The Silence of the Girls is a re-telling of The Illiad from the point of view of Briseis, a concubine/slave to Achilles during the Trojan War. We see life in the Greek camp from the eyes of those that are rarely spoken of – the women and slaves who were forced to endure war.
I had a lot of high hopes for this novel. I recently read Circe by Madeline Miller, which I thought was a great read, which led to re-reading The Odyssey and re-watching Troy. I find Greek mythology fascinating and I was excited to read a new account of the Trojan War.
The book has received a lot of great reviews but unfortunately, it didn’t work for me. I thought it was lackluster and the story dragged at times. I couldn’t tell if Briseis liked Achilles or not. Was Achilles supposed to be a good guy or a bad guy and were we supposed to root for him to win or lose?
The plot was fine. I did find it interesting to read about the inner workings of the camp from a woman’s point of view. We see the women preparing food, nursing wounded soldiers, weaving (they spend a lot of time weaving), gossiping with other women, and tending to themselves. Sadly, I just found a lot of the book to be tedious and I struggled to finish reading it.
The other thing I found jarring in the book was that the language used was very modern, with British slang that felt weird and out of place. Everyone sounded like teenagers. I guess I expected more poetic and lyrical prose, like that of other Greek myths. I understand the appeal of the modern language but I just felt it was strange and took me out of the Greek time period.
This book had a lot of potential but it was a bit of a disappointment for me.
Leave a Reply