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A review by cass_lit
The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker
Did not finish book. Stopped at 14%.
From the start, something about the writing didn’t gel with me. I loved A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes so I thought I’d love this too. I did not get used to the writing style — it’s blunt and so direct, which is so opposite of typical mythology storytelling. As we’re talking from a Trojan woman’s perspective, obviously terrible things are happening to her. Barker’s way of telling these things though was not at all for me; I can absolutely tell she writes a lot of war stories though.
The final nail in the coffin for a DNF was a description of Achilles raping Briseis. It was a weird way of writing rape or sex — too descriptive, but not in a “steamy” way. And we got a weird emotional, vulnerable description of Achilles during it. I get he didn’t want to be there, but he’s not weeping over it. And Patroclus is still alive, so that’s not what he’s babying about. Which leads me to my next issue: from my memory of the original story, this was not at all the relationship between them at this point. Also, Briseis keeps saying that the city has fallen and the war is over… but Patroclus is still alive and she’s been taken? Nothing makes sense to the characters we know. I am not a purist to original text in a retelling by any means, and I will always lean towards being sympathetic to the Trojans over the Greeks because the Aeneid was my heaviest introduction to the Trojan War (even in The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller, which I also loved!!! See, I SHOULD have loved this book!!!!). I want stories that tell the women’s lives in this battle. However, I told myself I wouldn’t read books I wasn’t enjoying this year… and I was finding my heart rate rising and involuntary eye rolls at this already only 15% in, so it had to be done. 🥴
The final nail in the coffin for a DNF was a description of Achilles raping Briseis. It was a weird way of writing rape or sex — too descriptive, but not in a “steamy” way. And we got a weird emotional, vulnerable description of Achilles during it. I get he didn’t want to be there, but he’s not weeping over it. And Patroclus is still alive, so that’s not what he’s babying about. Which leads me to my next issue: from my memory of the original story, this was not at all the relationship between them at this point. Also, Briseis keeps saying that the city has fallen and the war is over… but Patroclus is still alive and she’s been taken? Nothing makes sense to the characters we know. I am not a purist to original text in a retelling by any means, and I will always lean towards being sympathetic to the Trojans over the Greeks because the Aeneid was my heaviest introduction to the Trojan War (even in The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller, which I also loved!!! See, I SHOULD have loved this book!!!!). I want stories that tell the women’s lives in this battle. However, I told myself I wouldn’t read books I wasn’t enjoying this year… and I was finding my heart rate rising and involuntary eye rolls at this already only 15% in, so it had to be done. 🥴
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, War, Blood, and Rape