A ROMANTIC RETELLING
By BRADY JONES
@modernangelo
Ten years.
That’s how long it took Madeline Miller to write her debut novel, “The Song of Achilles". She even threw away a completed manuscript for the book because she didn’t think the voice of the main character was right.
What would posses an author to do such a thing?
A deep love and dedication to the classics, that’s what.
Miller, a high school teacher of Latin and Greek, has said that her love of the classic Greek stories and myths came from her mother, who would read them to her as a child. She said she always had a fascination with Patroclus because he was such a minor character who had an outsized role in the story of the Trojan War.
Based in the classic story by the classic Greek poet Homer, (“The Iliad”) the loving relationship between Patroclus and the mighty Achilles wasn’t a new idea, she said, but it had never been fully explored. So she set out to tell the story from that angle.
But she didn’t do it on a whim. Instead, she spent years researching the ancient Greek literature and history and then working and reworking the tale until it fit a compelling but classically accurate version of the story.
“Achilles” won the Orange Prize for Fiction (now known as the Women’s Prize for Fiction), one of the most prestigious literary prizes in the United Kingdom.
“We reached for each other, and I thought of how many nights I had lain awake loving him in silence.”
The Iliad is the oldest surviving work of Greek literature, written by Homer in the eighth century B.C.E.
REVIEWS
“Miller spent 10 years writing this book, yet her smooth prose conceals the painstaking research she has clearly put into it. This is a deeply affecting version of the Achilles story: a fully three-dimensional man – a son, a father, husband and lover – now exists where a superhero previously stood and fought.”
Natalie Haynes, The Guardian
“In prose as clean and spare as the driving poetry of Homer, Miller captures the intensity and devotion of adolescent friendship and lets us believe in these long-dead boys for whom sea nymphs and centaurs are not legend but lived reality. In doing so, she will make their names known to yet another generation, deepening and enriching a tale that has been told for 3,000 years.”
Mary Doria Russell, The Washington Post
Madeline Miller, winner of the 2012 Orange Prize, reads from and discusses her debut novel, “The Song of Achilles” at The Center for Fiction.
YOUTUBE REVIEWS
AWARDS
Winner: Orange Prize for Fiction (2012)
Shortlisted: Chautauqua Prize (2013)