Boy Meets Boy: A Review of Miller’s The Song of Achilles
The story of the Iliad is, quite literally, a tale as old as time. It is a story of war and death, of madness and rage. But the Iliad is also a story about human connection. It is this side of the Iliad that Madeline Miller calls upon in her 2011 work, The Song of Achilles.[1] Miller draws from all the themes of the Iliad and yet still creates a work uniquely her own, a novel about fate and freewill, power and passion and, above all, friendship and love.
The Front Cover of Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles
The story begins at a scene left out of the Iliad but crucial to its execution: the ceremony at which a husband will be chosen for the beautiful Helen (not yet “of Troy”). Our narrator Patroclus is completely out of place, a young boy with no heroic past to speak of, but the introduction serves to place the reader in the midst of pre-Trojan War Greece. All the familiar faces are there: Ajax, Odysseus, Agamemnon, Menelaus. This scene not only offers valuable background to the reader who might not be well-acquainted with the heroes of Ancient Greece but assures the reader who is familiar with these stories that they are in Madeline Miller’s capable hands. Miller has an extensive background in Classics (she received both her BA and MA in Classics from Brown and taught Greek and Latin in high school for 15 years) as well as experience in theater (she studied dramaturgy at the Yale School of Drama), giving her a voice uniquely suited to tell an ancient story in a new way.
The story continues, following Patroclus’ banishment and his arrival at the court of Phthia, where Achilles is a young prince. The two develop the close bond that is portrayed in the Iliad, but Miller takes the relationship between her characters farther: the two fall in love. (It is worth noting that many scholars believe this romantic bond is already present in the Iliad, and it is true that contemporary ideas of sexuality and romance differ greatly from those of ancient Greece. However, such explorations will have to wait for a future edition of Liber.) Miller delivers a powerful coming-of-age-cum-lovestory but by setting her story within the world of the Iliad, her novel rises above the rest. For example, one of the key figures in her story is Thetis, the goddess-mother of Achilles, who is displeased with Achilles’ and Patroclus’ friendship and, later on, love. In another novel, the vengeful mother might border on the cliché. Here, however, coupled with the mythological background of the Iliad, Thetis becomes a character all her own, at once loathful for the way she tries to separate two people who love each other, yet also sympathetic, as one comprehends the tragedy of an immortal goddess with a mortal son, destined to die.
Just as Achilles’ fate is predetermined -- he knows that, once he chooses to go to Troy, he will die there -- so too is Miller’s plot; she must adhere to the events recounted in Homer’s Iliad. At times, I was absolutely baffled as to how she was going to accomplish such a feat. Without revealing too much of the plot, however, I can say that she not only managed to fit her characters and relationships faithfully into Homer’s plot but in so doing she also enhanced Homer’s telling in a way I could not have imagined possible. I recommend those who read Song of Achilles read the Iliad first, or at least have a strong grasp of the plot of that epic. While the book is plenty compelling without such foreknowledge, coming in with an understanding of Homer’s epic makes Miller’s accomplishment all the more impressive.
What ones come to appreciate through both Miller and Homer is the universal nature of love and friendship -- forces that defy time and space, forces that touched the lives of Ancient Greeks the same way they touch us today. As Patroclus and Achilles get to know each other in Peleus’ court at Phthia, Patroclus describes,
“Our friendship came all at once after that, like spring floods from the mountains...I found myself grinning until my cheeks hurt, my scalp prickling till I thought it might lift off my head. My tongue ran away from me, giddy with freedom. This and this and this, I said to him. I did not have to fear that I spoke too much. I did not have to worry that I was too sleder or too slow. This and this and this!” (The Song of Achilles, 48-49)
Achilles tending Patroclus wounded by an arrow on Attic red-figure kylix, ca. 500 BC, at the Altes Museum in Berlin, Germany
Photo Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Who does not recognize that exhilaration that comes with a newfound friend, the joy of discovering a spirit akin to yours yet distinct enough to present new worlds? And at the opposite end of the emotional spectrum, Homer describes Achilles’ reaction to the death of his dearest companion at the hands of Hector. Thetis reminds her son, “Hector’s death means yours,” and Achilles responds:
“Then let me die now. I was no help To him when he was killed out there. He died Far from home, and he needed me to protect him... But I’m going now to find the man who destroyed my beloved -- Hector. As for my own fate, I’ll accept it whenever it pleases Zeus And the other immortal gods to send it.”
The Iliad, 18.103-105, 120-124, trans. Stanley Lombardo[2]
Though it may be hard to imagine oneself in the setting of the Iliad, the stakes are much closer to our own world’s. Love, loss, joy, and anguish--all are feelings experienced here at Exeter (and everywhere else) everyday. Miller’s novel connects the ancient world to the modern through that thread of universal experiences. Readers of this novel will find a sense of completeness, a wholeness that comes from recognizing how connected one is to their fellow humans, both in the present and in the past.
Notes
[1] Miller, Madeline. The Song of Achilles. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers, 2012.
[2] Homer. Iliad. Translated by Stanley Lombardo. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing, 1997.