Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13623848-the-song-of-achilles
My Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars
This book is now on my list of my all time favorite books. I originally gave this book a 4 out of 5 stars but I haven’t stopped thinking about it since the day I finished it and now it’s 5 million out of 5 stars.
This book was a journey. A well thought out, story that started off a bit slow and suddenly ends up sucking the life out from your bones. At first, I thought the beginning was slow and that some of the exposition is unnecessary but Madeline Miller doesn’t do anything unintentionally. Every sentence, every paragraph, and every chapter has a purpose.
I can write an entire essay on the symbolism of all the literary choices she made to pull together this plot but going into detail would mean spoilers. There’s a meaning behind the tone of the story, the first chapter and last chapter of the story, and the point of view it’s told from. There’s meaning behind everything.
I think Madeline Miller’s choice of starting off the story the way she did is genius. I love how we get to follow Patroclus and Achilles from when they’re very young. This slow yet carefully threaded time line really emphasizes how much they’ve grown into these historical roles we know about. We get to see how society was back then, the good, the bad, and how honor and war always followed them through their youth. It’s crazy to see how much society expected from these little boys. It made the story a lot more immersive and more tragic.
I know this is a work of fiction but this book really deep dives into society back then and doesn’t hold back. We get to see Briseis, the blood baths of war, and the fall of innocence as these young boys have their way with women and the spoils of war. It’s dark and morbid at times, but it was very real.
I think it was a wise choice to have the story be written mostly in Patroclus’ point of view.
A lot of the time, Greek stories are told from the legends themselves but seeing these historical stars from an “outsider’s” perspective felt so much more interesting and immersive. This is why I believe Patroclus was the best person to tell the story of Achilles. His narration made Achilles more human as we got to see both his flaws and his most memorable moments. Seeing Achilles’ transition from a mischievous boy to one of the main men in the legends through Patroclus’ eyes made me both love and hate Achilles a bit more.
Patroclus narration also highlights how much of a role Patroclus has in history. From birth, Patroclus was discarded as a nobody and he himself also soon lost his desire to fight back and realized that he fit better in the shadows. It was his character growth that made him one of my favorite characters I’ve read from in a while.
Yes, a lot of the times Patroclus was in the background of the action but that didn’t make him any less important. In fact, it was all the unsaid words, the soft quiet actions of Patroclus that set him apart from Achilles. Achilles had to fight and shake the ground to make sure people knew who he was. Patroclus on the other hand, managed to thread together the most momentous events in the story by simply being there and himself. Patroclus showed that one doesn’t have to be ruthless and violent to gain honor but that it can be achieved by love and compassion. His character growth was just so well done and wholesome and left me with this roaring satisfaction when he proved everyone wrong. I just loved how much people around him grew to love and= respect him because Patroclus deserves all the love.
Reading about Patroclus and Achilles’ relationship was so much more impactful from Patroclus’ POV. The way these people from two different parts of society with two different destinies came together and found this unshakable bond that tied them together was just so pure. The way they listened to each other, moved together, and cared for each other, it was beautiful. And seeing them discover themselves together and separately from when they were young boys to grown men made their relationship so much more palpable. Their relationship was so strong and heavy that you could feel it wrap around you as you read more about the two.
“In the darkness, two shadows, reaching through the hopeless, heavy dusk. Their hands meet, and light spills in a flood like a hundred golden urns pouring out of the sun.”
I loved the side characters in this book because many of the “side” characters were the legends we usually read about. It was interesting and much more interesting to read about characters like Odysseus who I’ve studied throughout my childhood. And of course, there’s Briseis. Just as the bond between Achilles and Patroclus is pure, the bond between Briseis and Patroclus is just as heartwarming and significantly important.
I know this book may not be for everyone. The niche is particular because it is historical fiction (Greek history) and the beginning can be a bit slow as not much happens. Some people may be turned off by the more mundane beginning and the slow storyline but if you are interested and wait out the book, you’ll find yourself more invested – or at least that’s what happened for me. It’s just like tea people. If you leave your tea bag in for just a few seconds, it won’t be a nice cup of tea. If you let it soak for a bit, you’ll find yourself a perfect cup of tea that’ll make you feel warm, cozy, and immersed. That’s how this book is.
The more I read, the more I liked. The more days that passed after I finished it, the more I loved it. The more I think of it, the more I can see what I didn’t see while I was reading. This is a book that I’ll be rereading very soon in the future with a pencil and tabs to annotate the heck out of it.