Review: The Song of Achilles
Long-awaited let-down.
Synopsis
Achilles, "the best of all the Greeks," son of the cruel sea goddess Thetis and the legendary king Peleus, is strong, swift, and beautiful, irresistible to all who meet him. Patroclus is an awkward young prince, exiled from his homeland after an act of shocking violence. Brought together by chance, they forge an inseparable bond, despite risking the gods' wrath.
Review
The first few chapters really got me hooked, so coupled with the fact that this book has got so much hype I could only expect it to get even better from there. My expectations weren't delivered, as it turned out. In a way the fate of this literature much resembled that of its own subject, Achilles: a prophecy of an extraordinary fell ill in the eventuality.
So what went wrong?
Lack of depth in characters' development
A major expectation that came short was the characters' development, which I find monotonous and shallow. Patroclus was merely painted as the secret lover of Achilles — a faible lover, even. 85 percent of Patroclus' inner thoughts was about 1) how Achilles was so beautiful with his face bathed in sunlight, his hair bright blond or his eyes fresh green that Patroclus could never forget even if he’d ceased to live, and 2) how he silently begged Achilles to do this or not do that. Achilles was barely any better at being a captivating protagonist.
The interactions these two characters had with peripheral characters were equally dull. There was an adequate amount of dialogues, but most were short and stopped at literatim describing what happened rather than elaborating on the underlying psychology of the characters and their circumference. I could say there was not any dialogue that had meaningful exposed a character's gist.
Disjointed tense
There was also the problem of disjointed tenses. From the beginning it felt like Patroclus was narrating in real time, until he said something a long the line of "This would later prove to be wrong", which utterly confused me. Was the narrator reflecting back on past events or was he narrating in real time? This was chapter 8, and I went back a few pages in that same scene and saw that the telling was in present tense. The next scene in the same chapter was told in past tense. There were also one or two other instances in later chapters where Patroclus would make these retrospective remarks, while the entire narration have been altogether a real-time, linear process. Was this an editing shortcoming, I can't say for sure, but as a reader this definitely blemished my reading experience.
But surely there must be something good about it ? Otherwise, how could it get so praised?
There is. What I do love about this book was its language. The lexicon was rich, and narration flowed naturally. The first few chapters was so beautifully written that it felt like a dream, and I think it was the writing that had allowed the two protagonists to start off so impressionably. This presumed forte wasn't very well sustained, unfortunately. The entire middle chapters were observable paraphrased overruns of Patroclus professing love and admiration of and awe towards Achilles. These professions were necessary because the subject matter IS about Patroclus and Achilles' relationship, but I think there could have been other substances to enrich the relationship between the subjects or even the figuring of characters themselves. Instead, by making recurring mentions of Patroclus's love for Achilles the author made it feel like she was just rambling in order to fill in the space in between their childhood at the beginning of the book and Achilles' momentum at the end.
Verdict: Catch or Pass?
For me, it was a pass.
The book was a quick read and I enjoyed my time for the most part. I cannot comment on the factuality of the plot, whether it has closely follow the "legitimate" Greek mythology; however, judging by the writing and the development of characters, it certainly fell short of showering accolades. Others have also talked so much about how the book includes themes like friendship and sacrifice and success, and of this I was disappointed, as I could only see them jumbling into one poorly developed theme of sexual love. Altogether, I didn't hate it, but it was just another fantasy/ fiction in a sea of okay-ish fantasies/fictions.