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The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker

113 reviews

gondorgirl's review

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adventurous challenging emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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preciouslittleingenue's review

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

I have very complicated feelings about this book. On the one hand, it is very much a self-proclaimed woman-centered retelling of the horrific realities that everyone glosses over of war in general and ancient war in particular. But on the other hand...it is simply not entirely woman-centered. Because about a third of the book is written from Achilles's point of view. You know. The man who is the abductor and rapist of the main character. I cannot for the life of me fathom why this was done. It left a very sour taste in my mouth when I heard a man introduce himself as one of the audiobook narrators. Because in this story, the way that Pat Barker acts like she intended for it to be, there should be NO men at the center, EVER. Barker literally undermines and undoes her own entire point for writing this novel. And I'm not the only one who thinks this. It boggles the brain.

To add more insult to injury on that front: I didn't write down any specifics, but there were deliberate references to Achilles and Patroclus's story as a romance, and perhaps even a "this is not a romance, it's a horror story" type line. I definitely got the vibe that this and other similar lines were meant to throw shade at The Song of Achilles (published 2012, while TSOTG is published 2018). It was truly almost like Barker read TSOA and had a direct, visceral reaction, which came out in the form of TSOTG. Except...she did the exact same thing that she seems to hold Miller in such contempt for. If Barker hated that Miller made the bloody, horrific, women-torture machine that was the Trojan war into a soft, tragic romance, and by doing so took away from the reality and the tragedy of the women's suffering...then why was Achilles a main character with point of view? Why was Briseis silenced by the author in her own story? Nearly every single detail of plot that Achilles POV provided could have been Briseis. It's incredibly frustrating. Every time it cut away to Achilles, I could not wait to hear more about the women. Especially since this was written after TSOA, there is ENOUGH about his relationship to Patroclus and his grief over losing him. I don't care in the context of a book called The Silence of THE GIRLS. THE GIRLS. If Barker wanted to share with everyone her headcanon that Achilles has mommy issues...put that in another book and don't make me read disturbing passages about it that are used to facilitate rape in a story that's meant to be ABOUT THE GIRLS AND WOMEN.

Don't get me wrong. If Barker had written this as direct shade to TSOA, made all those references about how it's wrong to categorize the Trojan War tales as anything but bloody, rape-filled horror, and kept it woman-centered, I would have nothing to say. I recognize that TSOA, for all its poignant beauty, is man-centered. But the hypocrisy of seemingly wanting to "do better" than that and then literally doing almost the exact same, while claiming you're not...idk man it's a little too much hypocrisy for me. Really really bothers me.

Anyway. Now that that's out of the way, I don't regret reading this. Despite Barker's large misstep, it does shed light on a lot of things we often try not to think about when we think about the Trojan war and war-glory stories in general. The first five or so chapters were really. Hard. To get through. I thought I would have to DNF it, truly. Especially because I was so brainwashed by the gorgeous and soft telling by Miller. But once I got over that and learned what to expect, I was glad I hadn't put it down. Not that it got less horrific. Not at all.

Below the spoiler tabs I have listed the quotes that I absolutely had to write down that just sat like a punch to the gut. The absolute senselessness of war. The complete and utter hubris and idiocy of men, every single one of them. The beautiful enduring power of women, even tortured and/or about to be murdered. The way men literally don't think women are people. Lines that I just otherwise found hauntingly beautiful and poignant.

Chapter 3: “I didn’t feel like anything that might have a name.”

Chapter 5: “[My brothers] belonged neither with the living, nor the dead. Which I felt was also true of me.”

Chapter 5: “I seemed to be living in a bubble. No past, no future, only an endless repetition of now, and now, and now.”

Chapter 17: “Men carve meaning into women’s faces, messages addressed to other men.”

Chapter 18: “Poor Helen; raped on a riverbank when she was only ten. Of course I believed her. It was quite a shock to me later to discover no one else did.”

Chapter 18: Priam being so sweet to Briseis, doing magic tricks with a coin.

Chapter 18: “Looking back, I wonder if my dumpy, plain sister wasn’t slightly in love with Helen. I was probably a little in like with her myself.”

Chapter 34: “But you see the problem, don’t you? How on earth can you feel any pity or concern confronted by this list of intolerably nameless names?” … and the subsequent meetings Briseis had with the women of Troy who’d become slaves, reminiscing about their dead sons, so powerful.

Chapter 39: “A lot of him went onto the fire with Patroclus. Because what isn’t shared ceases to seem quite real. Perhaps ceases even to be real.” The only Achilles POV line I included because it speaks to grief very truthfully. Could have been used by Briseis in the context of losing her family/all of Troy. Because again. Who cares about Achilles and Patroclus in this story.

Chapter 42: “ ‘I do what no man before me has ever done: I kiss the hands of the man who killed my son.’ -- Those words echoed around me as I stood in the storage hut, surrounded on all sides by the wealth Achilles has plundered from burning cities. I thought, and I do what countless women before me have been forced to do. I spread my legs for the man who killed my husband, and my brothers. --That was the lowest point for me.” This was just completely unbelievable and sickening. Literally felt like a gut punch. Men just have no. Idea. Not a single clue.

Chapter 44: “I looked down at my body. I put both hands on my belly and thought how totally this flesh, this intricate mesh of bone and nerve and muscle belonged to me. In spite of Achilles.” YES BITCH. SO POWERFUL. LOVED THIS.

"...listening to a slave sing a Trojan lullaby to her Greek baby. And suddenly I understood something; glimpsed, rather. I don't think I understood it until much later. I thought: we're going to survive. Our songs, our stories. They'll never be able to forget us. Decades after the last man who fought at Troy is dead, their sons will remember the songs their Trojan mothers sang to them. We'll be in their dreams. And in their worst nightmares too." Full body chills. Anything with a "we will survive" sentiment always does that to me. Incredible.

Chapter 47: “ ‘Better to die on Achilles burial mound,’ I heard her say, ‘than live, and be a slave.’ -- Oh, these fierce young women.” I could just cry.

“[Cassandra] was a virgin priestess of Apollo…Incredibly, Agamemnon chose her as his prize. God knows why. Perhaps he felt he hadn’t offended Apollo enough.” Unbelievable. Stupid piece of shit motherfucker.

All that said...if it weren't for the Achilles POV, this could be a solid 4/5 or 4.5/5. But given how uncomfortable it made me and how ineffective and hypocritical it was...the Achilles POV takes it down to a 3. Won't be rereading, won't be purchasing for my shelf. And I feel no need to read either of the two sequels. But I am glad I read it.

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friendly_neighborhood_grandma's review against another edition

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this is very good quality stuff, but too much for me

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risaleel's review

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challenging dark emotional sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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leokennis's review

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adventurous dark hopeful inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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sr_marshrat's review

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challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

Silence of the Girls had the potential to be an enlightening, if depressing, view of the Trojan War from the perspective of women in the Greek camps. Instead, it's overwritten version of the myth we already know. A few chapters from Briseis' perspective (that truly had potential to be engaging on their own, hence the 1 star) and some ham-handed emotional dialogue between Achilles and Patroclus do not make this a more "real" Troy story.

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abbie_eibba's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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yorozuya's review

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mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

My book club chose to read 'The Silence of the Girls' by Pat Barker- which suits me well because I absolutely adore Greek retellings!!!

It's the story of the Trojan War that we all know and have heard many times - but told from the female perspective this time: The Trojan women who were taken as slaves by the Greek.

The prose is overall beautiful and I paused just to admire how the words were arranged several times. There were also some expressions that took me by surprise in the context of this narrative, though perhaps the author wanted to show the coarser side of our more romanticised view on Ancient Greece.

Towards the middle/end, the book shifted to the male perspective a bit too much for my liking. I loved the insight into Achilles's mind (don't I always) and how the same scene could look from both his and Briseis's (the main narrator) point of view but despite the book's title I don't want these women's voices to be silenced.

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chloj_'s review against another edition

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challenging emotional inspiring medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

review:

first things first: i love a greek mythology retelling, and this did not disappoint. however, this is something a lot more than simply a mythology retelling. this is such an amazing reflection of womanhood. barker does such a beautiful job of relaying the female experience, with all it’s varying emotions and complexities. depictions of war are typically male dominated; blood, gore and war is so often synonymous for masculinity. while her portrayal of masculinity is complex and very well-written (particularly that of achilles), the raw vulnerability of the story’s women is breathtaking to behold. it was powerful, incredibly moving, and truly (in my opinion) a modern masterpiece.

!!spoilers ahead!!

‘his idea of female beauty was a woman so fat if you slapped her backside in the morning she'd still be jiggling when you got back home for dinner.’ damn me too
‘she could’ve been kind to me and she wasn’t; she could’ve helped me find my feet and she didn’t.’
‘when i got to the door i paused with my hand on the latch and looked back, but she’d already turned away’
the main character’s relationship with femininity is so cleverly written- both her relationship with other women, and with her own femaleness
‘but the dying man, his face wiped clean of pain, cradled his spilling intestines as gently as a mother nurses her newborn child.’
‘“it’ll be alright,” i said, knowing it wouldn’t.’
‘he fucked as quickly as he killed, and for me it was the same thing. something in me died that night.’
the emotions in this book are soooo beautiful done
‘the bed was cold.’ this one sentence is so incredibly powerful
‘no girl ever dressed more carefully for her wedding than achilles for the battlefield’
‘as long as i lived and remembered, [my brothers] weren’t really dead.’
the relationship between briseis and iphis is SO special- it is born entirely from shared tragedy and the kindness only women can share with each other.
that depiction of wasteland at the end of 46/start of 47 is SUCH a beautiful depiction of the waste of female beauty (both physical and mental) at the hands of men
‘the world began to close in around me, and i realised that the songs belonged to my brothers and not me’
‘i always remember that she wept for me when i couldn’t weep for myself’
the list format of the people Achilles killed / how they died is SO good- it really displays how the repeated trauma and war has made tragedy something clinical.
‘before leaving, he always bent down and kissed him in the mouth, though the lips had darkened and begun to retract.’
‘Why him? Why not me? He asks the questions over and over, as if one day they might have a different answer, and the burden of guilt be lifted at last.’
achilles grief is written so beautifully
‘and i do what countless women before me had been forced to. i spread my legs for the man who killed my husband and brothers.’
‘now my own story can begin’

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megamusic14's review

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challenging dark emotional sad slow-paced

3.25

I’m general, there were parts of this book that weren’t my cup of tea. And this author’s style isn’t my favorite. However, I was overcome by the message the book portrays. Women having no voice in their story and what that looks like. A very heavy story showing vivid descriptions of what war can look like.

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