The Song of Achilles- Madeleine Miller

Madeleine Miller’s The Song of Achilles  is a glorious reworking of the classical epic poem, The Iliad, told from the point of view of Achilles’ boyhood companion and lover Patroclus. An exiled Prince living at the court of King Peleus, Patroclus meets a fascinating, beautiful young boy who, according to prophecy, will be the best warrior of all the Greeks. As they grow older a loving and deeply erotic bond develops between the two boys. When Achilles is summoned to lead his people to battle in the Trojan war, the two young men are drawn closer to a harrowing and violent fate; because Achilles will die in this war, and for Patroclus, there is no life without Achilles.

Madeleine Miller spent ten years writing The Song of Achilles, which just a few weeks ago, won the 2012 Orange Prize for Fiction. The novel is beautifully written, full of vivid, sensual detail – fresh figs, darkened honey and olive trees – which convincingly evokes Homeric Greece and retains the song-like quality of the Iliad. 

The real achievement in this novel, however, is that the story of Patroclus is drawn in from the margins of literature and history, and brought to the fore. In Homer’s Iliad, Patroclus is something of a mystery. An enraged Achilles refuses to fight, smarting from an insult to his pride. Patroclus dresses up in Achilles’ armour and is killed by the Trojan Prince Hector. Blinded by rage and grief at the death of his companion, Achilles hunts down Hector and brutally kills him. What Miller asks in this novel is, who was this incredible man who meant so very much to Achilles?

The story of Patroclus is, in places, heart-wrenchingly sad. With a horror of violence and war, he is never destined to be a hero. As a boy he is lonely and isolated, always on the outside of a culture which favours herculean strength and martial prowess, and a continual disappointment to his father. And then he meets Achilles, who finds his kind, gentle nature surprising. For the first time, Patroclus is loved. However, threatened by barbarity, cruelty, greed and corruption, Patroclus must fight for his place beside Achilles. And there are some, like Achilles’ cruel water-nympth mother, who would rather keep the two men apart.

Scholarship has shown some evidence of a homoerotic relationship between Achilles and Patroclus, but in popular culture such theories are rejected in favour of chiselled, über-macho representations of the famed warrior and poxy teenage Patrocluses (I'm thinking of the 2004 film Troy here). Miller, however, crafts a powerful and touching image of the relationship between the two men, setting it against the backdrop of a violent and devastating war. Patroclus and Achilles’ story is one of sadness and sacrifice, but also one which affirms the beauty and tenderness of human love.

The Song of Achilles was an absolute joy to read. As I drew closer and closer to the novel’s conclusion, I was filled with hopefulness, desperation and sympathy. Miller has the ability to really move the reader and her characters are so very human. A wonderful, wonderful book.

Madeleine Miller's The Song of Achilles is published by Bloomsbury.

Bring Up the Bodies- Hilary Mantel

I confess, in the days leading up to the publication of this sequel to the 2009 Man Booker Prize Winner Wolf Hall, I thought of little else. Why? Because Wolf Hall was a spectacular novel; so accomplished and so unusual, I have read little else like it. It was a feast of a book. Scattered throughout with glancing references to a particular religious writing or a particular kind of cloth, Hilary Mantel deftly weaves together the fabric of her novel, building a vivid, convincing image of Tudor England. Unlike other historical novelists, who tend towards biography and explain away every detail, Mantel keeps herself hidden, simply placing her reader within the consciousness of Thomas Cromwell. The result is complete immersion.

At the end of Wolf Hall, Cromwell had seen the fall of his old master, Cardinal Wolsey and the and the rise of the sharp, glittering Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII’s second wife. In Bring Up The Bodies, England is in a dangerous position, forced into isolation from the rest of Europe following the break with Rome. At court, rumours build, as Anne fails to bear Henry an heir to secure the Tudor line. Thomas Cromwell, who since Wolf Hall has risen in the world and is now the Chief Minister for Henry, must find a way for the king to break with Anne and marry the newest object of his desires; the meek and mild Jane Seymour. To do so, Cromwell must reshape the truth in order to incriminate the queen. The result is a novel which is more frightening and disconcerting than Wolf Hall.

One of Mantel’s great accomplishments is her characterisation of Cromwell. A famously nasty and Machiavellian figure, Cromwell is often portrayed as a villainous, two-dimensional character in popular culture. Mantel’s Cromwell is wholly human. Woven throughout with Cromwell’s memories of his time serving as a mercenary in France or being beaten to a pulp by his blacksmith father, the narrative offers glimpses of the shadowy beginnings which shaped Cromwell’s character. The beauty in Mantel’s characterisation, however, lies in the gaps, the things that we aren’t told. We see Cromwell’s extraordinary mind at work as he wins a game of chess, provokes men into accidentally confessing their darkest secrets and shapes accusations of treason and adultery out of facts that may or may not be true, but we don’t know how he came to be capable of these things. A little light is shed on Cromwell’s past, but the rest remains concealed. It is this which really draws the reader. But Mantel’s Cromwell, for all of his ruthlessness, is also portrayed as a kind man, and a man who feels. The scenes in which he remembers his dead children, or visits the dying Katharine of Aragon are often heart-wrenching and profoundly moving.

The mercurial, ambiguous nature of Mantel’s writing similarly pervades her handling of Anne’s sharp fall from favour.  She manages to create a very real sense that Cromwell and the novel’s characters, have no idea of what is about to unfold. This, for historical fiction which often tells its stories backwards, from the vantage point of the present day, is a real achievement. Additionally, she captures the tenuous nature of the accusations brought before Anne Boleyn. In a recent article for the Guardian, Mantel wrote that it is unknown whether Anne had lovers or not. Indeed, the evidence used to incriminate the queen was mystifyingly insubstantial. In Bring Up the Bodies Anne appears guilty and not guilty, and whilst Cromwell may have an underlying sense of her innocence, he must secure her death in order to satisfy the king. As such, Bring Up the Bodies ends with the chilling executions of the queen and her alleged lovers. The twisted, decapitated corpses, loaded onto a cart to be disposed of, leave the reader with a shocking sense of the measures that must be taken to satisfy the will of the king. In this respect, Bring Up the Bodies is a terrifying novel.

At the end of Bring Up the Bodies, it is clear that Cromwell’s sense of self has been fractured by the lengths he has gone to to ensure the death of a queen. In reshaping and manipulating the truth, something has shifted, and Cromwell becomes aware that he is moving closer to his own demise. One day he will be one of the bodies that must be trampled so that a king can have his way.

Bring Up the Bodies is a stunning novel, gleaming with brilliance. Beautifully dark and profoundly moving, this is a book that really gets under your skin. Astonishingly good.

Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies are both published by Fourth Estate.

"I write this sitting in the kitchen sink..."

Hello,
Like my lovely friend Molly I have decided to begin a book blog, diary, journal or whatever one may call it, to record (...and to a certain extent contain) my obsessive literary musings. I hope to get some sort of review up here very shortly!
Lots of love,
Elizabeth