The Silence of the Girls

Pat Barker is a fantastic author, but what I especially love about this book is that it’s re-telling a well-known Greek myth through the eyes of a woman.

This subtle shift in perspective changes the story from one of heroism to one of survival. It is a cleverly conceived and beautifully rendered adaptation from the epic to the personal, from the grand narrative to the intimate.

This book is highly recommended.

The story of Briseis, Achilles' prize that he was forced to give up to Agamemnon, is an eye-opening account of what happened to women at the time of the Trojan War. Their male relatives were slain and they were assigned as booty, spoils of war. Achilles, who was famously paired with Patroclus, is given depth of character here as is the long wait to attack Troy. Once again, the reader is transported to another world and that world becomes real. Barker's description of Achilles' relationship with his mother is another twist in the story and one for which there is… show more.

Picture Achilles, the legendary hero, immortalised in Homer’s Iliad, conqueror of the siege of Troy. Now imagine what it must feel like to be a captive girl, handed over to Achilles as a trophy of war. Through the terrified eyes of the young Trojan Queen, Briseis, Barker brings the whole Trojan War to life. Her Achilles is no longer Homer’s half-immortal superman, but a remote, neurotic and expressionless brute who subjects Briseis to degrading days as a slave girl and hateful nightly couplings, but remains cold and impassive, while inwardly seething with his own suppressed insecurities. A vivid evocation… show more.

Pat Barker writes superbly about the human costs of war, and in this book she re-tells Homer’s Illiad from the perspective not of the foot soldiers, the cannon fodder of ego-driven politician/heroes, but from the perspective of the vanquished women reduced to slavery and concubinage - Breseis, awarded to Achilles after her city is sacked, fought over by Agamemnon, Andromarche, Hector’s widow, reduced to slavery after her entire family has been slaughtered, Polyxena, the daughter of Priam and Hecuba, sacrificed by the Greeks... It is a sensuous, visceral retelling of the story, provocative and evocative. You become part of that… show more.

I am a huge admirer of Pat Barker’s work. My expectations were high when I began reading The Silence of the Girls.

I was hugely rewarded. The book weaves together into a seamless, compelling narrative, all those themes that are so close to my writer’s heart. The silence that surrounds the lived experience of women down through the ages, and the necessity to hear the voice of the ‘ordinary’ woman as she negotiates her way through the maze of rules that were not made by her.

Here, the central character is Briseis, a woman awarded as a prize to… show more.