For me The Song of Achilles is in the class of books that can make me fall in love with reading all over again. Books like The Remains Of The Day, The Book Thief, and The Tender Bar do the same for me. And, as someone with barely any knowledge about Greek Mythology save for references in popular culture I was ready to know more and Miller’s retelling came highly and mostly unanimously recommended. It’s got fantasy, historical fiction, mythology, and romance on a grand scale but packaged to feel accessible.
At its heart The Song of Achilles is a love story between Patroclus and Achilles- narrated by Patroclus. And like the greatest love stories this one is destined for doom and heartbreak. Miller’s takes us on this coming of age journey that begins when two adolescent boys cross paths and slowly but surely fall deeply in love with each other. The second half of the book is about the decade long bloody Trojan war that left thousands dead, countless innocents killed, and hordes of war brides taken as trophies. All of which seems to fade into a vague backdrop over which Patroclus and Achilles’ love continues to grow. The climax is heart-wrenchingly beautiful, and it choked me up as I read it in horrified silence with a hand over my mouth. Now, just thinking about the finale is rendering me incapable of saying more. What an utterly sad, beautiful, tragic epic!
Here are some of my highlights.
- “Name one hero who was happy.”
- “There is no law that gods must be fair, Achilles,” Chiron said. “And perhaps it is the greater grief, after all, to be left on earth when another is gone. Do you think?”
- “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 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.”