A Washington Post Notable Book One of the Best Books of the Year: NPR, The Economist, Financial Times Shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award Finalist for the Women’s Prize for FictionHere is the story of the Iliad as we’ve never heard it before: in the words of Briseis, Trojan queen and captive of Achilles. Given only a few words in Homer’s epic and largely erased by history, she is nonetheless … epic and largely erased by history, she is nonetheless a pivotal figure in the Trojan War. In these pages she comes fully to life: wry, watchful, forging connections among her fellow female prisoners even as she is caught between Greece’s two most powerful warriors. Her story pulls back the veil on the thousands of women who lived behind the scenes of the Greek army camp—concubines, nurses, prostitutes, the women who lay out the dead—as gods and mortals spar, and as a legendary war hurtles toward its inevitable conclusion. Brilliantly written, filled with moments of terror and beauty, The Silence of the Girls gives voice to an extraordinary woman—and makes an ancient story new again.
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Beautifully written novel
Most books I’ve read about war focus on the glory of battle or the heroism of soldiers or the back stage political intrigues or the close fraternal bonds that form among troops fighting alongside one another. Here is a completely different take. Because this author shows war from the perspective of the women who witness the carnage.
Pat Barker takes us deep into the mythic Trojan War, nine years into ten years of battles. Here are all the characters we have all heard about – King Agamemnon, the half-human half-god warrior Achilles, the love triangle of Helen-Menelaus-Paris, King Priam, Nestor, Odysseus, and Patroclus. We do witness some of their brutal fighting. But instead of celebrating violence and death, in this book, it is all seen from the perspective of Briseis, a previously captured Queen-turned-slave. And she — and ALL the other women — only see the absurdity of war. For them it’s about pointless violence, petty and meaningless competition among warriors, and continual shifts in who appears to be the victor.
Because in all war, Barker shows us all women are powerless, and once conquered, become just one more commodity to be used by men. Simply part of the loot gathered by conquerors. No matter what rank, power, or privilege these women had before — they all become slaves to be raped by victors, forced to nurse the wounded, and required to prepare and serve meals. They can be abused, traded and passed around with less care than soldiers show their dogs, horses, or armor. Women who watched soldiers slaughter their loved ones are then forced into those same murderers’ beds, even having to bear their children. It’s quite a bleak picture of the lives of women.
There is however one positive aspect. Probably NOT surprising to the women reading this review. Because for women, war becomes the great leveler. And strong bonds form among women, regardless of whether they are Greek, or Trojans, or from some other conquered people. The work all these women do is the same, their value minimal, and their bodies virtually interchangeable. So they wind up supporting one another, regardless of origin or class.
Barker’s writing is sparse and frank. But the story is remarkably compelling even if you remember your myths. And I promise you won’t be able to finish this book and not think of all war differently in the future.
A thought-provoking feminist reinterpretation of one of the foundational stories in western literature. If no man is a hero to his valet, no warrior is a hero to the captured women he violates. You will come to read the Illiad with new eyes.
Excellent depiction of the Trojan War from the view of Briseus who was awarded to Achilles
Beautifully written.
War from the perspective of the women enslaved by the “heroes”. I could not put it down.
In The Silence of the Girls, author Pat Barker takes an important but mainly silent character from Homer’s Iliad and gives her voice. She is Achilles’ war prize: Briseis, an involuntary sex slave. Through Briseis’ point of view, Barker highlights hard truths about the characters in this well-known piece of literature. It’s a question about heroes and villains, and an exploration of how women have been treated as commodities all the way back to an imagined history. Barker removes the glory of men from the Trojan War and replaces it with “the brutal reality of conquest and slavery”.
“Yes, the death of young men in battle is a tragedy – I’d lost four brothers, I didn’t need anybody to tell me that. A tragedy worthy of any number of laments – but theirs is not the worst fate. I looked at Andromache, who’d have to live the rest of her amputated life as a slave, and I thought: We need a new song.”
This is not a retelling per se, but rather an added perspective to a familiar story. Some view it as a simple but honest exploration of Achilles and Briseis’ relationship in the context of war while others view it as a tribute to the strength of women. Either way, the female voice is heard. Briseis breaks her silence and comes forward. Check it out.
Highly recommended for fans of Mary Renault, or readers of novels like Circe. The Trojan War from the POV of a prize captive, with no punches pulled. Insights about women in wartime, slavery, and the human cost of war probably still valid today.
Huddled with the other women in the parapet within Lyrnessus’s walls, Briseis stands in the shadow of a window and watches the action below. Achilles has already killed her husband and two brothers, and now her youngest brother, barely old enough to fight, is brought down by a spear through the throat. As she watches him die, Achilles raises his head and, she thinks, looks directly at her. By the end of the day, her city will have fallen, and she will be Achilles’s slave.
Many novels have been written about the Trojan War, but Barker finds a new way in through the point of view of Briseis, once a queen and a childhood friend of the infamous Helen, now a concubine struggling to make the best of things. The heroics of war take on a new dimension within the confines of the Greek camp where the captive women are assigned to the victors–until they tire of them and are loosed to the general troops. Those too old or unattractive for bed-play are resigned to work in the laundry, charnal house, or hospital, and all of the women take their turns working the looms. Only 19, Briseis tries her best to submit to Achilles’s will and is sustained by the unexpected friendship of his companion, Patroclus–at least until Appollo’s wrath hits the camp in the form of a plague, and Briseis herself becomes a pawn in both the attempt to pacify the angry god and in the infamous quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon,.
No one examines the effects of war quite like Pat Barker. Regeneration, the first in her World War I trilogy, focuses on the poet Siegfried Sassoon, who was found “mentally unsound” in a court martial after publishing a letter denouncing the war and was sent to Craiglockhart War Hospital where, under the care of psychiatist Dr. William Rivers, he was supposed to regain his senses and return to the trenches. (The next two books, The Eye in the Door and pThe Ghost Road, follow the war through the experiences of Rivers and another patient, Billy Prior.) A second trilogy, Life Class, follows students whose studies at the Slade School of Art are interrupted by World War I; some enlist, others take on sacrifices and supportive tasks at home, including Elinor Brooke, who assists a renowned plastic surgeon in reconstructing the faces of wounded men. (Toby’s Room recounts the effect of the death on battlefield of Elinor’s brother, and in Noonday, she and her family endure the London Blitz and its aftermath.) Now, in The Silence of the Girls, Barker takes her perceptive imagination to ancient Troy and into the hearts and mind of the least culpable and weakest of the defeated, the captive women. Again, she examines in depth the effects of war, not only on the women but also on the warriors, who become increasingly dehumanized. Like Briseis, she can empathize with them while nonetheless condemning their actions. This is a powerful, brutal book, haunting and beautifully written, a true modern counterpart to The Illiad that resonates in today’s world.
Odysseus Ajax Achilles Troy Through The Eyes Of The Captive women