3 Review(s)

Return to the myths and legends of the Trojan War and Homer’s Iliad in Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles. Summary of the Book Patroclus is an awkward young prince, exiled to the kingdom of Phthia. He must live in the shadow of the great king Peleus and his near-immortal son: the mighty Achilles, demi-god. Patroclus is jealous of Achilles, to whom all the arts of warfare seem to come naturally. However, boyish jealousy turns to friendship and love as these two men become steadfast friends. They draw the scorn of Achilles’ mother, the cruel sea goddess Thetis. As tales of Achilles’ might reach the ends of the Earth, men begin to rally under the banner of Agamemnon as he sets towards the city of Troy. The Trojan prince Paris has absconded with the beautiful Helen, and there is only one answer for this blasphemy: the Trojan War. However, this is a doomed war, and Achilles knows that it spells certain doom for him. Yet nothing can make him turn back, for he has a legend to live up to. And in doing so, his story will become immortalized in a song men will sing for eons to come: one echoed in fiction and myth for millennia after it was first composed, the song of Achilles: Homer’s Iliad. About Madeline Miller Madeline Miller is an American writer and a scholar of Latin and Ancient Greek. A graduate of Brown University, she has been teaching for nine years. She has also specialized in adapting classical titles for modern audiences at the Yale School of Drama. This is her first novel.