“We were like gods, at the dawning of the world, and our joy was so bright we could see nothing else but the other.”

During the age of heroes in Greece, Patroclus, an awkward young prince, has been exiled to the court of King Peleus and his perfect son Achilles. Their paths should have never crossed, but Achilles takes the shamed prince to be his friend, but as they grow into young men skilled in war and medicine their bond takes a turn to become something deeper. When word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped, Patroclus journeys with Achilles to Troy, knowing that the years that follow will test everything they hold dear.

I really want to do a poll of how many readers already knew the ending before they went into this. Anyone who has read the Illiad, or any of the retellings, or even has seen the move Troy, probably knew how this was going to turn out. I wouldn’t consider myself an expert by any stretch of the imagination, but I was already familiar with Achilles and Patroclus’ story before I dove into The Song of Achilles. This isn’t even my first Illiad retelling I read this year, that would be The Silence of the Girls. Because of my familiarity I can’t help but wonder if I didn’t enjoy this as much as those going in blind? I enjoyed it, a lot. But it wasn’t quite the emotional roller coaster/cry fest that I thought it was going to be.

I enjoyed Miller’s writing and really loved Frazer Douglas’ narration for the audiobook. I’m sure that if I had physically read it I still would have enjoyed it, but the audiobook really worked for me this time. I found it profoundly relaxing to listen to and perhaps even enjoyed it more than I would have if I had read it. We’ll see, I’m still planning on reading Circe sometime this summer, which will give me an idea of if I really enjoy her writing style or if I just enjoyed listening to Douglas. Either way I didn’t get the emotional hit that I thought I was going to take.

I attribute my lack of crying mostly to the fact that I knew exactly how this was going to end, however, part of it could be the fact that I listened to it on audiobook. It’s possible that the audiobook gave me just enough removal from the story that I didn’t grow so attached or have as strong of feelings about it. However, as someone who cries at commercials on occasion, I choose to believe that it was more related to the fact that I knew how it was going to end. Another thing could be that there wasn’t particularly strong characterization.

Patroclus as a character was particularly passive. He wanted to keep his head down and not get into trouble. He didn’t like it when Thetis was angry with him, but then again she was a goddess. However, Patroclus lacked presence even though it was his head that we were in. It was his point of view that we saw everything through. He didn’t have enough agency and went along with most of the choices that others made for him. I get that some things he didn’t have much of a choice in since he was little more than a slave in exile, but there were a few places where he could have showed more agency in the writing even if the overall result in the story was the same. There has to be a way to write him with more agency than perhaps tradition would normally give him. That being said, I think that it is beautifully written, but I’m uncertain about all the hype.

I probably would have read this a lot sooner without all of the hype. The hype is the reason that I initially stayed away from it, because even though it is a book that is right in my wheel house I thought that it would never live up to the expectation and for me, it really didn’t. I probably wouldn’t have read it still had it not been picked for book club by my friend (who really hated it). The more I think about it the sadder I am that I didn’t like it more. I guess I was looking for a version of these characters, not that fundamentally changed their course, but gave me a new and unique perspective and this… didn’t. I wanted them to be more compelling or sympathetic than they were here.

In fact, I should probably be more angry that Miller pushed modern western relationship ideals onto an mlm ancient Greek couple. Putting Achilles into a pretty monogamous homosexual relationship when he’s often described as an enthusiastic lover of women goes against the traditional narrative, which is fine too, but if she’s going to go against the traditional narrative then she could have done it in other areas. This could be bi erasure, it could be because she didn’t want to explore the potential ménage à trois that I’ve seen with them and Briseis, or it could be that she just wanted to put them in a committed monogamous relationship.

Overall, I’m not sure that I would necessarily recommend this to fans or students of the classics. I think that if you’ve been on team PatroclusxAchilles instead of AchillesxBriseis or any other number of mixtures out there then you may enjoy this, but honestly since it’s been out for so many years team PxA has probably already read this. Honestly, I think that most people if they’re truly interested in it have already read it and those that are just reading it now because of it’s recent rise on social media are going to be fairly disappointed. I’m still going to read Circe, but physically this time and we’ll see if it is just a matter of this book or if there is something that carries on in Miller’s writing that isn’t for me and won’t be covered up by an excellent audiobook narrator this time.

Have you read The Song of Achilles? What did you think? What’s your favorite Illiad retelling? Let me know in the comments below!

Important Bits:
Length: 352 pages
Published: September 20, 2011 by Bloomsbury Publishing
Content Warnings: Character Deaths, Blood, Violence, Gore
Awards:Orange Prize, Fiction (2012), Gaylactic Spectrum Award, Best Novel (2013), Chautauqua Prize Nominee (2013)
Also by: The Song of Achilles (2011) and Circe (2018)