The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker

I've had a lovely run of Homeric stories retold from a feminist perspective this year - Madeline Miller's Circe and The Song of Achilles, and now Pat Barker's The Silence of the Girls.

After Miller's wonderful, rich storytelling, I was looking forward to seeing what Barker would come up. I was thrilled that her story was going to be told from Briseis' point of view, as I enjoyed the brief glimpse that Miller gave me into a possible story for her in The Song of Achilles.

Briseis, the wife of the King of Lyrnessus, Mynes is one of the women and girls captured as spoils of the Trojan war. She is given to Achilles as a war trophy, but becomes a disputed object between Achilles and Agememnon which leads the reader into the central crisis in Homer's The Iliad.

Barker doesn't shy away from the sexual nature of these transactions. The women and girls knew they were going to be enslaved, raped and abused. Knowing this, I'm not sure why more of them didn't leap from the top of the tower, like Barker described two young women doing early on, as the Greeks crashed through the front gate.

Maybe there wasn't that much difference between their husbands and their new masters? Or perhaps the violence wasn't as horrific as I imagined and Barker suggested? Maybe a form of love or tenderness bloomed between master and subject? Perhaps the Greeks were looking for the comforts of home not more violence?

We will never really know, which is why I'm so fascinated by these modern retellings.

However, in the end, Barker's was a fairly straight version of events as originally told in The Iliad.

I enjoyed the first person narrative of Briseis, but found the occasional third person narrative from Achilles point of view very clunky. There only worth was to highlight just how objectified the women in the camp were to the men. They were sexual objects for barter and to show off. Barker showed these men as being unable to remember the names of the women that they took to their beds on a regular basis, dismissing their words, their presence and their humanity.

I also struggled with the language. Barker's writing style abounded in cliches with her characters often behaving in implausible ways. The dialogue in particular was banal and didn't seem to lead anywhere or show anything. I was disappointed to say the least.

So for now, this ends my run of Homeric retellings with a feminist twist. I still have Margaret Atwood's The Penelopiad to look forward to one day and Gareth Hinds graphic novel adaptation of The Iliad on my TBR pile...maybe the next readathon?

Favourite Quote: I didn't underline one single phrase or sentence.

Favourite or Forget: Forgettable.

Facts:

• Costa Novel Award 2018 Shortlist
• Women’s Prize for Fiction 2019 Shortlist
• Longlisted for the 2020 International Dublin Literary Award.

9/20 Books of Summer Winter
Sydney 19℃
Dublin 18℃

Tollund Man by Seamus Heaney

In my previous post, about The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller, I referred to Heaney's poem about the bog man found in Denmark in the 1950's. To find out how Tollund Man and Achilles go together in my universe, you'll have to read the post.

As always, though, I'm fascinated by the stories we tell ourselves about our past and how they inform our present day concerns. Seeing the Irish Troubles through the sacrificial death of an Iron Age man is just one example.

Photo by Krystian Piątek on Unsplash

THE TOLLUND MAN
I

Some day I will go to Aarhus
To see his peat-brown head,
The mild pods of his eye-lids,
His pointed skin cap.

In the flat country near by
Where they dug him out,
His last gruel of winter seeds
Caked in his stomach,

Naked except for
The cap, noose and girdle,
I will stand a long time.
Bridegroom to the goddess,

She tightened her torc on him
And opened her fen,
Those dark juices working
Him to a saint's kept body,

Trove of the turfcutters'
Honeycombed workings.
Now his stained face
Reposes at Aarhus.


II

I could risk blasphemy,
Consecrate the cauldron bog
Our holy ground and pray
Him to make germinate

The scattered, ambushed
Flesh of labourers,
Stockinged corpses
Laid out in the farmyards,

Tell-tale skin and teeth
Flecking the sleepers
Of four young brothers, trailed
For miles along the lines.


III

Something of his sad freedom
As he rode the tumbril
Should come to me, driving,
Saying the names

Tollund, Grauballe, Nebelgard,

Watching the pointing hands
Of country people,
Not knowing their tongue.

Out here in Jutland
In the old man-killing parishes
I will feel lost,
Unhappy and at home.

Given that it's Anzac Day in Australia, where we honour the fallen and remind ourselves about the sacrifices made by those who have gone before, 'lest we forget', this seemed like an appropriate poem for the day.

We have an entire world history of sacrificing our loved ones to the gods, to war, to causes beyond our ken. Will we ever learn the lessons?

Jennifer @Holds Upon Happiness posts a lovely Poem for a Thursday each week. I'm enjoying sourcing poems from my recent reads to join in with her as I can.

It might seem sacrilegious to finish a post about war and sacrifice with football, yet surely, our love of sport, is just another example of conflict and sacrifice just played out on a smaller field and with less carnage.

So Go the Mighty Bombers!

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

I'm not sure why it has taken me so long to get my thoughts together about The Song of Achilles, but sitting down to write about my response to this amazing story is probably a story in itself!

It was during my early high school days that my love of history developed. My first history class took me into the fascinating world of Tollund Man - the mummified bog body found in 1950. I was amazed at what scientists and historians were able to deduce from these remains about the world and times he lived in. There was even a Seamus Heaney poem - my first (very young) adult experience of seeing how we have always made up stories and songs to help us interpret and reinterpret our history and give meaning to our present day experiences.

Some purists and classicists may disapprove of this mode of story telling, but retelling old stories with modern sensibilities helps to keep the old stories alive. Old ideas such as hubris can be brought to life for contemporary audiences to ponder about how it might present itself now.

That's what Madeline Miller does so well here.

Using the well-known, very masculine, very war-like story of The Iliad and turning it into a romance between Achilles and Patroclus gives this old story a new lease of life. This is still a world of men and war, but Miller gives a us a chance to see this world through the eyes of Achilles goddess mother, Thetis and through the ideas of a captured Trojan girl, Briseis.

The first half of the story that fills in the childhood back story of both young men is the most interesting part to my mind. It shows the human side of Achilles before he gets caught up in his prophecy and god-like fate. I also found their first love scene to be one of the most tender, beautiful moments I've ever read.

Once we moved into the world of The Iliad proper, I felt less involved until Briseis turned up. Seeing the camp though a female lens while being reminded of how the lives of women and children were affected by this long siege was a nice touch.

I also enjoyed the scenes between Patroclus and Achilles that showed their relationship at work - how they influenced each other, how they debated, argued and compromised, how they knew each other so well that they knew what to say and how to say it to appease or enrage each other.

It is these contemporary humanising additions that allow a modern reader to reach into the old story again to find deeper meaning. Reading between the lines and filling in the gaps is the realm of all artists. Reinterpretation is a continual process, dependant on the era and experience of those doing the reinterpretation.

Homer's Iliad was just one (and possibly the first) interpretation of the events that happened on the plains of Troy to explain to those left at home and those who came after, what happened. We all seek meaning and purpose in our lives. We want to make sense of big world events. Our search for understanding, knowledge and insight is perennial.

Revisionism is a natural, organic process that occurs during, and for, every generation. The Song of Achilles is a stellar example of how that can work.

Favourite Passage:

But fame is a strange thing. Some men gain glory after they die, while others fade. What is admired in one generation is abhorred in another....We cannot say who will survive the holocaust of memory.

Favourite Character: Briseis - she is brave, loyal and inclusive.

Favourite or Forget: Favourite, but not likely to be a reread. Highly recommended to lovers of historical fiction, Ancient Greek retellings, or for those looking for LGBTQI themes.

Facts: Winner of the Orange Prize 2012

Poem: The Song of Achilles

The Song of Achilles - a poem

I'm currently reading and loving The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller and wanted to honour the story somehow. A Poem for Thursday seemed like the perfect way, especially when I discovered The Song of Achilles fanpage on Tumblr. Hannah has encapsulated the tone and feeling of Miller's story just so with this tender little offering.

Jennifer @Holds Upon Happiness posts a lovely Poem for a Thursday each week. I'm enjoying sourcing poems from my recent reads to join in with her at the moment.