The Song of Achilles: The 10th Anniversary edition of the Women's Prize-winning bestseller

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Achilles meets Patroclus at school at the age of twelve, and soon the unlikely pairing of these two boys becomes a deep friendship. Wanting to separate the two boys and to begin Achilles life’s teachings, Achilles’ mother Thetis, sends him off to the centaur Chiron for three years to learn literature, nature, sacrifice, and the art of battle. However, not to be torn away from his friend, Patroclus follows Achilles into the caves and remains with him for three years as the love between the two blossoms. I'm fine with Patroclus and Achilles being in love, but a little complexity PLEASE. How about some characterization? How about some relationship tension from within, not just without? A fate prophesised by the gods, but a song that still needed to be sung, and music that future generations would continue to play !!! His shoulders rise and fall on a long breath. “Do not say that,” he says, “until you have heard the rest of what I have done.”

The Song of Achilles - Booktopia The Song of Achilles - Booktopia

A 10th ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL EDITION, FEATURING A NEW FOREWORD BY THE AUTHOR WINNER OF THE ORANGE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION Greece in the age of heroes. Patroclus, an awkward young prince, has been exiled to the kingdom of Phthia to be raised in the shadow of King Peleus and his golden son, Achilles. “The best of all the Greeks”—strong, beautiful, and the child of a goddess—Achilles is everything the shamed Patroclus is not. Yet despite their differences, the boys become steadfast companions. Their bond deepens as they grow into young men and become skilled in the arts of war and medicine—much to the displeasure and the fury of Achilles mother, Thetis, a cruel sea goddess with a hatred of mortals. Simply a fantastic book, probably the best one I've read this year so far. It is a coming-of-age story and also a love story. I loved the writing style and basically swallowed it in just a couple of sittings. It will make you want to go read (or reread) the Iliad and Greek mythology, but you don't need to be a Greek scholar to appreciate this terrific novel. Reading this is like reading Romeo and Juliet. We all know the story. We all know the outcome. We all know that our desperate prayers for someone, anyone to step in and save these characters from themselves will fall on deaf ears. If I were to give a prize for the best work of fiction I've read this year, this would be the runaway winner. As a first novel, it heralds the arrival of a major new talent (A.N. Wilson Reader's Digest)They grinned, loving every inch of their miraculous prince: his gleaming hair, his deadly hands, his nimble feet. They leaned towards him, like flowers to the sun, drinking in his lustre. It was as Odysseus had said: he had light enough to make heroes of them all.” So it shouldn't be surprising to anyone who is familiar with me that this book didn't make me feel much of anything.

Song of Achilles: Madeline Miller - AbeBooks The Song of Achilles: Madeline Miller - AbeBooks

When word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped, the men of Greece, bound by blood and oath, must lay siege to Troy in her name. Seduced by the promise of a glorious destiny, Achilles joins their cause, and torn between love and fear for his friend, Patroclus follows. Little do they know that the Fates will test them both as never before and demand a terrible sacrifice. This is my spoiler section in which I’m going to speak about the individual characters and what I thought of them. So you better beware and don’t read it if you still want to read the book. Heed my warning or get lost in the underworld. It’s your choice, choose wisely! ;-P selectedStore.City }}, {{ selectedStore.State }} {{ selectedStore.Country }} {{ selectedStore.Zip }}

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The Song of Achilles: The 10th Anniversary edition of the

Patroclus loves Briseis and is horrified by this, then even more horrified when he realizes Achilles is going to give Briseis up. Achilles hopes that Agamemnon will rape Briseis, giving Achilles leverage to overthrow Agamemnon and get revenge for this slight to his honor. To protect Briseis, Patroclus tells Agamemnon all of this; while Achilles is briefly furious at Patroclus’s betrayal, he can’t stay angry with his love for long. Besides, he has conspired with Thetis to convince Zeus to stop “balancing” the war, so things are about to get very bad for the Greeks. Achilles will only help them if Agamemnon personally apologizes. I can't really say more, because I would be criticizing the same things over and over. I had a lot of issues with this book, this book took me more than a month to read More than a month! A book that I was planning to finish in 4 days... It seemed like it would NEVER end. The prophecy said that Achilles would die shortly after Hector, you don't know how many times I was rooting for this dude to die so everything could end soon. JUST SOMEONE COULD PLEASE KILL HECTOR NOW. It might be easy to hate Achilles during the latter half of the story, based on some of his decisions, and rightly so. But, I think it's a good thing that the author did not alter his character to fix those flows. The objective of the story was never to portrait the greatness of Achilles. And as for the ending: it was as emotional and beautiful as it could be. Madeline Miller had done justice to Patroclus with The Song of Achilles perfectly. In a nutshell, Boy meet demi-god. Boy gets demi-god. Boy loses demi-god. Wait, demi-god loses boy, goes a bit funny in the head and behaves badly. Greece loses demi-god, the happy couple wind up sharing an afterlife.All told this was one of the most beautiful books I’ve ever read. It caused me to cry, it made me angry, it made me smile and it touched me deeply. I’m a total mess after reading this and my emotions are still all over the place, to say I regret reading it would be one hell of a lie though. I don't understand Thetis role in here and why was Achilles so devoted to hear her and always obey her. Why was Achilles the perfect son, I don't understand because they clearly had a lot of issues.

The Song of Achilles - Bloomsbury Publishing

Can anyone please call my boss and let her know I may not go to work for a week or so? I need time to recover from this book that m u r d e r e d me. when i die, bury my ashes with this book.”—every person who finished reading the song of achilles, ever. Miller is a classics scholar and teacher and knows her stuff. What she has done here is take the eternal tale and re-tell it in a manner that is easy to read. In fact it is so easy to read that it felt like a YA title to me. Maybe too easy? She does teach high-schoolers, so I expect that was her target demographic, but it still seemed a bit young to me. The attraction between these two men wasn’t something that was rushed and squandered. It was built up, ever so slowly, and delivered eloquently. The two were friends from boyhood, and Patroclus was enamoured by Achilles after just one glance. He didn’t want to be parted from him. The two grew up together, they fought together, they learnt together and they developed together. They became inseparable and reliant on each other. Their sexual relationship just matured as they did it; it was the most natural thing in the world.After all, aren’t these books designed for a “modern audience” who will never even attempt to read Homer? I am not the target audience, as there is very little modern about me. I have ancient book dust permanently lodged in my lungs. I cough, and the air is redolent with the scent of decaying leather and the intoxicating smell of the slightly hallucinatory book fungi. Miller is doing good work, though, bringing Homer to life for a new generation. Her books are not for me. My review of Natalie Hynes' A Thousand Ships - a view from the perspective of the female characters of The Iliad and The Odyssey I thought it was really interesting that this story is told from Patroclus's perspective. In Greek mythology, Patroclus is a minor character and hardly ever mentioned, but he is central to this tale. And through his eyes, we are able to see all the facets of Achilles: the making of a hero though still a boy at heart, shining and bright, easily seduced by glory, and ultimately a tragic figure.