We will tell you about the book of the American writer Madeleine Miller "Song of Achilles". This is Homer's Iliad, narrated on behalf of Patroclus, a timid and nondescript hero who became Achilles' best friend and companion. Let us tell why Miller's novel is a successful example of comprehending a long-known plot and, at the same time, a sad novel about youth and love.
Madeline Miller was born in Boston and grew up in New York City and Philadelphia. She attended Brown University, where she earned her BA and MA in Classics. For the last ten years she has been teaching and tutoring Latin, Greek and Shakespeare to high school students. The Song of Achilles is her first novel.
Deciding once again to retell the plot, the age of which is counted in millennia, the author always takes risks. In order to keep the attention of the reader, who knows in advance how everything will end, he has to go to all sorts of tricks and tricks: add lines and characters, boldly shift accents, transfer the action to other eras or change the ending in a cheating way at the last moment. However, most often the result does not justify the effort expended, and most of the remakes, with their fussy ingenuity, only set off the high simplicity of the original.
Songs of Achilles by Madeleine Miller, a goodly ingenuous and traditional book, happily avoids these dangers and pitfalls. In strict accordance with the original source, the son of King Peleus and the sea goddess Thetis, the greatest hero of his generation, Achilles, will sail here under the walls of Troy to recapture the beautiful Helen. In due time he will quarrel with the leader of the Greek army Agamemnon and withdraw from the battles; will lose his companion Patroclus, who nevertheless decided to join the battle and dressed for this in the armor of a friend; will return to the battlefield to take revenge on the murderer of Patroclus - the Trojan prince Hector, and in turn will die from an arrow shot by Paris - the culprit of the Trojan War and the kidnapper of Helena. In short, no liberties. Even having made Patroclus and Achilles not just friends, but lovers, Miller does not deviate too far from the canon: since the time of Plato, this version was considered completely legitimate, and in general, nothing in the structure of the ancient Greek society contradicts it.
However, one should not think that Song of Achilles is just another reworking of an eternal myth, this time with actual elements of gay drama - nothing of the kind. Formally keeping the usual narrative outline, Madeleine Miller fills the meager plot outline with textures and colors to her liking. As a result, in those places where Homer and almost all later interpreters have a lush epic pathos blooming brightly, she has an aching tenderness. The story "about exploits, about valor, about glory" in its interpretation turns into a story of radiant and doomed love of two souls, two bodies, two young creatures, created for each other in this world and in any of the following.
Patroclus (it is he who plays the role of the narrator in the novel) is an unnamed exile, a beggar, ugly and awkward: during a quarrel, he accidentally killed a peer, after which he was forced to flee his hometown and seek refuge at the court of King Peleus. Achilles is a golden-haired and green-eyed handsome man, the beloved son of a royal father and immortal mother, a born warrior and an object of timid adoration of numerous courtiers. They are not equal by any standards, the mother of Achilles opposes their friendship, and nevertheless, it is Patroclus that Achilles chooses as a companion, and then as a lover, and this connection becomes the main one in their short life. Trying to break the bonds that held them together, Thetis sends Achilles to the mountains, to the wise centaur Chiron, from whom the boy must learn the arts and sciences. But contrary to the direct prohibition, Patroclus follows him, and Chiron becomes a mentor for both of them. Patroclus goes after a friend to the island of Skyros, where his mother hides Achilles from the war, and further - under the walls of Troy, where Achilles is attracted by the curse imposed on him at birth: in order for his name to survive through the centuries, Achilles must perform great deeds in the greatest of wars, cover yourself with unfading glory and die young.
In essence, it is Patroclus' love for Achilles - quiet, stubborn, changeable and at the same time unconditional - that constitutes the true substantive frame of the novel. From the initial alertness (Patroclus himself does not understand why Achilles chose him as his companion), she mutates into gratitude and friendship, blossoms into a flower of all-consuming love, is filled with a happy young corporeality. Love grows up along with its bearer, and little by little new features emerge in it: the ability to accept and forgive (Patroclus will not easily be given the transformation of Achilles from a trusting young man into a killing machine full of indomitable ambition), a conscious and bitter readiness to share his fate with his beloved, whatever was not.
These stages, in general, are universal for any relationship that we call "successful", but it is, of course, impossible to mechanically replace a man with a woman in The Song of Achilles - not only due to plot logic, but also for conceptual reasons. With amazing delicacy and, at the same time, the utmost reliability, Madeleine Miller recreates all the nuances of a homosexual feeling, fluid and complex, containing cheerful companionship, and physical attraction, and rivalry, and acceptance, and fusion.
Remaining faithful to the spirit and letter of Homer's narrative, Miller, nevertheless, gently shifts the focus from the outside to the inside - on the characters' maturation and the maturation of their love. This cross-cutting plot, carefully embedded in the core of the ancient myth, is her way of pouring new wine into old wineskins, while avoiding both boring predictability and humiliating attempts to "entertain the reader." Thus, the touching and endlessly sad story of two boys, Achilles and Patroclus, as interpreted by Madeleine Miller, becomes like a precious crystal in the shining frame of the immortal Homeric tradition.
This article was sponsored by Haider Saeed
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