging. I say this because she has absolutely legitimate reasons for all of her negative emotions, but having them only expressed in this manner robs her of a lot of expression and extrapolation of her feelings. It it had to be epistolary, a diary could have been more effective so she could be more free, but I genuinely think seeing her go about her life, interacting with people, and following her inner monologue would have been so much better. One weird thing some people seem hung up on is her knowing what he's been up to because of the lag in communication...the whole story is literally being told by a bard who is being inspired by a muse and Penelope literally mentions the bars multiple times in her letters. That is consistent with the logic of the story. Get out of here with your Cinema Sins BS.

Although it has been shown to lack robustness and context, the Bechdel Test does give us something to at least ponder about femme characters. Obviously, the war, their families, and those acting against them are men and need to be discussed to an extent. I do think the lack of time and inner monologue for the characters does lend itself to seeming like they spend their time on the page talking or thinking about mascs. This is only really a problem as they aren't given time to breathe and explore their experiences more, but I do think it is an unfortunate result of this approach.

Look, I feel like I've said so much negative stuff, but it's truly because I largely enjoyed this book and have a huge amount of respect for Haynes and her work, so my extremely neurodivergent brain has spooled out about my luke warm response to this book. I still want to read the rest of her work and, as I said before, in light of everything discussed here, I still do recommend this book with a bit of a heads up.

I listened to the audiobook narrated by the author, which is something I am definitely partial to. There's something about their words coming out of their mouth that makes author narrations special. I will say that Haynes is a competent, if not top tier, narrator and the performance seems to improve over the course of the novel, especially in emotional moments. ( )
  RatGrrrl | Dec 20, 2023 |
A book that sets out to record the experience of the various Trojan women at the fall of their city. It's a mixed bag: it starts with the wife of Aeneas, and although I vaguely remembered some details about him, I didn't know what happened to her. That one has a rather abrupt ending. Then various other women are switched between, with some scenes of the survivors on the beach, waiting for the Greeks to get round to awarding them as prizes. In between, there is a narrative from Penelope's viewpoint, in an epistolary structure, and the viewpoint of Calliope, muse of epic poetry, who is rather irritated by the requests of poets.

The book stuck very much to the traditional stories of the women as I already knew them and didn't really add much. There was the interesting idea of a friendship between Briseis and Chryseis, the former giving the latter herbs to stupefy Agamemnon and therefore spare Chryseis his attentions. But after Chryseis is ransomed, although she worries beforehand about the punishment her stern father will dish out for wandering out of the city and being captured, that narrative is ended and we never see the interaction between the two, or find out what happened to her at the fall of Troy. In the legend, she and her father don't necessarily live in Troy - at least, some other adaptations have taken that line - so that would have been a new aspect to explore.

It was an overall OK read, but not an exceptional one, and I would award it 3 stars. ( )
  kitsune_reader | Nov 23, 2023 |
“But this is the women’s war, just as much as it is the men’s, and the poet will look upon their pain–the pain of the women who have always been relegated to the edges of the story, victims of men, survivors of men, slaves of men–and he will tell it, or he will tell nothing at all. They have waited long enough for their turn.”

A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes is an eloquently penned retelling of the Trojan War from the perspective of the women whose lives were impacted by the war.

The novel begins with Calliope, the Muse of Epic Poetry, lending her song to the poet who is writing another epic but here the story of the Trojan War is told from the perspectives of women – the goddesses, nymphs, princesses, queens and slaves . We hear the voices of women from both sides - stories of grief, loss , death and devastation, deceptions and betrayals , victory and defeat. We learn of the aftermath of the war from women waiting for husbands returning in victory as well as the Trojan women who huddle together awaiting their fate after defeat.

I found the story of the Goddesses fighting over the golden apple quite amusing. The perspectives of Cassandra and Hecabe were very moving. Creusa’s account of her search for her husband and Oenone’s story were heartbreaking.

Penelope’s voice is presented in epistolary format through letters written to her husband Odysseus while she waits for his return.
“Waiting is the cruellest thing I have ever endured. Like bereavement, but with no certainty.”
Though it was entertaining and varied in tone from the grief and sorrowful stories of the other women, I felt that the emphasis was more on Odysseus and his exploits and wished that there would have been more about Penelope’s life in Ithaca. Her final segment is a letter/prayer to Goddess Athene after Odysseus finally returns to Ithaca.

With an engaging narrative, fluid prose, multiple perspectives beautifully executed by the author, this is a book I would definitely recommend to those who enjoy retellings of Greek mythology. I was invested from the very first chapter and not for a moment did I feel my interest wavering. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and look forward to reading more of the author’s work in the future. I would definitely recommend this book to fans of Madeline Miller’s Circe.

“And I have sung of the women, the women in the shadows. I have sung of the forgotten, the ignored, the untold. I have picked up the old stories and I have shaken them until the hidden women appear in plain sight. I have celebrated them in song because they have waited long enough. Just as I promised him: this was never the story of one woman, or two. It was the story of all of them. A war does not ignore half the people whose lives it touches. So why do we?” ( )
  srms.reads | Sep 4, 2023 |
A brilliant, heartbreaking, and badass epic of the Trojan war from the perspective of the women. Hiiggghhly recommend. ( )
  apwidom | Apr 13, 2023 |
Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey are probably among the most known ancient tales in the world. They’ve been adapted and translated so many times that everybody has at least heard the name, even if they aren’t completely familiar with the story. But, as most things in the Ancient World went, the story is told by men, about men and their bravery. I could argue that the entire story is about how one man who said the wrong thing ended up causing a huge commotion that didn’t really have to go that way at all.

(And, also, if we want to argue that Zeus is such a mess in Greek mythology, his wife isn’t so great either. She literally contributed to the Trojan War.)

A Thousand Ships is a retelling of these two classic Homeric tales, but exclusively from the point of view of the women affected by the tragedy of all the lives that were lost and all the trauma that ensued. Taking inspiration from The Iliad, The Odyssey, Virgil’s The Aeneid, and Euripedes’s Troades, the whole novel concerns itself with the female perspectives of the stories, starting at The Muses and the Goddesses of Ancient Greece, and going all the way down to priestesses in Troy, Amazonian warriors who fought in the battles, and the princesses of Troy and their mother. It follows Penelope as she writes letters to her absent husband, Cassandra as she sees the future flow before her that she cannot change, and Hebe as she attempts to negotiate with the captors of her city and the murderers of her family. It tells us the story of Athena, Hera and Aphrodite as they fight for the affection of a mortal, and the minor goddess of discord, Eris, as she plots with Zeus to start the whole affair. It takes us into the mind of Gaia, and Queen Dido, and so many other women that were overlooked when stories of brave impulsive men were being told.

I absolutely loved reading this book. It was not what I expected it to be at all, but I loved every second of it. It is beautifully written, and the story is told so well, with stunning imagery and a depth of knowledge about Classical literature that, if you’re familiar with the stories Haynes is retelling, make it that much more enjoyable. I love retellings so much and this book further cemented my love of well-written retellings. Basically, if you love Classical literature (like, Ancient World classical) and (feminist) retellings of stories that have been told time and time again, this is definitely the book for you. I give it a 5/5 myself.

( )
  viiemzee | Feb 20, 2023 |
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Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Haynes, Natalieprimary authorall editionsconfirmed
Haynes, NatalieNarratormain authorsome editionsconfirmed
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Epigraph
Her excellent reputation will never be lost;
the gods will create a song to delight mortals
about clever Penelope.
So unlike my wife, who did awful things...

Agamemnon, Odyssey Book 24.196-199
Dedication
For Keziah, of course
First words
Sing, Muse, he says, and the edge in his voice makes it clear that this is not a request.
Quotations
Because really, how many cannibalistic giants can one Greek plausibly meet as he sails the open seas? Even I, expert in your ability to create trouble, think one set is probably sufficient for your story.
Last words
(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
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Classic Literature. Fiction. Literature. Historical Fiction. HTML:

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

An NPR Best Book of the Year

"Gorgeous.... With her trademark passion, wit, and fierce feminism, Natalie Haynes gives much-needed voice to the silenced women of the Trojan War."â??Madeline Miller, author of Circe

Shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction, a gorgeous retelling of the Trojan War from the perspectives of the many women involved in its causes and consequencesâ??for fans of Madeline Miller.

This is the women's war, just as much as it is the men's. They have waited long enough for their turn . . .

This was never the story of one woman, or two. It was the story of them all . . .

In the middle of the night, a woman wakes to find her beloved city engulfed in flames. Ten seemingly endless years of conflict between the Greeks and the Trojans are over. Troy has fallen.

From the Trojan women whose fates now lie in the hands of the Greeks, to the Amazon princess who fought Achilles on their behalf, to Penelope awaiting the return of Odysseus, to the three goddesses whose feud started it all, these are the stories of the women whose lives, loves, and rivalries were forever altered by this long and tragic war.

A woman's epic, powerfully imbued with new life, A Thousand Ships puts the women, girls and goddesses at the center of the Western world's great tale ever told

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