In this week's review, I am looking at Pat Barker’s Silence of the Girls. Just to start, I'm a massive fan of Greek mythological retellings. I think they offer a fresh perspective on established stories, giving them life once more whilst at the same time producing a spark that will go on to inspire a new generation of classicists. However, I feel like up to a certain point, it's just rehashing the same old story, and I felt that's what it essentially was with this book.
One unique aspect, however, was the description of Briseis' life before she was captured by the Greek's and given to Achilles as a prize. The description of all these women compressed into a small room, listening to Achilles' dreaded war cry, getting louder and louder as he fast approaches, is such a great combination of storytelling and imagery, however, it begins to get a bit repetitive and tedious when she begins to live in the camp and is completely overshadowed once Achilles' perspective is introduced, and this is my real problem with the book. People feel as if all these characters should have a voice, but don't realise that the reason they haven't been given one, isn't so much so that they're women, but rather their story is not interesting. And that is why Barker changes perspective because it’s necessary to move the plot forward. After all, all that is happening is Briseis detailing all the drudgery of cooking, cleaning, and servicing the men in the camp between their bouts of fighting and killing. This is one of the reasons I think Madeline Miller’s "Circe" is better, this woman, stuck on an island it manages to keep to the story centred on Circe, maintaining her perspective despite the numerous other characters included such as Telemachus, Telegonus, Penelope, Odysseus etc. The same goes for The song of Achilles, even when Patroclus dies, it is his perspective being displayed, and you have to recognise Madeline Miller for such consistency.
But what a disappointment this book was compared to The Song of Achilles. This book had none of the beautiful writing and in-depth character studies of that book. Instead, the writing in this book was mostly flat, the same as the characters, not allowing me to care about them. It was mostly a case of all tell, no show. The intense relationship between Achilles and Patroclus was mostly muted here, and the friendship between Briseis and Patroclus in this book was close in name only, compared to Song of Achilles, which showed what that friendship consisted of in great detail.
One thing I will say, however, is the unique gritty realism of the book, which contrasts greatly to The song of Achilles. The description of all the slaughtering, the disease Apollo sent down and the description of the Greeks as Barbarians and savages, taking whatever they feast their eyes on. These aspects of the book I enjoyed immensely, however, they make up such a small percentage of the book, and that is why I am not a fan of it.
In conclusion, the preconceptions people have about what this book is like, the realism of it, the description of female life, the beautiful character studies, the book has these things, however, they come in short supply, with the realism being overshadowed by the boring drudgery of daily tasks, the description of female life by the change in perspective and focus on male characters and the beautiful character studies by the constant resentment shown and the poor descriptions used.
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