Trojan War 1

I saw this book on Amazon and ordered it right away, then picked up the one I'm going to review second to finally finish before this one arrived. 

Both of these books tell stories from the Trojan War from the perspective of the women. 

A Thousand Ships covers a lot of female voices. There are the Trojan Women, of course. Andromache, Cassandra, Hecuba (called Hecabe, which is actually more correct but I have trouble remembering that's her), Briseis and Chryseis, the lesser-known Polyxena. Helen. Then the Greek side, which is mainly Iphigenia, Clytemnestra and Penelope. Of course we've also got the gods present, too. 

The chapters are each from a different point of view. Some of the most important are Calliope's. As the muse ("Sing, O muse"), she appears in between chapters occasionally and I love her chapters. 

The Trojan women are lumped together for the most part. Andromache gets the penultimate chapter. Polyxena gets one, Cassandra gets multiples. Cassandra is presented as basically being mentally ill. Her curse is that she sees the future but no one believes her. I'm not sure it's ever been handled in such a brutal fashion but she's being driven mad. She constantly talks or at least mouths words, she drools, she stares into space or at things only she can see. Her curse doesn't work randomly either. The first thing she sees when she meets someone new is the worst thing that's going to happen to them. She's both an extremely sympathetic character and also very frustrating. Apollo came to her one night in his temple and tried to seduce her, but she asked for a favor in return, got it...and then refused to sleep with him. If you're getting a favor from a god, you do not back down from that bargain. Nope. Just fuck him and take the gift you chose. Make it a good one. So she's sympathetic because she's a fucking mess, but she also broke a bargain with a god after receiving her reward, so she got herself into it. Briseis is treated very fleetingly and she shares a chapter with Chryseis, who gets the bigger role. Briseis also makes it so Chryseis is never raped by Agamemnon, which rang amazingly untrue. It was, in my opinion, the worst bit of writing in the book because it's just too unbelievable. 

Penelope's chapters retell The Odyssey in the form of letters she's writing to Odysseus. She's been hearing of his exploits from bards and yeah, she's not happy. It's a unique portrayal of Penelope, who's like the pinnacle of patience and wifely virtue. So of course, I really like it. 

The gods' chapters... Well, let's say I hope the author doesn't actually believe in them or she's in for it. Hera gets a better portrayal than usual, but Aphrodite is shallow and Athena. Wooooooo boy. She's written as insecure of her physical appearance but also as so in love with Odysseus that she's considering seducing him in a disguise. Athena, one of the VIRGIN goddesses. Eris had my favorite chapters. She's presented almost like Cassandra. Like she's so chaotic she can't think straight or remember straight or do much of anything aside from cause trouble which then she forgets she did. Themis also gets a showing, as does Gaea. You see, the whole reason for the Trojan War is that Gaea asked Zeus to do some population control because there were too many humans. So he plotted with Themis, his ex-wife, and they came up with the war idea. The golden apple actually came from Themis. That was a pretty interesting twist. 

Overall, this is a rather simply-written but still quite good book on the Trojan War from the perspective of the women. Because it covers so many of them, they're mostly given too little screentime. My only real complaint is that it's perhaps too watered down. It tells sad stories, yes, but it pulls the punches.

If A Thousand Ships pulls punches, The Silence of the Girls puts on brass knuckles. This is the one that tells what feels like the true story of the Trojan War. Its problem is that it doesn't tell enough of them. 

The main character of this is Briseis. The time period covered is from when her city of Lyrnessus is sacked by the Greeks to after the end of the war, but the meat of the book is her time with Achilles, then stuck with Agamemnon, then back with Achilles before he dies. 

There are several other female characters in here, but the only more known one is Chryseis, who plays a tiny role. And definitely is not saved from rape by some magic herbs Briseis gave her, as is what happened in A Thousand Ships. (Seriously, Briseis just happened to have some herbs that would drug Agamemnon each night.) 

This book shines in that it isn't afraid to tell the really ugly details. Briseis even calls it a "rape camp" near the end. 

However, it's far from perfect. Achilles gets wayyyyy too much screentime. For a book talking about silencing women, its second largest character with a voice is a man. And the book never really addresses Achilles and Patroclus as lovers. It says they may have been at one point, but claims they have a far more intimate relationship now. Why even bother with that? Just make them lovers. You damn well know they were. While history has improved in that it doesn't ignore that relationship as much, it needs to actually recognize it, too. 

These two books were interesting to read back to back because they are so very different. If you're interested in ancient history and mythology, give these a go. 

I've got more ancient Greek books coming up!