Madeline Miller: The Song of Achilles | Lara
Greece in the age of heroes. Patroclus, an awkward young prince, has been exiled to the court of King Peleus and his perfect son Achilles. By all rights their paths should never cross, but Achilles takes the shamed prince as his friend, and as they grow into young men skilled in the arts of war and medicine their bond blossoms into something deeper - despite the displeasure of Achilles' mother Thetis, a cruel sea goddess. But then word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped. Torn between love and fear for his friend, Patroclus journeys with Achilles to Troy, little knowing that the years that follow will test everything they hold dear.
Profoundly moving and breathtakingly original, this rendering of the epic Trojan War is a dazzling feat of the imagination, a devastating love story, and an almighty battle between gods and kings, peace and glory, immortal fame and the human heart.
“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.”
Do you love Greek mythology? Do you enjoy tragic romance combined with epic battles full of glory and pain? Are you in for a gay, heartbreaking, intense, beautiful story that will rip your heart out, throw it at the floor, step on it and then pour over it the remnants of your trashed soul? Well, then hop in on this ride, because The Song of Achilles might be the right book for you.
I am simply in love with the way Miller transforms the parts of Greek mythology into an intriguing, more approachable and unforgettable book. It’s all there: the good the bad, the ugly and tragic, but it’s so much easier to connect with the characters and get into the plot when it’s enveloped in Miller’s beautiful writing. These characters claimed my heart in the way I never thought any retelling of classical ever mythology could. Miller took the events of one of the oldest tales ever told and turned them into a moving character-centered novel of two boys who dreamed more than the world was willing to give them. This book didn’t just retell Achilles and Patrocles’s lives, it turned a classical and familiar story into a lifelong, heartwarming lesson.
Achilles and Patrocles opened an entirely new dimension for my perspective of characters, of people in general. I drowned myself in their love, their feelings and their flaws, their two perspectives of the war – the ugliness and glory. These two boys have known each other from when they were ten, their love was like a stone – strong and unmovable, yet what tore them apart, in the end, was the war – pride, expectations, and variety of their differing ambitions. Achilles and Patroclus filled my heart and then broke it again, part of me dying when their stories ended.
Miller explores the depths of human emotion, reaching into the core of human flaws and sacrifice. Telling this story from Patroclus' perspective was a. Seeing the other side of war – the one which the ones who don’t seek glory and immortality see, the side of the people that no one wants to talk about – that’s what this is about. Watching their allegiances change with the course of the war, their love fracture under the weight of heroes and gods truly broke my heart.
“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.”
Patroclus truly is the best of the Greeks and Achilles is the love of his life.
“And perhaps it is the greater grief, after all, to be left on earth when another is gone.”
Now excuse me I am going to cry myself to sleep <3
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