The source material has changed from Homer to Euripides, from epic to tragic, from warfare to its aftermath and in particular that strange hiatus between the end of the Trojan War and the return home – and as almost every reader who picks this up, a return home which will be “difficult” to say the least for so many of these Greek heroes. In short, no… or perhaps, closer to the truth might be that she intended this novel to be something different to the first. Pat Barker returns to the city of Troy and Greek myth in this sequel to the wonderful The Silence of the Girls to which I gave five stars back in December 2018 – and it was also interesting to see how the format of my blog and my reviews has changed since then!Ĭan Barker repeat her success with that previous novel? Can she recreate the brutality and shocking realism of hearing Briseis’ voice enslaved by Achilles? The delicate balance between mythology and history which was the hallmark of that novel? But the wind has vanished, the seas becalmed by vengeful gods, and so the warriors remain in limbo – camped in the shadow of the city they destroyed, kept company by the women they stole from it. They can return home as victors – all they need is a good wind to lift their sails. She forges alliances when she can, with Priam's aged wife the defiant Hecuba and with the disgraced soothsayer Calchas, all the while shrewdly seeking her path to revenge.Troy has fallen. Largely unnoticed by her captors, the one time Trojan queen Briseis, formerly Achilles's slave, now belonging to his companion Alcimus, quietly takes in these developments. Old feuds resurface and new suspicions and rivalries begin to fester.
The body of King Priam lies unburied and desecrated, and so the victors remain in suspension, camped in the shadows of the city they destroyed as the coalition that held them together begins to unravel. It does not come, because the gods are offended. Troy has fallen and the victorious Greeks are eager to return home with the spoils of an endless war-including the women of Troy themselves.
Description A daring and timely feminist retelling of The Iliad from the perspective of the women of Troy who endured it-an extraordinary follow up to The Silence of the Girls from the Booker Prize-winning author of The Regeneration Trilogy and "one of contemporary literature's most thoughtful and compelling writers" ( The Washington Post).
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