By page 8, when Patroclus is 5 years old and watching Achilles run around in races and wondering what this strange feeling he has for this kid and attributes it to envy, I'm like
"Thought i was buying a new conception of a Homeric myth. Instead I found myself muddling through a homoerotic romance novel about a weakling, a "jock" and an overbearing mother. "
"However, I stopped reading the novel when I was about 30% of the way through. By this time it became clear that the author was going to make the romance between Patroclus and Achilles the centerpiece of the book. "
Achilles and Patroclus's love for each other was one of the cruxes of the whole thing from the word go like I'm not as familiar with the Iliad as I could be but
1 star - "I got about 1/3 of the way through this before giving up on it. I expected a modern retelling of the story of Achilles leading into the Torjan war. I guess there's some of that, but it's definitely far background to a very contrived romance plot."
Literally the myth has Achilles hidden away as a girl and people are upset about that too when Patroclus is like I AM THE HUSBAND I'M COMING TO CLAIM ACHILLES
1 star - "Not my cup of tea. I thought this was a just modern retelling of the Trojan War. Wasn’t expecting just a homosexual romance novel. I wish the reviews when I initially purchased the book had mentioned it.
The rest of the review is a long-winded "I swear I'm not homophobic, here are all the reasons why I didn't like this book that have nothing to do whatsoever with the romance at the center of it" and it goes on for five paragraphs
i'd be interested to hear people explain their reading of the original Achilles' story like what was going on other than the ankle thing? do you actually remember?
1 star "Had no clue the book was about them being gay. Was really looking forward to them becoming warriors and developing as adults, but didn't even get that far. No thanks. "
1 star - "It was well written, but I did not care for the type of love story portrayed between Patroclus and Achilles. Interesting version of this story, but just not for me. "
"The head to the water to swim and defunk and then basically continue this for a good while until finally the call to return home. At this point, I am certain the book is dead on headon homoerotism and no where near what I thought. I am not certain how I got this far.
I am some what scarred and hope to at least better inform others of exactly where this is going. SO if underage homoeroticism then this is for you. First book in nearly 550 I will actually return"
"Amazon recommended this book based on my reading history which includes primarily history, science fiction, economics, and fantasy. A retelling of the Iliad sounded right up my alley. Not so.
This is a story of two boys, one privileged the other an outcast, kindling a homosexual relationship. The setting just happens to be ancient Greece but could just have easily been New York's upper east side."
so funny story, Madeline Miller wrote this while she was in school literally for the classics, and she was SICK with nerves and anxiety when she decided to approach her Homeric studies professor and admit she had written the Iliad with Achilles and Patroclus in a relationship
I mean, it's been a while since I read the Illiad, but I know Helen was not connected to Achilles at all (involved in a whole Troy/Greek kerfuffle with Paris + the gods and a whole bunch of stuff).... AND also that Achilles was pouty in his tent and only cared about Patroculus, and only came OUT of his tent when Patroculus died.
so much of history has been straightwashed and it results in exactly this - part of the general audience being disgusted to hear the actual details of history and who then consciously try to rewrite it further
I also learned the reason she's so good at writing the gay male perspective here is because she grew up near a bookstore named for James Baldwin that only sold gay memoirs and fiction, and she read through the entire gay memoir section
I think you can just feel the respect Miller has for both the text and the voices she's representing, and to have people read it and take away "ew, gays" is just. a lot in TYOL 2021
i've read the Illiad way more times than I ever wanted to (the pains of TAing for a fuck load of undergrad intro classes) and read it in the original Greek. Can confirm it is 1/2 Achilles sulking in his tent because Agamemnon insulted him by taking his shit, 1/2 Achilles rage-slaughtering a bunch of people because his boyfriend was killed.
(Patroclus was the older, and so by Greek cultural standards would have been assumed to be the top, but also Achilles is Achilles, so maybe he topped. -actual ancient Greek logic)
But I remember being curious why Jewish scholars today were way more tolerant than their Christian counterparts when it came to that whole "man should not lie with another man" stuff in Leviticus, considering it's. From the Torah
I don't know where I read it, but a more modern interpretation was like "Hey, consider the time that the Jews were writing this, and how they were written in Greek where they would have been against what we think of as pedophilia" Bit of a loose interpretation (because it says men and not boys) but it did make me go "Huh. Maybe the context DOES matter."
also debating the actual meaning of what the Torah said is a time honored Jewish tradition. I just today found out that my grandfather was renowned for debating the rabbi during Torah reading
Oh no. 1 star - "From the reviews I thought I was buying a book about ancient Greece and the gods instead I got a homoerotic tale of two men, or I should say boys, in detail. "
"I guess this is Miller’s spin on the Iliad because there was no reference of sexual love in that. The two main characters were always close friends not lovers. "
"If you’ve never read anything by Homer and never want to, you may possibly like this book. However, if you have any respect for Homer you will have no respect for this novel. The author clearly displays a lack of knowledge when it comes to Homer’s characters,
and doesn’t seem to really care about displaying any sort of accuracy when it comes to the original story. I don’t know if i’ve ever read a worse book. "
in the course of tracking down the screenshot I did discover an apparently earnest if not particularly productive blog billing itself as "Video Games From a Christian Perspective" complaining about how Assassins Creed is anti-Christian, so don't be too comforted
I've wrote stuff ages ago in my PhD days about why attitudes towards homosexuality changed. The short version is that in both Greek and Roman sexual paradigms, when two men had sex, one inevitably lost masculinity (the partner perceived as the passive/penetrated partner) but also the social structure had specific rules for who needed to maintain masculinity
and who didn't. As the culture shifted in late Rome, those social rules changed and there was no longer a sense of it being tolerable for some men to weaken their masculinity.
"Now to my real complaint: why oh why do some authors think they have to use erotica in a novel like this? I would have suffered through the remainder had it not been for this. Now I'm deleting it from my Kindle.
Now, don't get me wrong, I am by no means a prude. Erotica is great. I love it. But not in a book like The Song of Achilles. Above I mentioned that I kept thinking...
page 94 feels like I'm reading a passage from an adult magazine. I mean, Why? There's a palace full of servant girls they can have anytime they want, but Patroclus tells his father, King Peleus, "not tonight, I'm tired". Really? Please someone tell me, in the Iliad, did they become lovers like this?"
"It wouldn't even be a bad perspective to take if it was a subplot to the larger re-telling of the Trojan War, but it isn't. Instead it's some sort of terrible concoction: the Iliad meets Twilight meets Brokeback Mountain."
ok I found a review from someone who reads a ton of m/m romance novels, and they said: I wished for more explicit sex. The closed door and the euphemistic sex was disappointing.
...."I don't remember any explicit sex scenes".... Suddenly I am whisked back to late-90s/early-00s era internet, where ANY gay/slash content, no matter how mild, got slapped with content warnings and everything. :/ (and even "IF" all proper tags/warnings were on there, people still complained [sigh] -.-)
There's a part in the book where Patroclus looks at the servant girls and comments on how dull their eyes are when they're being molested and how he doesn't want that
"Miller writes like an inept high school freshman, with the knowledge of men of a 10 year old girl. I kept reading until almost page 100 because it was so ludicrously amusing. I gave up and Googled Miller and discovered she took 10 years to write this book. It just keeps getting more and more amusing "
yeah, now that I have external validation behind me, I'll just say that the focus of the book is entirely about Patroclus's inner feelings toward Achilles
" I stopped reading this novel when it deviated in homosexuality! I was very disappointed in the happenings. I have values that were not reflected in this. "
because it's obviously not "erotica", there's no explicit sex, LOL. but they aren't often forced to confront the slow build of someone growing into a crush on their same-sex best friend
"Wish I could get my money back? This book disappointed me as it was a gay love story. I didn't even finish it. Achilles was always a historically interesting figure to me that is now blighted. "
how involved are the gods in the book because i also love when people pull the THIS IS HISTORICALLY INACCURATE card but also there's straight up magic happening
I have never read the Iliad, and I thought it might be fun to delve into a modern treatment of the story.WELL GUESS WHAT. YOU ARE.I wished for more explicit sex. The closed door and the euphemistic sex was disappointing.