Reviews with content warning for Transphobia - The Song of Achilles

Reviews tagging 'Transphobia'

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

47 reviews

onefineelephant's review against another edition

adventurous emotional reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.0

8/10. Pretty gay. I know the story of Achilles pretty well which made all of the foreshadowing lines very nice. I didn't know how involved Thetis was in the story. I liked how Achilles, who could be easily seen as arrogant and haughty, was portrayed as a rounded person from Patroclus' point of view. Overall, I liked it but I wouldn't say it's an instant favorite.

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ghostboi's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

3.75

It took me a long time to finish this book, because while I enjoyed the writing style and the two main character's journey, the amount of transphobic throwaway lines were too much for me.
I definitely started to enjoyed it more in the last third; was constantly on edge about whether or not I would have to read about detailed sexual assault instances. Luckily that wasn't the case, it does get mentioned a fair amount though.
I understand it's based on historical figures, I guess it just wasn't for me.
The ending was really soul wrenching and I shed a tear or two.
I'm glad I powered through and have gotten to experience the ending of this book.

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nicole_schmid's review against another edition

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emotional informative sad medium-paced

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

4.5

[read in the German translation by Michael Windgassen]
As I feel like this myth is sufficiently common knowledge, I will not use the spoiler tags, so if you do not know the myth, proceed with caution.

This was a very interesting read, though off to a bit of a slow start. The story offered background information and cultural details which deepen your understanding of the actual myth, such as the fact that the theft of the slave which causes Achilles to stop fighting alongside the Greeks actually was a grave insult to his personal honour. It also put (at least my understanding of) the myth into a different light by not Patroklos not being an accomplished fighter in his own right. I always pictured him as being a slightly weaker fighter than Achilles, thus enabling him to impersonate him without anyone noticing. The twist that

Patroklos could not fight at all and only managed to accomplish his feats because of divine intervention

was surprising, but welcome, even though I definitely understand some readers being disappointed - the story is not a good power fantasy anymore.

I was a bit disappointed by the ending, however. Before you ask, yes, it did make me cry, that's not the problem. During whole sections about the Trojan War, Agamemnon and (to a lesser degree) Odysseus and Diomedes are made out to be the antagonists. Agamemnon kills - sorry, sacrifices - his daughter, using marriage to Achilles (who is unaware of the duplicity) as the pretense to lure her to the altar he kills her on. During the war, he uses every available chance to slight Achilles in some way. He refuses to return his own slave Chryseis, a priestess, to her father even though every rule of Greek culture literally tells him to do it, which in turn brings a deadly illness/an irate Apollo shooting deadly arrows to the Greek armies. Achilles, with the help of his godly mother, manages to avert the crisis by returning Chryseis to her father. In turn, Agamemnon takes his slave Briseis, which apparently is a grave insult to him and against basically every rule of conduct. Of course, Achilles would then stop fighting for a man who slighted him like this.

It is true that both Achilles and Patroklos are, after their deaths, insulted and separated by Achilles' son and he is made into an antagonist by that. That's why we learn that he died as a result of his greed and hubris - his "karmic" punishment. But if Miller had the time to explain Phyrros' end, why did she not mention Agamemnon's death? (His wife and her lover kill him in revenge for him killing his daughter.) It would have punished the main antagonist of the whole novel, if I might call him that, and would have been more fitting than Phyrros' story, I think.

I missed Achilles' invulnerability, leaving only the Achilles heel as his weakness. But I actually have no idea if this is in the Iliad or originates from some other myth, so maybe it actually is accurate.

Something else that could be criticised, but that I actually appreciate, is that Achilles and Patroklos have been turned into completely 100 % gays who therefore did not systematically rape and abuse female war slaves (= innocent farmers' wives and daughters who had the misfortune of living in villages too close to Troy) like all the other Greeks nor come into any situation where they might be forced to participate in other similarly sexist, but normal and commonplace practices which we today would call (war) crimes. I also liked that Miller pointed out the inherent sexism and misogyny of Ancient Greece and how no woman at all was safe from sexual violence, not even goddesses (see: Thetis).

Over all, I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in Greek mythology or knowing more about Ancient Greece. It offers a believable glimpse into the past (with the odd interference of gods) while providing background information dearly needed to actually understand what is happening. The myth is told with enough twists to the original that it does not simply copy the original into a different POV and modern language and so that it stands on its own feet.

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