The Song of Achilles Review

*SPOILERS FOR A THOUSANDS-OF-YEARS-OLD STORY*

“He was outlined against the painted stars; Polaris sat on his shoulder.”

God, I love it when a book lives up to the hype, and Madeline Miller’s first novel The Song of Achilles didn’t disappoint. While Miller’s second novel Circe seemed to divide readers, Achilles united them. (Full disclosure: I adored both works.)

Miller sets out to do what is seemingly the opposite goal of its inspiration, the Iliad: the glorification of the humble arts, compassion, healing, peace-making. Patroclus as “the best of the Greeks” is the ultimate irony, but not unexpected. Miller isn’t trying to surprise, but she does succeed in telling this famous story from a unique perspective. (Honestly, I would read the exact same tale if she wrote it from Hector or Helen’s viewpoint, which speaks, I think, both to the timelessness of the epic and Miller’s talent.)

During Patroclus’s time as a student of Chiron, we see the boy become a man more worthy than any soldier or servant of Greece. Thetis’s unwillingness to see this until after Patroclus’s tragic demise is the saddest aspect of his story. I would be lying if my wish-fulfillment-inclined mind didn’t write a mental fan fiction of Patroclus and Briseis running away together.

That’s the thing about these newly popular retellings. I know how this story ends. I’ve known this since freshman year of high school, and still, I wish it could be different. I’ve always personally marked a novel to be excellent if it makes me so invested that my brain needs to cope by rewriting it. Sounds brutal now that I’ve actually typed it out though.

So, ultimately, I’m an avid fan of Madeline Miller, and I’ll follow her wherever she may lead. The Song of Achilles is a masterful, beautiful novel, and an utterly human experience.