A review by ed_moore
A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes

emotional informative medium-paced

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

4.0

Haynes’ ‘A Thousand Ships’ tells the story of the Trojan War from the perspective of the women involved but often pushed into the shadows by the speed of Achilles or bravery of Hector. It grants around thirty of these mythological figures a voice, from justifying the likes of Clytemnestra, illuminating the silenced Iphigenia and Polyxena, and vocalising figures that have been completely ignored by mainstream mythology such as Themis, the first wife of Paris: Oenone and the wife of Protesilaus: Laodamia, these stories being ones I was completely unaware of beforehand. 

 

The highlights were the chapters voiced by the muse Calliope and Penelope. In writing letters to Odysseus across his long journey home she gradually becomes more frustrated by his need to always be the hero and go on one more adventure, not thinking at all about her. It was such an understandable perspective which is completely silenced by Homer until Odysseus finally returns to Ithaca and her emotions in such are so honest yet also humorous. I lobed the voice of Calliope, which parodied the epic tradition to summon the muse but she is so tired of the constant summoning to men who want to sing of the many men they have killed and cities they have sacked. She is so unbothered by it all which is wonderful, yet also serves the role of ensuring the female stories are told, highlighting the frontal idea of ‘A Thousand Ships’ that the real heroes and victims of the Trojan War were the women, for they too lived through it with no credit, kept fighting as widows to husbands that abandoned them or died, and also suffered the price of surviving. The men died heroic deaths and were remembered by history and the women of Troy continued to suffer enslaved. 

 

That being said, whilst the structure was commendable for covering so many voices, it was very fragmentary which wasn’t helped by the fact the stories were not placed chronologically. Hence, I therefore found it very easy to put down the book at the end of a perspective and therefore took longer on it than it’d typically take me to read such a book. Also naturally, with so many perspectives, there were the strengths of Penelope and Calliope but many were quite weak narrative voices that didn’t offer much in regards to am interesting writing style.