I'm back home again and I have another review for you!
BASICS
Author: Madeline Miller
Release Date: September 20th 2011
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1408816032
Number of Pages: 384
Genre: Historical Fiction, Romance
MY OPINION
“I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world.”
Ever since my best friend got TSoA as a birthday gift back in April, she urged me to read it. Finally, finally I did.
At first it didn't blow me away as I expected it to do after all the praise. Don't get me wrong: I enjoyed it; liked it really, it just wasn't the best book I've read.
Especially the jumps in time felt off. Hardly 400 pages cover about 18 years in the lives of Patroclus and Achilles. In the end I liked it that way, it just felt really odd at first.
Anyhow, that was "at first", later I was completely engrossed by it. I spent hours looking for Fan Art and squealing over a well-drawn Patroclus.
He's the narrator of this novel. When he was ten(I think, could have been eleven, tho) he accidently killed a boy and is sent into exile by his father, a king. Patroclus is stripped of his title and family - from now on he's a common orphan.
The "exile" is the court of another king, King Peleus, Achilles' father.
Patroclus meets the young Achilles and becomes his confidant and best friend.
I really liked that the boys met as kids and had a platonic relationship first, but became lovers later. In general I like those relationships more than the "instant-lover" ones.
The famous Trojan War breaks out (you guys know Helena and Paris' story?), Achilles is forced to join the battle. Patroclus follows him and, well, we all know how that will end.
Well, everybody who knows Homer's stories will know how it ends.
Even though you know, you still live in denial the whole way through. Or at least it was me who did that.
It is a beautiful but tragic romance. Read with caution.
The plot might me a little bit difficult to follow, mostly because of all the new names and relations, a layman in Greek mythology knows nothing about.
I've read the Percy Jackson/Heroes of Olympus series before, so I know quite a bit about it, I'd say. But still, there were names I confused most of the time.
The writing, on the opposite, is very easy to follow. Sometimes, suddenly, there are oh, so beautiful quotes, which I wanted to read over and over again.
As a reader you recognize how much work and research Miller put into this book (it took her about a decade to write this book!), there's no info-dump tho. Even as a completely clueless reader, you will easily understand the main aspects of Greek culture.
Miller keeps close to Homer's original story. Literary scholars always wondered if Patroclus and Achilles were actually in love with each other. They were really close but no offical lovers, as it seems.
Homer never stated their homosexuality, but he never said anything about them being straight either.
I really hope we will get more LGBT-books as good as The Song of Achilles!
My favourite quotes:
“I feel like I could eat the world raw.”
“He smiled, and his face was like the sun.”
RATING
4.5 out of 5 stars
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