A review by conspystery
A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes

adventurous dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

 First: I listened to the audiobook version of A Thousand Ships, performed by the author, and it was absolutely incredible. Her performance adds so much power to the story and perfectly complements its themes about giving voice to the unheard. This book’s task is ambitious-- portraying sides of war that are often overlooked entirely-- but it thoroughly succeeds in its effort. 

The writing of this book is engaging, evoking all the tragedy, sorrow, and grief of war and loss while also emphasizing moments of contrast as they appear. Every emotion the characters experience is relayed in detail through its language and syntax. The book is segmented into chapters by character, and the writing shifts to give distinct, detailed voices to each of the people it explores: the muse Calliope is familiar and playfully casual yet powerful and solemn, Creusa is intelligent and determined with a keen concern for her family, Penelope is dotingly exasperated but evolves into near-spitefulness and doubt, Iphigenia is self-assured and ironically enthusiastic, and so on. The narrative’s framing via the muse is the perfect conduit for exploration of these women’s stories, and the structure of the novel is aided by the thoughtful prose it employs to communicate its pathos. 

I loved the lengths this book goes to in order to give depth to each character and, thus, emphasize its point about war’s endless impact on humanity. Every story was detailed and compelling, each presenting a newly intriguing lens with which to view the contextualizing events of the narrative. The scope of this novel is wide, but the book doesn’t feel stretched thin; rather, it is all-encompassing, and gives each character’s story the space to be told in detail. The result of this is a deeply moving portrait of each of the cast for every chapter, one that fosters connection with and understanding of the emotions, actions, and selves of the characters in all their multifaceted, complex glory. As far as favorites go, I’ll specifically note Oenone, Cassandra (her unexpected kinship with Clytemnestra was fascinating!), and the more general chapters about the women of Troy (I especially loved Hecabe and Helen, in the limited capacity in which she appears), but genuinely, all of the chapters of this book were immensely compelling, and I can’t pick one character who resonated most deeply with me. That’s the point-- all the stories are worth telling, just as all the women are worth consideration.

I’d like to present a defense of this book’s Penelope. Based on the reviews I’ve read, her chapters seem to be the most polarizing; the main argument is that she is too detached from the main narrative of the story, and that her chapters center too heavily around Odysseus to effectively communicate the agency the rest of the women in the novel are afforded in their storytelling. Comparisons arise between this book’s Penelope and that of Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad, which explores the details of Penelope’s life while her husband is absent-- A Thousand Ships, though, offers Penelope’s perspective on her husband’s story as her own narrative, without as much detail afforded to the events of her daily life. I don’t think this takes away from A Thousand Ships’s Penelope, however. I disagree with the assessment that her chapters are detached and boring or too focused on Odysseus. Penelope’s chapters are some of my favorites in this book (to the extent that I could pick favorites!) precisely because of how her relaying of Odysseus’s story communicates her character. It isn’t reductive that Penelope is narratively tied to Odysseus-- he’s important to her, and she’s lost him! Of course she thinks about him, of course she considers herself in relation to him! I think exploring her struggle to come to terms with the stories she hears of him in the thoughtful, personal manner this book does is a commentary on how the mythologizing of Odysseus shapes her as merely a devoted, waiting wife in the Odyssey. 

This book’s Penelope reflects on the layer of stories that have indirectly defined her through her own voice. She examines herself through Odysseus’s story rather than recounting her own with his absence for context, as The Penelopiad does. These two books are not trying to accomplish the same goal. Both have their own merits, but they are very different ones. The Penelopiad emphasizes Penelope’s independence as her own character; A Thousand Ships acknowledges a Penelope who willfully incorporates her relationship with her husband into her identity, while also questioning her role in that relationship. Her dissection of his story doesn’t dilute the fact that it’s her interpretation we’re hearing as she examines herself through it. Not to mention her wit, her exhausted devotion, her balance of hopefulness and grief, giving up on Odysseus but loving him the same, her strength… to write off this Penelope as a mere product of her husband’s mythologizing is to miss the point. It’s why she’s presented this way at all. What can we learn from a Penelope who is aware of how her husband’s story defines her and actively considers her identity in turn? That is the very question A Thousand Ships wishes to answer with its Penelope chapters, and it’s why I love them so much.

Ultimately, A Thousand Ships paints a tragic and powerful picture of the reality of war in its impact on those whose stories are often overlooked. Its portraits of the women it examines are poignant, realistic in flaws and virtues alike, and tragically ironic at times, always multifaceted and brimming with the possibilities for interpretation. This book brings attention to the importance of storytelling in a brutally heartaching manner, and it furthers its own point in how it voices the stories it does. I adored it. 
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