The Silence of the Girls Shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2019

Really interesting to read after Song of Achilles

Excited to keep reading books about Greek mythology

Skipped halfway through the book, I couldn’t care less about the story any longer. Felt a bit of a stretch, the switching to Achilles’/Patroclus’ POV didn’t make sense to me. The modern/British way of telling the story fell odd to me, why would ancient Greek warriors say stuff like ‘lads’, ‘bugger off’, and ‘bloody’ anyway? I love Briseis as a character, but this retelling just felt a little too dragged on to me. This is an extremely biased review, but I much prefer TSOA over this.

“What will they make of us, the people of those unimaginably distant times? One thing I do know: they won’t want the brutal reality of conquest and slavery. They won’t want to be told about the massacres of men and boys, the enslavement of women and girls. They won’t want to know we were living in a rape camp. No, they’ll go for something altogether softer. A love story, perhaps? I just hope they manage to work out who the lovers were.” — Well, yeah, I’d rather have it be a fantastical, epic love story about gay warriors instead. It is a much preferred narrative, and this is not me being anti-feminist either, I just don’t want to read about the suffering of my fellow women as if I don’t already know. And let’s be real, it doesn’t really offer a refreshing feminist view anyway, with how depressing and defeated the main character is.

Loved the ending explanation of why this retelling is different than the others. The dynamics between slaves and owners, between opposing fighters, and a person in the present and the past, is so interesting and deeply interrogated.

insightful and painful

*I read the book in English but in the following i’ll be reviewing the book in Indonesian* *Saya membaca buku ini dalam Bahasa Inggris namun selanjutnya saya akan mengulas buku ini dalam Bahasa Indonesia* Novel ini adalah penceritaan ulang dari The Iliad dari perspektif Briseis, ‘budak perempuan’nya Achilles setelah jatuhnya Lyrnessus. Meskipun diceritakan dari sudut pandang perempuan kurang banyak narasi feminis di buku ini, nggak seperti Penelopiad. Tapi secara umum novel ini adalah penceritaan ulang yang baik dari Iliad. Saya lebih suka ini daripada The Song of Achilles. Disayangkan aja pembaca kurang bisa lihat kemarahan atau kesedihan Briseis sebagai perempuan yang terdampak perang. Cerita dimulai dari jatuhnya Lyrnessus sampai jatuhnya Troya, yang entah kenapa mengesankan adanya siklus cerita di novel ini. Buku ini terdiri dari 3 bagian, bagian pertama dengan narasi orang pertama dari Briseis, sedangkan bagian kedua dan ketiga dengan selang-seling antara narasi orang pertama Briseis dan narasi orang ketiga dari Achilles/Patroclus. Perubahan ini sekilas terasa tiba-tiba, tapi cukup mudah untuk menyesuaikannya. Buku ini dapat menjelaskan kerumitan karakter Achilles, bahkan terkadang terdengar terlalu berpusat ke Achilles, alih-alih menceritakan kisah Briseis. Ketika Briseis baru sampai di kamp prajurit Yunani, seseorang berkata padanya untuk melupakan kehidupan lamanya di Lyrnessus dan bahwa hidupnya sekarang adalah menjadi budak perempuan di kamp; mungkin sebab itu pembaca kurang banyak melihat cerita Briseis sebagai perempuan yang bukan budak.

a nice and easy book to read, the writing is not the most beautiful but it's alright, the pace is fast so i never got bored while reading.

2,5 i’m going to keep this review short, while i liked the book, i thought it was really slow paced, which, i don’t usually mind, but it made the book a bit boring for me. overall i enjoyed this book, i thought the concept was interesting, telling the story from briseis’ point of view, it was interesting reading her thoughts, knowing about her rage, her grief and her sorrow. the ending fell kind of flat though… after the second part of the book that felt endless, the last part was - sorry for my words - a pain in the ass, it was long and for what? i didn’t understand the author’s choice to include achilles’ point of view in the starting from the second part, i thought that was a really poor choice on barker’s part, as the concept of the book is to tell the story from the women’s point of views. maybe the author made that choice to add more depth to the story… i don’t know.

I have never known a silent woman, only women silenced. What a privilege to hear them sing.

I hope I don't get roasted for this review, but The Silence of The Girls didn't offer the revolutionary, feminist view that I was expecting. It's a lot of abuse thrown at women under the pretense of "that's war", but I just expected and wanted a bit more from the narrative. What a great job here at painting Achilles in a more brutal viewpoint (compared to depictions of Achilles in, say, Song of Achilles), but there's nothing absolutely crucial here that you can't infer or get from other equally grotesque yet profoundly powerful retellings.

It follows that same old slightly vague narrative that all Greek retellings seem to have — everything feels so assumed, yet vague, like a riddle. On top of that, I was removed every time a character spoke, it didn't feel like how I imagined these people to speak, but maybe it's just that I haven't been exposed to many 'humanisations' of these men. They do sound an awful lot like average run-of-the-mill British men, though, and it was just slightly distracting.

I thought the story was still relatively interesting in the way it was delivered and structured, but I was left wanting and expecting more from a book that is so highly applauded and recommended.

a nice and easy book to read, the writing is not the most beautiful but it's alright, the pace is fast so i never got bored while reading.

3.8, rounded up. Not my favorite from Pat Barker - her Regeneration Trilogy was so much more engaging, full of details that frequently had me googling things like "women munitions workers" or looking at biographies of Sassoon, et al. Nonetheless, this book moves along nicely to it's well-known conclusion; this is, after all, The Iliad, albeit from the perspective of Trojan women, slaves of the conquering Greeks. Interestingly, the only godlike creature allowed to enter Barker's narrative is Thetis, Achilles' mother, whereas in the original, Athena is introduced in the first page or two, grabbing Achilles by the hair, and other gods intervene periodically. Nonetheless, very readable.

characters lacked depth, dialogue and narration felt uncomfortable at times. was not the feminism story I was expecting.

rounded up from 2.5 to 3.

I’m always a sucker for greek mythology, but this one didn’t hit as hard as madeline millers books, very interesting perespective, also very sad

Quite surprised by the pull quotes describing this as “mesmerising”, “taut” and not least “Homeric in its brilliance” (The Economist). I feel like I should have loved it but actually found it quite boring??

I do like the premise (Trojan wars retold by its women) but found it hard to connect emotionally with any of the characters and I counterintuitively ended up with more sympathy for Achilles.

Occasionally the perspective switches from Briseis to Achilles - this could have worked well if the entire book was structured in this way - The Affair did this really well on TV - but didn’t find it added much here. 

Style-wise didn’t love the modern casual dialogue which jarred rather than humanise this mythical cast and in general think more could have been said with less.

I did race through it and think the sense of place is very palpable (and pungent!) - it’s very readable but just, personally, struggled to connect with it.

"Great Achilles. Brilliant Achilles, shining Achilles, godlike Achilles...How the epithets pile up. We never called him any of those things; we called him 'the butcher'". This is how Briseis' story begins, with her city being plundered and then taken to slavery. While I've heard of the Illiad and its influence on Western literature, I actually haven't thought too much about nor read it. Therefore, I didn't come into the book wanting to know another perspective of the Trojan War, but wanting to see how one woman survived through it all. The book is mostly in Briseis' point of view; however, starting from the second part, it starts getting into Achilles' perspective through the third person, where we get into his fears of demise and plans for revenge. While I think it's an interesting approach to take considering what the Illiad is about, it also detracts from the perspective which we want to know. Nevertheless, it comes in handy for things not explained, such as with Achilles seemingly suckling Briseis in one scene and his attachment to the ocean. As for Briseis, I initially found her aloof--not surprising considering her situation as a slave for the Greeks. This doesn't mean I didn't enjoy her observant nature--one of the earliest scenes where she does this was on the rooftop with the other women, and notes how Arianna "threw herself down, her white robe fluttering round her as she fell--like a singed moth" (15) This was the beginning, however of little pieces of resistance which Barker wants to emphasize in the tale. It was enough to get the point, but not excessive enough to slam it through. The writing style is filled with narration with relatively less dialogue than I would've liked, which was different from I was used to. However, I got accustomed to what Barker sought to describe--the brutal, tragic aspects of classical warfare, which still resonates today. Amongst the interactions and conflict between the Trojans and Greeks, this particularly stood out to me: "There they were: battle-hardened fighters every one, listening to a slave sing a Trojian lullaby to her Greek baby. And suddenly I understood something--glimpsed, rather; I don't think I understood it till much later. I thought: 'We're going to survive--our songs, our stories. They'll never be able to forget us. Decades after the last man who fought at Troy is dead, their sons will remember the songs their Trojan mothers sang to them. We'll be in their dreams--and in their worst nightmares too." (266) And that's what the gist of the book was all about--survival and being able to tell one's own story. (7.5/10)

Review to come!

This book is INCREDIBLE. Even more so, I think, as audiobook — as both narrators do an amazing job at interpreting the various characters (with a tiny exception, perhaps, of hearing an occasional Irish accent on a random Greek soldier; but as they are few and far between, not so bothersome as to affect the overall rating.) I am not generally a huge fan of retellings; I tend to be skeptical of them, and largely avoid them. The exception is when it comes to retellings of Greek and Roman myths, which is something I have loved and absolutely devoured since I was a child. Retellings of the Iliad and Odyssey, so beloved despite the crappy way they are often taught, are something I search for and look forward to, and this was no exception. If you’re familiar with the Iliad and/or have read The Song of Achilles, you know this is a brutal story. The Silence of the Girls is even more brutal, being told mostly from the viewpoint of a slave, and mostly stripped of the romantic notions associated with classic heroes and their feats. This is a raw look at war and its consequences; at slavery, abuse and murder in the name of a cause that becomes ridiculous and remote when the fighting is actually happening, and the suffering is being inflicted on survivors in so many, painful ways. What exactly, you might wonder, is so incredible about this book, then? It sounds horrifying! It is, at times. And I had to take breaks from it sometimes while listening. But the voice of the main narrator and the way she described her life before and during the Trojan war is an eye-opener; her commentary on the treatment of women, the way people would be reduced to objects, and the many ways a perceived slight is often used as an excuse for hate, make this oddly, incredibly, timelessly relevant. I’d recommend it wholeheartedly, but with a caveat: be aware that there is murder, sexual violence, abuse, and a number of other things that might not make this a good pick for you. If however you want to brave it, I’ll tell you that this is in a tie with Kingdom of Copper (a completely different kind of book) for my favorite of 2019. (And if you know how much I love the Daevabad series, you have an idea). I’m giving it 5 STARS without hesitation, and though I own the audiobook, I plan on also getting the hardcover, because this is truly a keeper.

maybe i’ll write a real review when i’ve finally healed from this book and am in the headspace to do so. for now all i can say is don’t read it when you’re eating your favorite food because it will forever be ruined for you.

I'll pretty much read any Trojan War retelling but this was great. I loved Briseis as the protagonist and the perspective of the women and children slaves in the Greek camps, taken from sacked Trojan cities. Just found out the sequel is coming out this year and I can't wait!

The Silence of the Girls“ steht dieses Jahr auf der Longlist des „Women’s Prize for Fiction“ und ist eine Neuerzählung der Ilias. Wie Madeline Miller in „Circe“ hat sich Pat Barker für ihre Version der Geschichte eine weibliche Hauptfigur erwählt, werden Mythen und Sagen doch überwiegend aus der Sicht der glorreichen Männer erzählt. Doch wie ergeht es den Frauen eigentlich in diesen Erzählungen? Diese Frage beleuchtet die Autorin anhand der Figur der Briseis, die Siegestrophäe der Kriegsmaschine Achilles und dessen neue Bettgespielin. Gerade im Hinblick auf die #Metoo-Bewegung ist dies eine äußerst aktuelle Story – Frauen als Schmuckstücke erfolgreicher Männer. Man hätte so viel daraus machen könne, aber mich hat die Umsetzung eher verärgert. Briseis und ihren Leidensgenossinnen ist die Situation, durch die Hände der Sieger gereicht zu werden, nicht fremd. Die Wahl eines Ehemanns war von Anfang an stark eingeschränkt, die Kriege um Troja haben ihnen das letzte Stück Freiheit genommen. Doch wehren sie sich? Versuchen sie, ihr Schicksal zu ändern? Nope. Nö. Nein. Die „Girls“ in diesem Buch schweigen, wie es bereits der Titel andeutet. Sie nehmen es völlig emotionslos und demütig hin, dass sie nur benutzt werden, dass man sich nicht für sie als Menschen interessiert und sie Vergewaltigungen über sich ergehen lassen müssen. „Wenigstens ist es schnell vorbei“, kommentiert Briseis den nächtlichen Missbrauch durch Achilles… Ja, es ist unumstritten, dass es auch heute noch Gesellschaften gibt, in denen Frauen keinerlei Rechte besitzen und Eigentum eines Mannes sind, dennoch haben sie Gefühle, Hoffnungen und Wünsche! Sie erleiden physische und seelische Schmerzen, auch wenn Gewalt zu ihrem Alltag gehört – kaum jemand kann so etwas auf Dauer ertragen, ohne nicht im Innern damit zu kämpfen. Diese Seite vernachlässigt Barker in „The Silence of the Girls“ fast vollständig. Sind die Männer Kampfmaschinen so sind ihre Frauen Sexmaschinen – immer zur Verfügung, immer bereit und alles in allem ergeben und umgänglich. Unglaublich, wie man als Autorin solche Frauenfiguren entwerfen kann und Mütter ihren jugendlichen Töchtern die Lektüre eines solchen Buches dringend ans Herz legen. Warum? Sollen sie lernen, die Klappe zu halten, wenn es ihnen mies ergeht? Sollen sie lernen, sich unterzuordnen, weil der Mann der Stärkere ist? Es ist mir völlig schleierhaft, wieso dieses Buch momentan so gehyped wird. Es hat nichts Hilfreiches zur Debatte beizutragen. Gar nichts.

** spoiler alert ** Makes me want to read the Iliad and then write a whole paper on why this book is better than it. There’s so many themes in this book I could never do it justice the more I think about it the more comes out. I literally can’t even pick one thing to talk about there’s so many layers and i can’t organize my thoughts. I guess the theme that’s on the top of my head after finishing is survival, but the one most prevalent through all of the characters in the novel is grief and war. War creates two sides to most of the characters in this book, and grief tends to be the other side. Someone like Achilles has committed horrible things not just in war but to the women in the camps, and you hate him for it; but in the moments he is wrapped up in his grief and not just this figurehead of war and death you also see him as human. She does the same thing with Briseis and her almost insurmountable load of grief, for her brothers, her city, and her life. One of the few moments a man sees her as a human in this book is when she tells a guard that Priam is her father in law, and he realizes she had a life before the camp, and that she must have lost it. At the end Briseis starts to accept her life with the Greeks and it’s so conflicting and heartbreaking. She is no longer a slave, having been married off to someone Achilles chose. She states at the beginning that life as a slave is no life at all, but at the end is glad she chose life unlike so many of the other women in this book. Everything about this book is so up in the air, her story only really starts once Achilles is gone, but we don’t get to see it because she truly is only defined by Achilles in the legends. There are chapters from Achilles and Patroclus’s perspectives to remind us this is not her story, not her life, but at the same time it was her life, and it was how she lived, and to disregard that and not show her part is to allow the silence to become a woman. i literally could write about this book for a year straight and still not cover everything. There are so many complexities and intricacies i’m gonna be chewing on it for weeks.

'the silence of the girls' poses the question of whether 'the illiad' can be retold without focusing on achilles by way of trying to centre the lives of its female characters, in particular briseis.

if this were a thought experiment, the conclusion to this question would be that this is not entirely possible - the events described in 'the illiad' are so tightly knit with achilles' life and fate that separating one from the other is stripping the myth off its core. the task is made particularly difficult by the novel centring briseis whose story is also tightly knit with achilles'. as such, if you are seeking a book entirely devoid of achilles, you are looking at the wrong novel.

where 'the silence of the girls' is particularly valuable in giving trojan women a voice is the ability to explore their daily lives in the greek camp as slaves and concubines - women whose presence and fate has often been overlooked in favour of the heroism of the warrior men and women who have been deemed 'exceptional' by men. in that regard, barker does not shy away from the cruelty that these women endure and learn to cope with in their daily lives, albeit managing to represent it with a gentle and lyrical voice.

i must admit, however, that this could have been explored with more depth and nuance than contained within the finished novel.

nevertheless, the reality of the women's daily lives is so integral to the novel that the sections dedicated to strictly achilles and partoclus and their p.o.v. felt like more of a necessity of narration than a thesis or antithesis of the novel. do not make the mistake, however, to think that barker laboured over them any less - they were just as movingly and beautifully written as briseis' sections.

it is just that par barker is that talented and solid as a writer. her prose is clear as water that runs smoothly and gently - of impressive quality, especially where paired with commercial success. there cannot be enough praised for how gripping she has managed to make a story very familiar to its target audience. with the publication of commercial mythological retellings greatly intensified over the past decade, this quality of the prose truly manages to elevate this novel above its peers.

We did this book for my senior year AP lit class. in three words, i love it. normally greek myths or retellings center around the heroes or the gods and while there are aspects of that, it captures the poverty and desperation that makes this book so captivating