The Iliad

The Iliad is one of those majesterial works. It's an all-time classic Western masterpiece, maybe THE classic Western work of fiction. I read Robert Fagles' translation, released in 1996. It's one of the best books of 1996. Fagles brings the archaic ancient fiction story into the modern age with his translation. Sure, it isn't 100% what it is in Greek BUT it stays faithful to it AND reads like beautiful epic poetry. Rather than write my typical book review blog post, I'm going to explain the story itself just a bit and then point out things about it.

I'm familiar with epic poetry. I've read John Milton's Paradise Lost, Dante's Inferno, and the King James Bible. However, Homer's meter and verse are much different, of an older time period, a dramatic, emotive, precursor to all that Renaissance stuff in Europe after the Dark Ages. Homer portrays the Trojan War in a brutalist manner, complete with brains and entrails flying over the battlefield. One thing that Homer makes clear is that once a man is dead, he is dead. Nothing becomes of him. Later in the European Rennaissance, orators, writers, and poets would use Christianity as justification for salvation or damnation after death. Interesting little tidbit.

There's this big Homer debate. Was he blind? Could he write? Was he illiterate? The Iliad is some 2,700 years old and there's evidence that supports that the story was altered, changed over hundreds of years. Homer was the Shakespeare of his time. It doesn't really matter if he was a blind oral poet or one of the very early Europeans who could write on stones or papyrus. In his day you didn't write unless you were of the upper class. Most people were illiterate. So it goes. 

The story itself is about Helen of Troy. The Trojans are safeguarding her in Troy. Meanwhile, the Acheans are coming to kill them, take back Helen, and the city. The fighting description and imagery are so raw, visceral that I joked with my friends that the violence in the Iliad makes me want to throw up. Some of it is pretty gut-wrenching. At times it can be a bit much. But fictional death can't be all that bad, right? Well...

At some point, Patroclus, Achilles' friend [and people have also said that Patroclus was Achilles' lover] gets killed by Hector, son of Priam, king of Troy. Achilles responds by going to war. Thus the Iliad is about the Rage of Achilles. Rage is definitely what it was. He goes on a massive murder spree, even chasing Trojans into the river and killing them there. The gods get involved in all the fighting. This war takes place over multiple years by the way, so this really is epic in proportion, even more, epic than Avengers End Game [review here].  

This is a battlefield where men give speeches, telling their life story and taunting to their enemies before they duke it out in a blaze of glory and honor. A lot of times both sides are fighting harder and harder every time an enemy gets a leader or champion's corpse and tries to defile it, stabbing at it, mashing it up, etc. This leads to both armies gaining fighting strength in order to preserve said dead allies' body so that it can be brought to their family for a proper burial. Not to mention Poseidon's war cry, making troops gain sudden strength and will. 

The gods intervene a lot. They seem to have a big stake in this. Achilles is destined to die if he fights in the Trojan War-a prophecy from his goddess mother Thetis. Hera and Artemis work to undermine the Trojans. Poseidon fights on the actual battlefield for a large portion of the story. Gods shield certain champions from certain death. Zeus makes sure Hector's body gets back to Priam, back to Troy, because Hector was a much-loved champion who always praised Zeus and sacrificed the right amount of goats and pigs in Zeus' honor. This shows that the gods will always be involved in mortal human life. They all have their reasons. But maybe they just don't have anything better to do? 

Achilles kills Hector and defiles his corpse by dragging it around the battlefield, three times around Patroclus' grave. Now satisfied, Achilles holds the greatest games, the last chapter entitled Funeral Games For Patroclus [perhaps a precursor to the Olympic Games]. There are all kinds of contests in honor of Patroclus, fighting to the death even. And there's a huge bbq party, and Priam, Hector's father comes. 

When Priam comes to get Hector's body for Achilles, Achilles goes from rampaging god-like creature to a mere mortal when he realizes that Priam's love for Hector reminds him of his father. You could say that at that moment he is humanized, no longer the raging invincible monster, angry because Agamemnon, lord of men stole his girl. His rage is hard to justify.  Because he didn't fight until the end of the war he caused a lot of death amongst his comrades. 

So what is the Iliad about? Generally speaking its about a city about to get sacked. But in between, we have the making of the origin story of tragedy. The Iliad is usually described as the Rage of Achilles but it can also be thought of as the Tragedy of Hector. Although Achilles was a master warrior and a much better fighter than Hector, Hector, in fact, was much more loved, more loving, and a better man to his family and comrades. No wonder Zeus brought his body back to his family. The caveat is that Priam [Hector's father] had to get the body personally from Achilles, who might have killed him if not for the threat of Zeus looming overhead. Very dangerous move for the King to go out and meet with the enemies, especially right before your city is about to get sacked. 

This story has everything: love, war, death, honor, love, sex, gods, mortals. Robert Fagles' translation is easy to understand. The lines all flow in a cohesive way. You have to read a good translation for the Iliad or any work of ancient fiction. A crappy translation will completely ruin the experience. I enjoyed the Iliad so much that now I'm reading the Odyssey, also the Robert Fagles translation. I've caught the ancient fiction bug all of a sudden. I have plans to read the Aeneid and Beowulf after.

You pick up this book and you realize its a 617-page behemoth. I was deep into it, reading it on and off for a while. I started on page 240 on Monday and by Wednesday I had finished the book on page 617. I managed to read 400 pages in three days in a wild burst of long and super enjoyable reading sessions. The language is simply beautiful. I can't explain the mechanics of the poetry at work here, the line, meter, verse and all that but there's overarching linearity to the prose here. It's like the entire work itself connected in such a way that it was all one long sentence. Like it was an oratory experience. This is one of those books I will definitely come back to. I would love to read other translations. 

How could you rate this book? It's a masterpiece, a complete 5 out of 5 stars. Anyone who disagrees either doesn't like epic poetry or just doesn't get it. That's fair too, to not get it. After all Greek mythology isn't for everybody. But I sincerely believe that this ancient fiction is so magnificent that most people would enjoy it. Especially Robert Fagles' version. Do check out this book, it's one of the best books ever.

The Song of Achilles

The Song of Achilles is Madeline Miller's debut novel, released in 2011. It took her ten years to write. The novel is a modern retelling of the Iliad that focuses on Achilles' friendship with his friend Patroclus. Miller was inspired by Homer's story from the Iliad. She wanted to explore who Patroclus was to Achilles, and in this case Patroclus is Achilles' best friend and lover. This idea is quite old as Miller says she stole the idea from Plato. The actual Iliad doesn't explicitly say they are lovers, but its sort of implied. The book won the 17th annual Orange Prize for Fiction. Homer would be proud of  her! 

Before I go in depth here I want to say that this is an amazing novel. After finishing the novel I was riding a high for nearly two days straight. Its only 360 pages but it feels like it was a 1,000 pages, 1,000 grand pages of beautiful prose. It was like falling in love in a way, like how I am with music. I was so into it that I finished it in nearly 4 days, forget the two week library rental. That being said, lets talk about what makes this book great. 

The prose. The fact that Miller worked on the novel for five years, but completely scrapped everything because the narrator's voice wasn't developed well enough shows you the depth of her writing powers. The writing style here is very much a la Homer, like the Iliad. Its a modernized version so its all complete sentences and full thoughts, a little less poetic because of these fully thought out sentences, but it still has a poetic beauty, albeit a modernized one. Like her second novel Circe, The Song of Achilles has a young adult novel feel to it, in the sense that the story is about two boys who grow up together and fall in love. Miller really knows how to describe young people in love, I learned this from Circe as well as this book. If there's one thing I learned from Miller its that one can never underestimate young love, its one of the greatest and most powerful things in the universe. 

The story is told from the first person point of view, from Patroclus' point of view, Achilles' lover and best friend. Patroclus is somewhat of a loser, he was exiled from his Princely happenstance after he killed a boy by accident. He becomes a somebody when Achilles wants him to be forever by his side. In addition, Patroclus becomes a hero in the Trojan War when he kills Serpedon, a son of Zeus, a god. This makes Patroclus a hero in the Trojan War. 

Next, lets talk about the story. So the story is sort of slow until the end, then it builds to a climax and ends on a high note, its fantastic. It begins with Achilles and Patroclus meeting in their youth, they begin a friendship, and then eventually a romantic, sexual relationship. The boys meet each other as young as 10 or 12. They get trained in the art of war as well as other things men should learn by a centaur, that Achilles' mother, a goddess named Thetis, is an associate of. 

From there Achilles gets asked to fight in the Trojan War, to save Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world, "the face that launched a thousand ships." This is where the novel really takes off as something else, not just a loving relationship. Its interesting to note that the war parts of the novel are very graphic and gory. However, the sex scenes here are all polka dots and moonbeams, like softcore porn. Miller is willing to describe men's guts hanging out of their stomachs but won't go near the physicality of gay sex, interesting choice, can't say I blame her. But we as an audience know better than that. 

Inspiration. This book is inspiring to read. There's something about it that sticks with you for a long time. Its only been two days since I finished reading it and not only do I have a great sense of accomplishment from reading it but I also realize that this is something I will remember for a long time because a) its terrific writing b) its a great story and c) its inspirational. 

By inspirational I mean that the novel got me reading the actual Iliad, of which I have two different translations. This book prepared me for the epic poetry of the Iliad, which was indispensable. I have read epic poetry before. I've read the Bible in its entirely about ten years ago. I've read Shakespeare. Now I'm finding myself reading more of that kind of material. The interesting thing to note is that I bought two different copies of the Iliad, a hardcover and a paperback, but I never read any of them until now. Now is the time. This is what I call a great inspiration. 

If a writer can get you to go back and read what is arguably the beginning of Western Literature you know that's a great writer. This is a novel fit for young adults, adults, anyone curious and sophisticated enough to appreciate fine literature.