First impressions review: The Song of Achilles, by Madeline Miller
A while back I wrote about being pleasantly surprised by ‘The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires’ because I had assumed it was going to skirt around the less pleasant aspects of the setting like racism and misogyny, but in fact it was a politically astute thriller that happens to include a vampire. This book is kind of the other way around. A re-telling of the ‘Iliad’ from Patroclus’ point of view that renders it a tragic love story? And everyone seems to be raving about it? Yes, please! Well, I didn’t hate it, but the way the setting of that love story is handled makes me like it less than I otherwise would and makes the book less challenging to our own societal assumptions than it could be. But first, the good stuff…
I like the way Miller takes a story that has been “spoiled” for about 3000 years and makes that work to her advantage. We see Odysseus suggest that – to avoid having the various Greek kings fight – Helen should pick which suitor to marry and they should all pledge to come to his aid if anyone tries to steal her, and we immediately think: “Oh, shit! That’s gonna be a problem.” When, in response to the prophecy that Achilles will die at Troy after Hector, Patroclus pleads with him not to kill the Trojan hero so that they can have more time together and Achilles smiles and says “Well, why should I kill him? He’s done nothing to me,” it hurts. We know that Hector is going to kill Patroclus, and after that Achilles isn’t going to care at all about his own life (to the extent that he ever did).
The characterization is, in general, very compelling. Achilles in the ‘Iliad’ is not very likeable to a modern audience; he spends most of that book in an angry pride-sulk over having a slave girl taken away that gets the person he cares about most killed, and then goes on a murder rampage. Here we see him as a rather kind-hearted and trusting young prince, who gradually gets more and more fixated on honor because that is all he is going to get out of life: a brief moment of glory that will live forever. Homer would probably be confused that anyone needs the importance of heroic glory explained, of course…but that’s not how we think anymore! So that’s fine. I like the way Odysseus’ cunning comes off as both a positive and a negative, and his banter with Diomedes:
“In the course of dinner, I came to see that Penelope was twice as clever as her cousins and just as beautiful. So –” “As beautiful as Helen?” Diomedes interrupted. “Is that why she was twenty and unmarried?” Odysseus’ voice was mild. “I’m sure you would not ask a man to compare his wife unfavorably to another woman.”…Diomedes rolled his eyes.
Both of those things felt true to the source material but are again illustrated in a way that resonates with a modern audience. And I really like how scary Thetis, Achilles’ mother, is. Sea nymphs would normally get depicted as sweet and pretty, but she is a goddess who has been wronged, and it feels right to have her be kind of terrifying.
The language is also gorgeous. For instance, this is Achilles and Patroclus’ first kiss:
I shift, an infinitesimal movement, towards him. It is like the leap from a waterfall. I do not know, until then, what I am going to do. I lean forward and our lips land clumsily on each other. They are like the fat bodies of bees, soft and round and giddy with pollen.
And as Achilles fights an Amazon near the end:
She stabs, and Achilles’ body dodges the deadly point…always, its muscles betray it, seeking life instead of the peace that spears bring…He had hoped, because she has killed so many. Because from her horse she seemed so like him, so quick and graceful, so relentless. But she is not. A single thrust crushes her to the ground, leaves her chest torn up like a field beneath the plow.
I also generally like the depiction of the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus. It is so playful and sweet and hopeful early on:
“They never let you be famous and happy.” He lifted an eyebrow. “I’ll tell you a secret.” “Tell me.” I loved it when he was like this. “I’m going to be the first.” He took my palm and held it to his. “Swear it.” “Why me?” “Because you’re the reason.”
But later, as they are heading to Troy, and Patroclus hugs Achilles’ father:
“…Those thin, wiry limbs. I thought, ‘This is what Achilles will feel like when he is old’. And then I remembered: he will never be old.”
And then we have this, as Patroclus tries to get Achilles to do something to help, to not get all their friends killed and ruin his own legacy:
I looked at the stone of his beautiful face, and despaired. “If you love me – ” “No!...I cannot! If I yield Agamemnon can dishonor me whenever he wishes…” “Then do something else…Put me in your armor, and I will lead the Myrmidons. They will think it is you…I will be all right, I won’t go near them…Let me do this. You said you would grant me anything else.”…I would save the men; I would save him from himself.
The part at the end where Patroclus’ spirit is still tied to his body so that he has to witness Achilles’ grief is heartbreaking. It’s all very effective and moving. I’m tagging this as “mythological fan fiction” but that is not an insult; If I ever review ‘Paradise Lost’, I will probably tag it that way as well1! As I mentioned earlier, the problem is the setting for that relationship.
A friend of mine who is a classicist and teaches a class on sex and gender in the ancient world pointed out that reviews that say this book highlights the central gay relationship within the ‘Iliad’ are incorrect; Homer didn’t include any gay relationships or straight relationships, because neither are concepts that existed in ancient Greece. And he did not specify exactly what the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus was. It’s kind of like ‘Good Omens’ in that respect actually – things like the similarities in the way they relate to each other to male-female couples in the same story make it possible that the author intended some subtext (98% certainly for Good Omens, which contains cultural references we can still interpret , and where one author is still alive and tweeting) but it is never said. I’m more than OK with a romantic reading in both cases, but it is the way the other characters react to Achilles and Patroclus and what we don’t see in the society around them that feels weird.
There are several important things to know about relationships in ancient Greece. First, it was assumed that any red-blooded dude would probably want to bang anyone who was even remotely attractive, regardless of gender. Second: women were definitely considered lesser beings. Third, as a result of point two, it was shameful for an adult male of any decent social standing to “act like a woman”. All this has some…interesting results. For one thing, it is really hard to find any relationships in ancient Greek literature and mythology that meet modern standards of consent. Someone always seems to be underage, seduced by trickery, or straight-up kidnapped/pounced on in the woods…or, in the case of half the stories about Zeus, all three (bad luck, Ganymede). That's not to say the characters can't be happy with the relationship - Eros and Psyche's story is overall quite romantic - but the start at least is often weird to us2. For another, while ancient Greece is often held up as a society that accepted same-gender relationships, it was a particular model that we would not accept today because it involved the same unequal power dynamic as the opposite-gender relationships of the time. It was fine if a high-ranking male citizen was into other dudes (it was even expected) but he was supposed to pick someone lower-ranking (usually a slave or a kid or, again, both) and - I don’t like this particular terminology, but to avoid being overly crude - he was always supposed to top. This was actually institutionalized in some times and places as a “mentorship” thing, and gives us the term “pederasty”, though this was likely not as formalized at the time the ‘Iliad’ is set.
‘The Song of Achilles’ depicts the
position of women pretty accurately. For instance, Peleus comes off as one of
the nicer kings, and yet he gets instructed by the gods on how to rape Thetis –
and he does and doesn’t feel guilty about it. Thetis hates him, and most
of humanity by extension, but that doesn’t matter. When Patroclus nudges Achilles
to claim Briseus in order to protect her and to boost his status, I got
quite intrigued: “Oh! So now when Agamemnon demands her it is going to be a
double insult – he’s not just taking something that belongs to his best
warrior, he’s hurting someone he cares about! Cool!” Well, it didn’t quite work
out that way. Patroclus cares about Briseus and the other women they
claim; Achilles was just humoring him. But it does make the point that caring
about women’s feelings and well-being would have been a rare quality. However,
while it is mentioned that serving boys are in the same position as the
female slaves, we never see any evidence of this. Achilles claims the (barely)
younger Patroclus as a companion, he is ordered to his room, and…he gets a separate
pallet and nothing happens for three more years. And while that's good - why was it set up that way if it wasn't about subverting a local cultural expectation? Young Achilles is described as being
incredibly beautiful – golden-haired, green-eyed, supernaturally graceful - and so would likely be in a similar position to Hyacinthus or Narcissus with respect to having male admirers, but we only see some vague flirting by
hopeful servant girls. And Patroclus, of course. There is a consent-violating thing that happens to a male character, but it is orchestrated by two women: There's a princess who gets very possessive of Achilles because Thetis coerced him into sleeping with the girl on the false promise that she'd tell Patroclus where he was. That is a super-messed up thing to do to anyone, especially your own kid, and especially if you know what that lack of agency feels like! To be clear, it’s not that I
particularly want to read a story where boys get hurt; it just seems
weird to keep only half of the consent issues of a society, especially
when one could highlight something that too often gets ignored and covered up in our own.
As Achilles and Patroclus get older and travel around it starts to become apparent that there aren’t any other same-gender pairings (consensual or otherwise) in this story. That is very strange for this setting – there had to have been some other guys in the united Greek army who were banging their charioteers or something! The way that most of the other characters mildly raise an eyebrow at Achilles and Patroclus’ relationship isn’t a problem in itself. Being only in interested in men or only women was considered a little odd, but no more so than Odysseus being genuinely in love with his wife3 – just a quirk, no big deal for a hero. This is especially true in this version, where Patroclus is a gentle soul of lower social status who is hopeless as a warrior; Achilles’ compatriots would definitely have assumed he was the “dominant” one, whether that was true or not, and it wouldn’t have hurt his status one bit. But because they are the only such pairing, the raised eyebrow can read as a bit homophobic. Similarly, Thetis’ hatred of Patroclus seems to mostly be meant as a “no human is good enough for my baby” thing, but the way it manifests feels more like a dislike of this specific pick. Finally, when Achilles’ fast-aging son Phyrrus shows up to actually finish the Trojan war, he is upset when he discovers that, per Achilles’ request, the Greeks have mixed his ashes with Patroclus’ and refuses to put the latter’s name on the monument. According again to my classicist friend, not being buried was a big deal – so it makes sense that Patroclus’ shade would hang around until someone actually stuck his urn in the ground – but the monument was not; so long as someone at least threw a handful of dirt on you, you were ‘buried’ and could go to the afterlife. Again, I’m cool with artistic license, but Phyrrus refusing to acknowledge how important Patroclus was to his father, particularly considering Patroclus died in battle, seems really strange4 .
Basically, it shouldn’t be possible to pull a “bury your gays” trope in a story set in ancient Greece, but this book somehow manages something close. The overall treatment feels like it reflects, and possibly even reinforces, our own society’s homophobia5, rather than showcasing a completely different conceptual model of love and sex. If Miller had wanted to inject some period-appropriate controversy around Achilles and Patroclus’ relationship, she could have gone with making the latter at least a few years older – maybe with a beard that makes him look older yet (as depicted on this bowl that is oddly NSFW considering all that is supposedly happening is that Patroclus’ arm is being bandaged) - but still with the same personality and skills (or lack thereof). There was a lot of back and forth between ancient writers that basically revolved around: “Well, obviously Achilles and Patroclus were a couple…but which was the ‘lover’ and which was the ‘beloved’? They can’t just not fit our dominance formula6 – that would be silly!” Of course, whatever limiting rules a society sets up around sex and gender, some percentage of the population always breaks them! A good example of how to play around with this are some short stories written by Ursula LeGuin in the 1990's depicting societies in which bisexuality is assumed or considered normal; there are absolutely still conflicts and barriers to relationships, but they are different to what we encounter. And as my friend pointed out, the ancient Greeks had a “pics, or it didn’t happen” sort of attitude, meaning that so long as you weren’t literally caught in the act you could get away with a lot without having to deal with more than some malicious whispers.
Overall recommendation: There is a lot to like in this book, but if you are familiar at all with ancient Greek mythology and culture you may find yourself bouncing between “Oh! Cool interpretation!” and “WTF? That’s not how that worked.” Bottom line (hah!): enjoy the tragic gay romance and the beautifully descriptive writing, but don’t take it as a guide to history!
1. There is no sympathetic beautiful bad-boy Satan in the bible; Really, there’s no ‘Satan’ as we know him now at all! But readers clearly loved this interpretation and have been playing with it ever since – see recent ‘Lucifer’ TV show!
2. Eros and Psyche end up happy and symbolizing how the union of the human soul with love produces with joy….but the story starts (from Psyche’s point of view) with her getting shipped off to marry a "monster" she's not allowed to look at, who she doesn't technically fall in love with until after she's pregnant. However, considering that getting married at 15 to some older dude you’d probably never met was what teenage girls expected in ancient Greece, and just liking him would be a win, having him turn out to be the super-hot god of love who’s crazy about you would have been considered winning the jackpot.
3. See ‘In Pursuit of the Green Lion’ for a story set in the 14th century where being in love with your spouse is still considered a bit weird.
4. A monument honoring both of them did exist, BTW – Alexander the Great and Hephaestion paid homage there with Alexander’s entire army. Which is appropriate, since their relationship seems really similar in a lot of ways. We also can’t say for sure they were a couple, but they were clearly extremely attached to one another. When Hephaestion died Alexander flung himself weeping on the body and had to be dragged off by force hours later, refused to eat for days, and died shortly after receiving word that, while the priests would not grant Hephaestion divine status as they had Alexander, he would be declared a divine hero. Alexander also had two wives – Barsine and Roxana, who he seemed rather indifferent to, in comparison – and a eunuch lover named Bagoas.
5. Not deliberately, I’m sure! Miller makes Achilles and Patroclus very easy to root for. But, much in the same way that leaving in abuse of women while leaving out abuse of boys kind of plays into the idea that the former is some immutable constant while the other is not, continually portraying same-sex relationships as something that is not accepted can make that non-acceptance seem normal.
6. It should be pointed out that – from what I’ve read - (male) Greek writers had a really hard time with the idea that two women might be attracted to each other. “But…all women are inherently bottoms, right? So how would that even work? Oh! I know! One of them must have to be really bossy and pretend to be the guy and probably make use of some sort of long object. Right?” This may be part of the reason why there was a lot of argument about Sappho even by authors who still had access to all her poems!
