The Song of Achilles

“It’s called The Song of Achilles. It’s not called the wrath of Achilles, which is how Homer starts his story. So the ‘Song’ of Achilles immediately softens him, because what we know of Achilles from Homer is that he’s this big warrior, and he has a foul temper, and he’s incredibly selfish, and he’s very happy to sulk. He’s very childish; he sulks in his tent while people are being massacred because Agamemnon has stolen one of his concubines, Briseis. But it’s back to what I said before, about seeing the story from a different point of view… It’s narrated by Patroclus, Achilles’s great friend and lover. So it’s understandable that Patroclus, as the narrator, would write the Song of Achilles.” Read more...

Novels Based on Mythological Retellings

Francesca Simon, Children's Author

“This is by Madeline Miller who is an American academic. It was her debut novel and it won the Orange Prize. For some reason I came across it when it first came out, before anyone else knew about it, and I absolutely loved it. I really appreciated the deft, spare beauty of the writing and I like the way it came at the story from Patroclus’s point of view. I loved the richness of the language, the descriptions. She really made me feel I was in ancient Greece — the smells, the whole environment.” Read more...

The best books on Greek Myths and Mythology

Lucy Coats, Children's Author

“It is a novelisation of that, told in the first person by Patroclus – which among other things is difficult technically, because Patroclus dies in book 16 but the story goes beyond that. So at a certain point you’re wondering, as a reader, how this guy is talking. Another problem is that the book unbelievably trivialises the spirit of the original. I’ll never forget when, as an undergraduate, a professor whom I greatly admired told me after something silly I had said that “the classics is serious business”. I don’t want to know what Achilles did in bed, frankly. If you want to play with the big boys, fine, but don’t turn The Iliad into a Twilight novel.” Read more...

Updated Classics (of Greek and Roman Literature)

Daniel Mendelsohn, Memoirist