Anyone who knows me reasonably well knows I read – a lot. So, the finer details of read books get lost in the chaos quickly and, since all save the best don’t get reread, I’m left with a vague, overall impression to convey when someone asks me if I liked it. Nevertheless, I found myself picking up The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller again (and if I did so because it was required summer reading, well, that’s for me to know and for you to ignore for the sake of a narratively pleasing introduction). I read TSOA about two years ago and loved it – but now I can’t say the same. I still enjoyed the book but, having read some fantastic queer literature and classical adaptations since, some of TSOA’s shine has rubbed off, and I’m left with more complicated feelings towards it.
The biggest contributing factor to the book’s themes and messages is that it is a Young Adult romance novel, rather than an Adult one. The younger, more contemporary crowd this is marketed towards leads to characters getting very much sanded down to fit modern boxes, which do not reflect their original characterisations.
The main examples of this are Achilles and Patroclus. Achilles’ battle prowess is presented as his main talent and claim to fame, but his thirst for blood and battle is somewhat diminished. When Achilles refuses to fight, leading to the mass deaths of many Greeks, Miller does not show him as petulant or self-interested, but rather shows how his honour is all he has, if he is to sacrifice his life for the war. This angle creates sympathy from the reader for his actions and is an interesting one, as she makes Achilles likeable without wildly changing him. However, it does remove nuance from his character, getting rid of his less than desirable characteristics to make him more palatable as the textbook hero. A similar effect is seen in the movie Troy, where Achilles is extremely glamourised to mould him into the role of a Hollywood hero.
Patroclus undergoes significantly more changes than his companion. His military skill is largely removed, and he becomes more pacifistic after a traumatic childhood event- he doesn’t want to learn how to fight and shows revulsion towards the idea of killing. And so, Achilles is instated as a protector of ‘helpless’ Patroclus. In the Iliad however, Patroclus is also a fearsome warrior who can hold his own against soldiers. Unlike Achilles’ characterisation, which is fairly accurate, if a bit simplified, Patroclus is relegated to becoming the moral compass and damsel in distress for most of the book.
This changed characterisation has rather troubling connotations for their relationship. It skirts the line for the toxic dynamic placed upon queer relationships when one partner must be the more “feminine” and the other more “masculine”. It imposes harmful and restrictive gender norms on their relationship, which reinforces the idea of heterosexual conformity for queer couples. This connotation is especially troubling given how impactful the book was. The true nature of Achilles and Patroclus’ relationship has often been obscured or denied by scholars, and popular media. TSOA represents a sharp contrast to the movie Troy, which completely erased the relationship the two men had. Troy’s portrayal of their relationship is a problem itself because it reinforces the overwhelmingly (and sometimes forced) heterosexual narrative most Hollywood films take. It also erases an important part of queer history in literature and diminishes the importance of their relationship. Since the movie Troy was primarily seen by older generations, it reinforced the straight-washed version of the past that many of the watchers were used to. Conversely, TSOA shows the two in a relationship, which is fantastic, as it exposed many people to queer relationships in classical literature, when they had previously been erased. However, TSOA goes so far to the other end of the scale that it anachronistically puts Patroclus and Achilles into a dynamic similar to love-struck boyfriends. It is unlikely that this was what their relationship was like, but the genre constraints make this dynamic the kind that would appeal to the audience. Neither Troy nor TSOA show their relationship with the nuance of the original.
And I must stress that this is not an issue in isolation. Unless you were listening to the Iliad in the original Greek, with the cultural context to back it up, you would not get an accurate portrayal of Achilles and Patroclus’ relationship. So, reading or watching adaptations of the Iliad like TSOA or Troy with little to no context or critical analysis certainly isn’t the end of the world, but it could become an issue when considering how influential these pieces of media were to the public’s view of the classics.
Especially TSOA, whose target audience was one with much less exposure to the original classics. And, since this adaptation is therefore likely to be taken at face value rather than analysed critically with knowledge of the source material, it creates a warped reality of the original. Queer people have seen queer history be erased often, and to present something closer to what their relationship would have been is amazing but there is certainly a danger of the younger generation taking Miller’s version as gospel and losing the details of their original relationship.
Miller’s narrative voice is very fitting to the setting of the book. She weaves epithets and metaphors, managing to evoke a Homeric style while still making the book easy to read. I will continue to recommend TSOA, both as decent queer literature and a good adaptation of the classics, but I can’t say I love it as much as I did two years ago.
