Review: The Song of Achilles

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

On the one hand, this is a gorgeously written adaptation of The Iliad. We get the story from the perspective of Patroclus, and that means the homosexual love between him and Achilles gets more attention than it otherwise might. And, in Miller’s hands, it’s a moving love, two people who discover, explore, and eventually defend their right to be a single couple.

On the other hand, this is so dependent upon a familiarity with the Iliad that it has elements of fan fiction to it. We’ll get an early scene, for instance the one where we first meet Achilles as a child prodigy, and we’ll know to assign it extra weight because it so clearly references the familiar story. Or we’ll get a list of characters we have yet to get to know – Ajax, Odysseus, or Menelaus – and it will make sense only because we know from other sources how important they’ll be. That’s part of what it means to write classical/historical fiction, but I point it out as a rare frustration I had with the book: part of the time it seems to be promising a new look at a story we think we know, wrapping us in a narrative with the feeling that it might go anywhere, and part of the time it does the opposite and pushes us to see the contrast between this version and others that came before it.

There are a couple other issues as well. While the opening chapters move with real energy, the middle bogs down some. Miller has real skill in detail – she lets us see the lyres they play and the swords they swing – but that gets in the way of moving the narrative forward once the boys become familiar with their world. And, as most readers likely know, Patroclus dies before the real climax, making him an awkward narrator. Miller eventually solves that with a stunning invention – [SPOILER] she proposes that Patroclus’s spirit cannot rest until his name is inscribed on the monument where his and Achilles’s ashes are buried – but the lead-up to that drags a little as the suddenly dead narrator keeps on talking.

I’ve foregrounded those criticisms, but I don’t want them to overshadow the basic fact of the beauty of the prose here. Borrowing from Homer himself, Miller shows a gift for grand simile, comparing one or another facet to something vast and beautiful. That’s part of what makes the opening chapters the strongest here, discovering her voice and getting a fresh glimpse at a world that’s existed so long as classical “fact.”

So, I do recommend this, and I do applaud what Miller has done. Be prepared for things to slow down in parts, but that seems a small price to pay for giving a fresh aspect to something so ancient.


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