Why this book: Recommended by The Economist as one of the best books of 2018, and selected by my literature reading group to read and discuss at our next meeting

Summary in 3 sentences: This the story of the Iliad, told from the perspective of Briseis who had been awarded to Achilles as a prize after leading the Greeks in conquering Lyrnessus (a town near Troy),  while they were engaged in their war to conquer Troy.  In the Iliad, Briseis becomes a pawn in the power struggle between Achilles, the greatest warrior of the Greeks, and Agamemnon, the leader of the Greek forces, but Homer’s Iliad tells us nothing about her – she is simply a beautiful young woman who powerful men desire and fight over.  This book gives Briseis a voice as we hear the story of the Iliad from her perspective, as she observes and describes the world of the camp, the women of the camp, the warriors whose names we all know, and we get a somewhat different version of a story Western Civilization has been telling itself for close to three millennia.

My impressions: A fabulous addition to the Iliad.   It is Pat Barker’s effort to fill in the gaps and offer a version of the “rest” of this very well known story. I read the Iliad from beginning to end just two years ago, and have recently read and reviewed two other novels based on the Iliad: The Song of Achilles – a story of Achilles and the Iliad from Patroclus’s perspective,  and Ransom – a fleshed out version of King Priam’s visit to Achilles to ransom his son Hector’s body.  Both were rich and well done, adding depth to Homer’s story, but I give Briseis’s perspective on the Iliad as told in The Silence of the Girls, the nod as my favorite.

The Iliad itself is largely about battle and war, killing and suffering, courage and cowardice, blood and guts of men in battle, the serendipitous role of fate and the gods in war, the rage of Achilles and the insecure and selfish pride of Agamemnon.  It also addresses the heroism of Hector and the tragedies suffered by the House of Priam in the beleaguered city of Troy.  In Homer’s Iliad, Briseis has no identity except as a source of competition between Achilles and Agamemnon, but in this book, she becomes a real person.

The Silence of the Girls is largely written in first person from Briseis’s perspective, though there are chapters in a third person voice narrating what is happening.  In this book,  Briseis is a bit like the Forest Gump of the Trojan War – she had  been part of Trojan royalty prior to being awarded to Achilles,  and then became slave/concubine to both Achilles and Agamemnon.  As such she is present for much of what is related in the Iliad off the battlefield, and she offers the perspectives of an intelligent and perceptive, but also personally engaged young woman on the story of the Iliad.  The Silence of the Girls a must read for a “balanced,” and less testosterone-fueled version of Homer’s classic.

Briseis is proud and angry – she watched Achilles slaughter her two brothers and her husband, and then watched helplessly as he and his Greek warriors slaughtered all the men and young males, as well as pregnant women in her city of Lyrnessus.  And then they looted and torched the city she loved.  She along with all healthy and working age women and girls were spared to be parceled out as war booty, to be slaves and workers for the Greek warriors who had conquered  Lyrnessus.  As a beautiful young woman who had been the wife of the King of Lyrnessus, she was considered the top prize, and was awarded to Achilles,  the Greeks’ greatest warrior and the leader of the expedition, who reportedly had personally killed sixty men.  Achilles accepted his prize with arrogant indifference: he looked her over and said, “She’ll do.”

In the Greek camp, she becomes part of the sub-culture of women workers and concubines.  They share their experiences with and support each other, and help each other survive.  They create their own sense of community as they strive to maintain some sense of self and dignity in an environment that treated them as no more than mere means to the success, pleasure, and convenience of the warriors.

Briseis realizes that compared to some of the other women, she is lucky – Achilles though emotionally distant, does not mistreat her, and as his concubine/servant, she has status that protects her from abuse and violation by other men in the camp. Other women in the camp are not so lucky.  Briseis’s luck runs out when Agamemnon demands that Achilles give her to him as his right as leader of the Greek expedition.  That’s when her troubles, and those of the entire Greek expedition accelerate.  Those familiar with the Iliad know that part of the story.

I found Briseis’s descriptions and impressions of the key players in the Iliad fascinating and enriching.   Patroclus is a true hero in the story and the only male who treated Briseis with respect.  She portrays Achilles as complex, childish, narcissistic, and self-centered, a heroic warrior devoted to his men, a great leader of his men, yet also conflicted and introspective.  He has little interest in her, or in anything outside of his personal honor, and his men and their performance in battle.   Agamemnon is a self-aggrandizing and cowardly leader and is a villain.  Her observations of  Ajax, Odysseus, Priam, Helen, Hecuba, Andromoche,  Automedon, Alcimus and others put meat on the bones of what are two-dimensional characters in the Iliad.

Briseis’s fury toward Achilles as the killer of her husband and brothers, the destroyer of her city,  and her hatred of her powerlessness at being forced to serve as his slave and concubine, mellow somewhat, but never disappear, as she observes his suffering after the death Patroclus.  She realized that though he wasn’t good to her, he didn’t mistreat her, and Achilles patronage did protect her.  She even almost begrudges him some wonder and admiration for his devotion to Patroclus and his other men, for his unique connection to the sea and his mother, for his courage to stand up to Agamemnon, and for the equanimity with which he faces his inevitable death.  Toward the end of the story, Achilles seems to recognize and value Briseis as a human being with more to offer than merely serving as means to his immediate needs.

I was generally impressed with how Barker portrayed the primal, testosterone-driven world of male warriors interacting among themselves.   It fit with my own experience in a life-time with the Navy SEALs.  Briseis was merely a servant bringing them their wine, but was able to quietly observe this male ritual of camaraderie in the evenings.  Her detached, rather unsympathetic observations of these male bonding rituals after battle, with alcohol, rough-housing, lewd humor, and mutual chiding generally rang true to me.  These young men at war are fixated on sex, on physical strength and prowess, on power, and courage in battle, and on the bonds of brotherhood that are necessary for men at war to succeed in battle. This is the universal story of male warriors throughout history.   Briseis quietly observes that world as an outsider, and then shifts her focus to take care of herself and her female comrades as they try to protect each other and survive in the midst of all that primal male energy.  Briseis is indeed a survivor to the last.

The story in The Silence of the Girls goes beyond the story of the Iliad.  Barker adds a few bits from other sources of mythology, and indeed alters a bit of it, and adds a bit of her own at the end, to add to Briseis’s story in ways that make sense and which add to the great story she tells. I also particularly appreciated her treatment of Achilles at the end, as he became more humble and aware, more of a human being and less a heroic icon, as he came to accept Patroclus’s death, and prepared to face his own.

This is a fabulous book for anyone who is interested in a well developed alternate perspective on the Iliad, and a look at the perspectives and suffering of women in classical history.

A few QUOTES: 

(Briseis after Agamemnon’s claimed her and the Greek fortunes turned) I could feel the same hostility, the same contempt, beginning to gather around me. I was Helen now.  110

(Briseis commenting on Patroclus wearing Achilles armor) He had become Achilles.  Isn’t that love’s highest aim?  Not the interchange of two free minds, but a single fused identity?  168

Achilles never drinks too much, never eats too much either – and he certainly never misses his run in full armor round the bay.  He has all the minor virtues, and only one – colossal – vice. 174

(Briseis speaking of of Alcimus and Automedon)  They were as trapped as Achilles was in a never ending cycle of hatred and revenge.  And if they couldn’t free themselves from it, with all the advantages they had, what hope was there for me? 227

(Priam, as he bent his head and kissed Achilles hands)  “I do what no man before me has ever done, I kiss the hands of the man who killed my son.” (Briseis thinking in response…) Those words echoed round me, as I stood in the storage hut, surrounded on all sides by the wealth Achilles had plundered from burning cities.  I thought:  “And I do what countless women before me have been forced to do. I spread my legs for the man who killed my husband and my brothers.”  240