The Song of Achilles

I really enjoyed this book. It's a modern novel informed by one of the classic epic stories, entertaining on its own terms and by reference to the historical text. Full of emotion. Vanity, hubris, violence.. the classic themes I remember from the Iliad. But that's all I remember from that college reading, the narrative was too alien for me to follow or recall. So here we have an enjoyable modern story instead.

And doubly good, it's a gay love story. I picked this up expecting a light gay romance. It's not. It's more of a historical fiction novel with a gay love story at the center. Even more interesting, it's Patroclus' narrative that's at the middle, the book is his story. Which works partly because the author can invent a new perspective without clashing with the Iliad itself and partly because Achilles' narrative in Homer is fragmented and difficult to follow. Also Patroclus is blameless, a reliable narrator whose life we can inhabit without friction.

The language is great. This book is written very carefully and in an unusual style. It still reads modern, approachable, it's not some forced poetic meter with obscure words. But it still has a heightened and otherworldly cast to the writing. A slight remove that gives the story epic weight. A sample I liked:

Their whispers choked me, turned the food in my mouth to ash. I pushed away my plate and sought out corners and spare halls where I might sit undisturbed, except for the occasional passing servant. My narrow world narrowed further: to the cracks in the floor, the carved whorls in the stone walls. They rasped softly as I traced them with my fingertip.

I also appreciated that this story is not awful about women. My memory of the Iliad is it's irredeemably sexist, full of women as objects and victims and rape. Here the book gives us a strong side character in Briseis. She's not a primary character but she is an interesting throughline in the second half of the book, particularly her relationship with Patroclus. And while rape is a constant threat in the book it's very clear that it's an awful thing only done by horrible people.