Book No. 5 of 2021
First of all, I am a sucker for Iliad and Odyssey retellings (aka fancy people fanfiction). Second, Silence of the Girls does two things really well: it gives voices to the women whose suffering and fates are so often glossed over with a single line (if they’re mentioned at all), and it asks hard questions about what we value in these stories, and therefore in society.
Barker uses unflinching brutality to drive her points home—one effective chapter is a laundry list of human butchery, juxtaposed with very human moments from the lives of Achilles’ victims, forcing the reader to consider the humanity lost in tales of victory. Other times, when prominent heroes and male characters deliver the iconic expressions of misfortune that come up in every Iliad redux, Briseis (often speaking for women everywhere) directly asks the reader to consider the greater invisible misfortune lurking beneath the surface. She speaks plainly about the decisions women are forced to make when they have no power (a literary rebuttal, imho, to all the bozos who bray “Why did/didn’t she just do this” IRL) and shows that men can be simultaneously kind and monstrous (again, rebuttal to the really unfortunate mental gymnastics that happen IRL).
In short, a very relevant retelling for our times, drawing clear connections between how we allow stories to be told and the multilayered violence that comes as a result of those stories. The writing get a liiiittle heavy-handed sometimes but it mostly works with the directness of the writing.
Similar Reads
The female-centered reboot of a Greek myth reminded me of Madeline Miller’s Circe, and certain shifts + modern language reminded me of Emily Wilson’s translation of The Odyssey.
Obviously a lot of parallels and similarities to Miller’s Song of Achilles (which focuses on the Achilles/Patroclus romance).
The themes of gendered power and violence reminded me of Mary Beard’s Women and Power, which draws on the classics and how they shape modern patriarchal power structures.