Reviews with content warning for Grief - La canzone di Achille

The song of Achilles, that poetic and almost perfect modern retelling of the Illiad; one about war and tragedy, but also about love and its evolution, about legacy and ambition, and also about memory: "We cannot say who will survive the holocaust of memory. We are men only, a brief flare of the torch".

What this book does best is to get you closer to its characters, to make you really love them, and want them to be happy. Even the author seems like it when she talks about them, how she "wanted my Achilles to both find tremendous happiness but also have big regrets". You see this two boys grow up together, fall in love and then be faced with a terrible decision being really so young "This incredible tragedy of being so young, you know Achilles is really so young, when he is asked to make that choice, and he is so young when he goes to war, and just letting the pathos of someone who's asked to make a choice, an impossible choice, too young and then has to live with that choice".

Achilles is not perfect, and lets this word of misogynistic heroes shape him into something that he is not, as Miller said, "I wanted it to feel like a poison that's seaping into his life". When faced between tranquility and fame, he chooses fame; and when faced between love and pride, he chooses pride. Patroclus can only see him destroy himself "I am no longer to guide the course, merely to be carried, into darkness and beyond, with only Achilles' hands at the helm".

Patroclus is the best person in the whole story, for Miller "It was always Patroclus right from the beginning", how they met and fell in love. This novel was written for us to fall in love with him, and to grieve with him once tragedy befalls. We see how unnecessary was to become cruel to be respected, how fame did not have to take a life (or two) to achieve. Through him we see "How ordinary people, even though they feel like they have no power in this larger grand world, they can still make really important choices to try and make the world a better place". He was not a fighter and love made him become one, love not only for Achilles but for his people, for the Greeks. There's controversy of wether Patroclus could or could not fight, but really, that's besides the point. The point relies in his kindness, that in being the most gentle, he was really the best of the Greeks.

Miller worked from the question of how this relationship, so strong already in war, developed. In no moment it felt out of place, even the way its written feels like a poem, if not an epic one, one about people, and love. Miller took Homer's world as her world, and Achilles became the sun, "spring, golden and bright. Envious Death would drink his blood, and grow young again". The day he died, he'd find out why "it is the greater grief, after all, to be left on earth, when another one is gone", the sun would turn cold and so would he.

They were going to be the first, and were ruined. They'd get reunited, finally, but loose a whole life they could have shared. Taken from this world as the adults they did not quite feel. Forced to follow a pathos they were too young to understand. But "The thread will run smooth, wether you choose it or not" and so it did.

The song of Achilles reminds us of what is most precious in this life, and has left a legacy of broken-hearted people; one touched by the same old stories that touched generations and generations before them. It's the best way to get started in Greek mythology, one that will tell you about the best of Greeks, one that could have "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."

Content Warnings

marsxbarz's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional medium-paced

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

4.5

The love between the two is incredible and reading as they grow and change kept my interest. There are slow points in the book but enough interesting plots that will keep you intrigued

Content Warnings

17nhammad's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Beautifully and succinctly written, it humanizes the characters we all know and love from mythology and provides interesting insight into ancient Greek culture. Beware that you will bawl your eyes out.

Content Warnings

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