#CBR10 Review #18: The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller


In anticipation of Madeline Miller’s new novel, Circe, being released (it just arrived in the mail!) I decided to do a reread of The Song of Achilles, which was one of my favorite reads from the past couple of years. And I will say, it was just as good the second time around, if not a little more painful in seeing more of the foreshadowing and understanding the deeper meaning of certain lines earlier in the novel before the course of action takes place. Okay, I know that the overall plot is pretty well established and known already, but this is a little bit of a different telling of the old myths of Achilles at the end of the day.

The Song of Achilles is essentially the story of the Greek hero Achilles/The Iliad as told from the point of view of Achilles’ closest companion, Patroclus; Patroclus is an exiled prince taken in by Achilles’ father as a child, and the two young Princes soon become close companions, growing up together and finding how deep their feelings for one another are. Eventually, however, the two must face their fated roles within the great Trojan War.

This is a story that is known by many, but with a particular point of view and interpretation: unlike a lot of modern interpretations of the myths I have personally seen, The Song of Achilles’ main point is not to focus is not on the grit, violence, and bravado of the Trojan War and Achilles (though this does indeed play a significant part), but on the relationships that bind us together and how they shape us. It is a more gentle retelling that relies on human aspects of love, loyalty, and showing how people grow and change over time and circumstance. And one of the strongest things that this novel sports is Miller’s strong sense of writing: it is poetic and beautiful, and glides along easily.

The Song of Achilles is one that when I first read, made me pause and hold close to my heart for a long while. Although I was more familiar this time through, my love for it didn’t diminish, and I still feel it like a soft lingering kiss on the cheek.

[Be sure to visit the Cannonball Read main site!]

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

#CBR5 Review #20: Th1rteen R3asons Why by Jay Asher

Image
Jay Asher’s young adult novel Thirteen Reasons Why focuses on the important topic of teenage suicide, and how a young person may be led to it. While the writing is effective in demonstrating how a person’s actions may affect another in ways that they could never have imagined, reading this novel made me feel a little strange, almost as if it left a slightly sour taste in my mouth upon finishing it. Not in that the topic of suicide makes me uncomfortable like it does some people, but that there may have been ways to make the whole thing have more of an impact? The tone was a little more bitter than I thought it would be? I’m not sure. In any case, here is specifically what the story is about: Thirteen Reasons Why starts with a young boy named Clay receiving a series of cassette tapes anonymously in the mail. As he listens to them, he finds that they are from one of his classmates, Hannah, who recently committed suicide, making a list of thirteen people/incidents that in...
Read more

#CBR5 Review #33: Peter Panzerfaust, vol. 1 – The Great Escape by Kurtis Wiebe and Tyler Jenkins

Image
The simplest way to describe the comic series of Peter Panzerfaust would be as a mid-teens Peter Pan, fighting through World War II Europe with a group of French orphans. It’s the kind of thing that makes some people turn away as it seems ridiculous, while others are intrigued by how it could work, putting this classic figure of Peter Pan into a completely different and historically real universe. And does it work? I think it does, extremely well: Peter Panzerfaust takes the iconic image of the boy who never wants to grow up and turns his mythology on its head to become something else entirely. It’s not about not wanting to grow up, but about keeping a youthful spirit in a situation where you are forced to grow up before you are really even an adult. The first volume of Peter Panzerfaust (there are only two trade volumes as of now), entitled The Great Escape deals with how a group of young French orphans first meet up with the vivacious figure of Peter. The story is told fro...
Read more

#CBR5 Review #28: Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

Image
I started out reading John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men while picturing it as an old-timey travelling farmer story starring Walton Goggins and Hodor (hooray!). Oh, how amusing this was to me at first. And it really was the easiest way to picture the characters (with some slight changes, of course) in my head as it all went along. Until the course of the story started to fill me with worry and doubt, which ended up in just plain old heartbreak. I should have seen it coming; I did see it coming, but just like how you may watch a film even though you know you’re going to end up crying in it, I walked right into this one as well. That’s not to say that it made me intensely emotional or anything, but it kind of weighed a little heavy on my heart at the end. This could definitely be seen as a testament to the author’s abilities as a writer, and it really was a beautiful and brief story, but at the same time, I’m not sure if it was really for me at the end of all things… It is true,...
Read more