Winner of the 2012 Orange Prize for Fiction

Stealing Hercules Club

Around 29 BCE the Roman poet Vergil began his answer to the Iliad and the Odyssey—the Aeneid.  As pieces of the new work became public, he was accused not of alluding to Homer, but of plagiarizing him.  He answered, “It is as easy to steal the club from Hercules as a line from Homer.”

Anyone who has tackled a creative adaptation set in Homer’s world knows what Vergil means.  There is something about Homer: something monolithic and singular and whole unto himself.  You could pry a chip off of the Parthenon, but when you got it home, it would be nothing more than a piece of stone, inert, anonymous and grey.  So Homer.  You might steal one of his similes, but it will never thrive in your verse; it cannot live without the messy, vital, inimitable soil in which it was born.

Perhaps this singularity has something to do with the poems’ unique origins.  Scholars have traced the composition of the Iliad and Odyssey to the 8th century BCE, but much remains debated and mysterious, including Homer himself.   We do not reliably know if he was a single person, nor how much of his work is original, as opposed to a reworking of already well-known myths.  We do not even know how he composed, whether with stylus and tablet, or entirely from memory. Recent scholarship has theorized that Homer may have been more entertainer than formal poet: a skilled improvisor who carried in his mind a huge repertoire of phrases, lines and episodes which he wove together anew at each performance.  What comes down to us then, is the morning after—drawn from the recollections of Homer and his audience.  But this too is largely guesswork.

The poems themselves raise even greater questions.  Created nearly five hundred years after the events they describe, they are far from eyewitness history.  Homer—whoever he was—freely intermingled his own time with an only-guessed-at mythical past.  There is much in the poems that is anachronistic, and much that is unreliable.  They are, more than anything, an invented world, a poet’s world.

These theories certainly help to explain the poems’ unusual patchwork nature.  Stylistically they are often irregular, and it is hard to know how much we may presume of Homer’s intent.  When Achilles is described as “swift-footed” while he is seated, should we chalk it up to the constraints of oral poetry, which calls for stock repetitions, or the poet’s keen sense of irony?  Archaic vocabulary abounds, regularly mixed with regionalisms and more modern usages, often in the same line.  Long lists of names mar the forward thrust of the action, and the main character vanishes for much of the middle of the Iliad.  A king dies, only to reappear mourning his son several books later.

In short, no one today would dare to write like Homer.  And if they did, no editor would publish it.  So, what is it then, that makes Homer one of the most adapted, alluded to and reworked texts in the history of the Western world?

Over the years my students have asked me again and again: did Achilles really say that?  Did Agamemnon really do that?  The responsible, unromantic answer is: mostly likely not.  Despite some tantalizing clues recently found in Hittite texts of a possible Agamemnon, there is no evidence that any of these ancient heroes were real, or behaved as Homer made them.  Yet, Homer’s poems have something in them that is as honest and real as history—the truth of great art. Hamlet surely did not live the life that Shakespeare gave him.  But he is a creation of the deepest emotional resonance, even if not actual reality.

It is this same truth that has made Homer justly famous.  His intimate understanding of human nature—in all its pride, folly and generosity—is the deep tensile steel that holds the poems together at their core.  Homer’s insights are as true today as they were then: human nature has not changed since he first sang of Achilles and his rage. Every day on the front page of the newspaper is an Iliad of woes, from the self-serving Agamemnons to the manipulative, double-speaking Odysseuses, from the tragedies of war to the brutal treatment of the conquered. Through beautiful hexameters—as swift of foot as their hero Achilles—Homer conjures us as we are, in love, in battle, in hope, in despair. We may no longer fight our wars with spears and chariots, but we fight them with the same greed, grace, courage and cowardice as we ever did.  Homer holds the mirror up to all our nature, if only we will look.

It is no surprise then, that so many have been inspired by his works.  The paths through his world are well-traveled. Vergil has been there, striding like a colossus.  And Ovid too, and Shakespeare, and Joyce, and Atwood, Logue, Malouf... hundreds upon hundreds of authors, greater and lesser.  They intimidate with their numbers, with their eminent quality.  How can one more voice be heard in that mighty chorus?  Why travel a road where so many have gone before you?

I cannot speak for others who find themselves possessed by these ancient works, only myself.  From the time I was a small child, I have been deeply moved by Homer’s exquisite attention to the human condition, the beauty and power of his tragic characters. I  might say that I wish to bring him to a modern audience, but the truth is Homer doesn’t need my help.  I wrote about Achilles and Patroclus and Odysseus because these stories lodged in me, and would not let go.  I wanted to understand further: their past before the Iliad begins, and their future, beyond it.  How do we come to the terrible moment that opens the Iliad, with Achilles and Agamemnon at each other’s throats?  I wrote because two poems weren’t enough.  I wanted more.

And this is Homer’s final gift to us, of so many: his expansive, magnanimous ability to inspire.  He cannot be used up, or worn out, he is ever-new, abundant, boundless.  His infinite variety shines forth, bright enough to illuminate not just himself but the thousands of hopeful moons that crowd around him. His inconsistencies and anachronisms turn out to be blessings in disguise, encouraging invention and freedom.  The grandeur of his subject grants a soul-stirring scope.  Last, but not least, the flawed, realistic humanity of his subjects—wrathful Achilles, loyal Patroclus, proud Agamemnon—provides the perfect raw clay for drama.

No, you can’t steal Hercules’ club, but it turns out the generous man is always willing to let you borrow it.  Hold the same mighty wood that fit so well in Vergil’s hand.  Give it a swing or two.  Then give it back and make your own.

Explore the World of Achilles

Rewards & Honors

Winner of the 2012 Orange Prize (now The Women’s Prize for Fiction)

New York Times Bestseller

Massachusetts Must-Read of 2013; Finalist for the Mass Book Award

Stonewall Honor Book, American Library Association

Shortlisted for the UK Independent Bookseller Award

Shortlisted for Stonewall’s Writer of the Year

Finalist for the Chautauqua Prize

Semi-finalist for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award

Reviews

“Others have penned imaginative riffs on Homer’s epics, not least Margaret Atwood in her witty and wise The Penelopiad. Yet Miller’s fantastic first novel – shortlisted for the Orange Prize – seems singular in its scope and scholarship … Miller has combined scholarship with imagination to turn the most familiar war epic into a fresh, emotionally riveting and sexy page-turner. Patroclus follows Achilles into battle, but it is their magnificent and very modern love story that makes this an epic.”

The Independent, Arifa Akbar, 20 April 2012

 

“ . . . A wildly romantic retelling of the Trojan Was as a story of longtime companions narrated by Patroclus.  Miller plays with the historical record as established by Homer…. and puts a sexy new narrative spin on the ancients that is surprisingly suspenseful.  Some of the suspense comes from curiosities, like who will tell the story after Patroclus dies, but most of it comes from the urgency of Miller’s storytelling. . . .bringing those dark figures back to life, making them men again, and while she’s at it, us[ing] her passionate companion piece toThe Iliad as a subtle swipe at today’s ongoing debate over gay marriage.  Talk about updating the classics.”

Mary Pols, Time Magazine, April 2nd, 2012

 

“The Song of Achilles” becomes a quiet love story, one so moving that I was reluctant to move on to the war and Homer’s tale of perverted honor and stubborn pride. But Miller segues into that more public story with grace. Her battle scenes are tense and exciting, as the young, half-divine Achilles comes into his own. . .  Informed by scholarship, her imagination blends seamlessly with incidents from “The Iliad.” In prose as clean and spare as the driving poetry of Homer, Miller captures the intensity and devotion of adolescent friendship and lets us believe in these long-dead boys for whom sea nymphs and centaurs are not legend but lived reality. In doing so, she will make their names known to yet another generation, deepening and enriching a tale that has been told for 3,000 years.”

Mary Doria Russell, Washington Post, March 2012  Click here for full review.

 

“You don’t need to be familiar with Homer’s The Iliad (or Brad Pitt’s Troy, for that matter) to find Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achillesspellbinding. While classics scholar Miller meticulously follows Greek mythology, her explorations of ego, grief, and love’s many permutations are both familiar and new…. Miller treats the men’s mutual sexual passion with refreshing straightforwardness and convincingly casts their love in such mythic proportions that we’re convinced when Patroclus declares, “He is half of my soul, as the poets say.”

Liza Nelson, O Magazine, March 2012

 

“Madeline Miller’s brilliant first novel, The Song of Achilles, is the story… of great, passionate love between Achilles and Patroclus, as tragic as that of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. . .. . Even for a scholar of Greek literature, which Miller is, rewriting the Western world’s first and greatest war novel is an awesome task to undertake. That she did it with such grace, style and suspense is astonishing.”

Dallas Morning News, April 2012

 

Next to the daughter-killing Agamemnon, Achilles was my least favorite character in “The Iliad.”…How accomplished is Madeline Miller’s debut novel? Darned if she didn’t make me like the guy in Song of Achilles. Miller, a scholar of Latin and Ancient Greek, brings a remarkably conversational style to her Homeric retelling and manages to inject urgency and suspense into a tale whose outcome is already a foregone conclusion.

 Yvonne Zipp, The Christian Science Monitor, April 11th, 2012

 

“Miller’s debut novel…is a tour de force of history, mythology, politics, and devotion… What Miller adds is depth, and life, to every character and facet of the story… Immersion into Miller’s world, with descriptions reminiscent of Mary Renault at her best, and not a single false note in the dialogue, is a true pleasure. Readers may suffer from withdrawal as they reluctantly finish this book, and this reviewer hopes to see more soon from this talented author.”

Historical Novels Society, Editor’s Choice Review

 

“One of 2012’s most exciting debuts is Madeline Miller’s Song of Achilles, a prequel of sorts to The Iliad that traces the rise and fall of the Greek golden boy of myth. A young classics scholar who specialized in adapting classical tales for a modern audience at the Yale School of Drama, Miller has penned a seductive, hugely entertaining backstory that lends complexity to Homer’s virile action-adventure by imagining the intimate friendship between Achilles and the devoted Patroclus, who meets his end fighting in the Trojan War on Achilles’s behalf. Scouring ancient Greek texts for every mention of Patroclus, Miller conjures a lonely child whose sympathetic vulnerability becomes the foundation of the bond. The boys grow up together, becoming not simply companions but soulmates. The resulting novel is cinematic—one might say epic—in scope, but refreshingly, compellingly human in detail.”

Vogue.com, March 2012

 

The Song of Achilles retells The Iliad like you’ve never read it before… in a realistic account of history and fantasy…Madeline Miller’s knowledge of ancient Greek history and her affinity toward the classic myths intensifies the novel and heightens the experience for the reader. Seamlessly blurring the lines of reality and time, Achilles is an amazing, spellbinding page-turner that I couldn’t put down until I’d read it cover to cover, twice!”

Instinct Magazine, March 2012

“With this novel, we can fall in love again: for Madeline Miller has made blind Homer sing to her… It has the magnificence of myth; it has the passions of humanity… Madeline Miller avenges the girls left behind while their brothers and husbands and sons “spoke to Plato”. Her Homer has sung to her, and the result is The Song of Achilles.”

Bryn Mawr Classical Journal, Catherine Conybeare

 

“Miller skillfully weaves tender scenes of the boys’ relationship with breathtaking descriptions of battles and their bloody aftermath. [Her] degrees in Latin and Greek as well as her passion for the theater and the history of the ancient world have given her the tools to create a masterly vision of the drama, valor, and tragedy of the Trojan War. Readers who loved Mary Renault’s epic novels will be thrilled with Miller’s portrayal of ancient Greece.”

Library Journal*Starred review* by Jane Henriksen Baird

 

“A captivating retelling of the Iliad and events leading up to it through the point of view of Patroclus: it’s a hard book to put down, and any classicist will be enthralled by her characterisation of the goddess Thetis, which carries the true savagery and chill of antiquity.”

Donna Tartt, author of The Secret History and The Little Friend, in The Times

 

“To re-write Homer’s Iliad as a modern novel was a bold move–but it has paid off superbly…. I read this book awestruck with admiration for the quality of its writing, its narrative pace and its imaginative depth. 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

 

“For a whistlestop tour around the life and times of Achilles, you’d be hard pressed to find a better guide than Madeline Miller…This accomplished and enjoyable novel…is original, clever, and in a class of its own…an incredibly compelling and seductive read. Her skill is considerable: she has to make us believe in Achilles and Patroclus almost as if they were modern-day characters in a Hollywood movie…It’s an entirely successful piece of writing, sitting comfortably between literary and commercial genres. It does what the best novels do – it transports you to another world – as well as doing something that few novels bother to: it makes you feel incredibly clever.”

Viv Groskop, The Independent on Sunday

 

“With language both evocative of her predecessors and fresh, and through familiar scenes that explore new territory, this first-time novelist masterfully brings to life an imaginative yet informed vision of ancient Greece featuring divinely human gods and larger-than-life mortals. She breaks new ground retelling one of the world’s oldest stories about men in love and war, but it is the extraordinary women—Iphigenia, Briseis, and Thetis—who promise readers remarkable things to come as Miller carves out a custom-made niche in historical fiction.”

Publishers Weekly, *Starred Review*/Pick of the Week

 

“Only the finest of historical novelists are able to adequately convey the sheer strangeness and otherness of the past, particularly the ancient past. By this criterion alone, Madeline Miller shows exceptional promise…a remarkably fresh take on one of the most familiar narratives in western literature…. It is quite an achievement.”

Nick Rennison, The Times

 

Miller draws on her knowledge of Classical sources wisely….[she] is particularly good at characterization…The novel is well paced, engaging and tasteful.  For a writer of Miller’s training and talent, the characters of the Iliad and the Odyssey offer a wealth of further story-telling possibilities.

Carolyne Larrington, The Times Literary Supplement

 

“[The Song of Achilles is] brilliant at conjuring a world where capricious gods and unbreakable prophecies are simply part of life, and at capturing the tangled amorality of politics and war, like some delirious fusion of Game of Thrones and Jean Genet…the story wonderfully brings home how eye-poppingly weird and gripping classical mythology really is.”

Joe Muggs, Word

 

“Beautifully done — sensitive and scholarly, without sacrificing the page-turning qualities of an unashamed romance.”

Tina Jackson, The Metro

 

“Extraordinary… Beautifully descriptive and heart-achingly lyrical, this is a love story as sensitive and intuitive as any you will find.”

Kathy Stevenson, Daily Mail

 

“An original page-turning homage to The Iliad…Miller’s prose is vividly atmospheric, retelling the siege of Troy in all its heroic devastation.”

Eithne Farry, Marie Claire  

 

“If every first novel I read was as accomplished as this one is, it would say much for the future of publishing.  This deft pairing of subject and craftsmanship is enormously impressive, and makes the book stand out as something original and fresh and beautiful… it’s on my ‘best of the year’ list.”

Cornflower Books, www.cornflowerbooks.co.uk  (Click here to see the full review).

 

“This is a terrific novel.  Miller’s style (uncomplicated) and her language (modern) is a winner.  This book, in my opinion, deserves a wide readership.  I was enthralled from beginning to end.  I shall now tackle the dustier Iliad with vigour (well, perhaps restrained vigour) thanks to Miller for whetting my appetite.  Highly recommended.”

Louise Laurie, The Bookbag, www.thebookbag.co.uk  (Click here to see the full review).

 

“Miller’s prose flows easily and poetically, and she treats the relationship between the two men with sensitivity and skill… A fascinating debut.”

Lesley McDowell, Sunday Herald

 

“I loved the book.  The language was timeless, the historical details were slipped in perfectly. I hope Song of Achilles becomes part of the high school summer reading lists alongside Penelopiad.”

Helen Simonson, author of Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand

 

“Mary Renault lives again! A ravishingly vivid and convincing version of one of the most legendary of love stories.”

Emma Donoghue, author of the bestseller Room

  

The Song of Achilles is at once a scholar’s homage to the Iliad and a startlingly original work of art by an incredibly talented new novelist. Madeline Miller has given us her own fresh take on the Trojan war and its heroes. The result is a book I could not put down.”

Ann Patchett, author of Bel Canto and State of Wonder

 

“The Iliad turns on Achilles’ pride and his relationship with Patroclus, but Homer is sparing with the personal—so much so that, though we believe in their friendship, we do not understand it. The Song of Achilles brings light to their love. This is a beautiful book.”

Zachary Mason, author of The Lost Books of the Odyssey

 

Madeline Miller takes the ancient art of the rhapsode, the singer of Homeric tales, and makes it sing again. The mutual devotion of Patroclus and Achilles is at the heart of a world so richly imagined that we seem to walk through it with them….Reading this book recalled me to the breathless sense of the ancient-yet-present that I felt when I first fell in love with the classics.”

Catherine Conybeare, Professor of Classics, Bryn Mawr College

“A real page-turner. It’s a gripping narrative and vividly told.”

Charles Palliser, author of The Quincunx