The legend begins...
Greece in the age of heroes. Patroclus, an awkward young prince, has been exiled to the kingdom of Phthia to be raised in the shadow of King Peleus and his golden son, Achilles. "The best of all the Greeks" - strong, beautiful, and the child of a goddess - Achilles is everything the shamed Patroclus is not. Yet despite their differences, the boys become steadfast companions. Their bond deepens as they grow into young men and become skilled in the arts of war and medicine - much to the displeasure and the fury of Achilles' mother, Thetis, a cruel sea goddess with a hatred for mortals.
When word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped, the men of Greece , bound by blood and oath, must lay siege to Troy in her name. Seduced by the promise of a glorious destiny, Achilles joins their cause, and torn between love and fear for his friend, Patroclus follows. Little do they know that the Fates will test them both as never before and demand a terrible sacrifice.
My Review:
Madeline Miller's Song of Achilles is the winner of the 2012 Orange Prize for Fiction. Achilles is Ms. Miller first novel. It is based on Homer's Illiad poem.
I really enjoyed reading this novel. It definitely a good book. It one of the stories that sparked my interest and sent me on to the world wide web to further investigate and get the back story on some of the people/gods mentioned.
I'm a bit surprised that Song of Achilles won the Orange Prize. It seems like cheating, taking the plot of someone else's poem and developing it into a novel. Yes, Ms. Miller did bring the characters to life. Yes, her writing style did make this novel a pleasure to read, but still it doesn't seem fair to the other authors who actually developed their own plots.
Achilles is a historical fiction, one could argue that all historical fictions steal their plots from a story already written. What do you think? Am I overreacting?
I'm going to hold off on rating this book until I've read Homer's poem.
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