I read a book.

[tehta]

I suspect that I am the very last person in this corner of fandom to hear about The Song of Achilles, last year's Orange-prize-winning novel about, well, Achilles. And Patroclus, who, in this interpretation, is NOT his cousin. If you know what I mean. And most of you do.

Anyway, I have finally heard of it, and moreover, purchased it and read it. And now I feel compelled to share my thoughts on it with the internet. So, here goes:

• I did enjoy it.
  
• It is well-written. Not brilliant, but reasonably impressive.
  
• But I cannot help thinking of it as fanfiction for the Illiad. (Hilariously, the review I linked to above says the same thing -- citing Sam and Frodo!)
  
• And, if I judge it by the same standards I apply to fanfiction... it falls short. I can think of several fics I find more compelling, and just as well-written.
  
• I guess I feel that it lacks a certain edge. I think this is VERY related to some discussions I have been having with wulfila lately, about the ideal of the noble, beautiful hero, and the question of whether we should be writing them. One of the claims I made was that the most popular heroes fall far from this ideal, and I gave the examples of Lancelot, Maedhros -- and Achilles. A different claim I forgot to make was that actual idealized heroes would be boring to read about. Well, I feel like this book idealizes Achilles so much that it makes him boring. (It does keep Odysseus interesting -- but then an author would have to be truly incompetent to mess up such a great character.)
  
• I guess I also feel that it is overshadowed by the Iliad. Shocking, I know. But it's like the Iliad is painted in a wide range of colours, vivid and muted, light and dark, and this book is a small pale study in pastels.
  
• Anyway, the specifics of The Song of Achilles aside -- the whole experience of reading something so lauded, and so comparable to fanfiction, really made me realize just how rich our playground is, here, and how lucky I am to have found it. Go fandom!
  

And now that I have bored everyone, I would like to draw people's attention to the gay claymation version of the Iliad. I know I have linked to it before, but it remains fabulous and awesome.

Comments

[eveiya.livejournal.com]

I read The Song of Achilles quite recently and found it pretty disappointing, flat and inexplicably unsatisfying. I thought nearly all the characters were boring and somewhat fuzzy; they didn't really engage me at all and I wasn't invested in anything that happened to them. I didn't even like the writing much, I found it dull, too, and thought it read like overly-American young adult fiction.

Oddly, about the one thing that didn't bug me to some extent was over-idealised Achilles, because I understood that as Patroclus' over-idealisation, with him being utterly spellbound and almost worshipping Achilles from the get-go.

I did finish the novel and didn't hate it or even dislike it especially, but it just left me feeling kind of meh. I certainly didn't get what the all fuss was about, and yes, I've read really quite a lot of Tolkien (and other) fanfiction I found far richer, more engaging and moving, and generally more entertaining.

I feel like The Song of Achilles came close to but somehow just missed being a certain kind of novel that I generally really do like or love - probably epitomised by some of Ursula Le Guin's fiction - hence my disappointment. I think I was always looking and hoping for a depth and complexity I just never found in it.

I might try reading the book again sometime to see if it grows on me at all, and to make sure I gave it a fair chance, but no rush there...

[tehta.livejournal.com]

Eh. Plenty of other stuff to read out there. Much of it free.

I do get that we're seeing Achilles through Patroclus' starry-eyed POV, but that doesn't make things any less boring, for me. Mostly because we don't get much evidence that Patroclus is misjudging anything, except perhaps near the end... So there's none of the fun of a real unreliable narrator, plus all the flatness of a boring ideal character.

And their relationship! So lacking in tension! I can't help contrasting it not just with the Iliad (not a fair comparison; the two works have different goals) but with stories like, say, The Captive Prince (which has a similar goal, I think.) In CP, the characters have sparks even when they are essentially agreeing; here, I have no idea what they see in each other except for teh pretty on one side, and uncomplicated devotion on the other. And the same goes for the plot... I did want to keep reading, but I think that was because I knew what was coming and wanted to see how she'd interpret it, not because I felt any dramatic tension.