In the eagerly anticipated sequel to 2018's The Silence of the Girls, Pat Barker returns to Briseis' as she promised with the end of Achilles's story her own would begin. And it is not only Briseis' story Pat Barker continues to tell - in this book she brings us all the stories of The Women of Troy - like Priam said in the first book, war is not fair to women. And though Briseis' story is the forgotten one being told in these books, it doesn't make the stories of Helen, Andromache, Hecuba, Cassandra and so many others any less important.
As the Trojan War is over by the time this book starts, it focuses on the aftermath during which the Greeks become restless while they wait out the winds that prevent them from sailing home - what comes before the events of Homer's The Odyssey. Though I've seen a few criticisms that this book doesn't measure up to its predecessor, I disagree. I think this opinion is formed by the fact that there was a lot more action with the war playing out in the first book whereas here, Barker focuses more on the immediate aftermath, the quiet after the storm, she doesn't forget the way people have to rebuild their lives after a war - victor and defeated alike. The old tensions and rivalries don't go away, they fester and evolve into something else. The first book focused on emotions running high during a brutal and bloody war, the follow-up focuses on how it changed people by creating and removing old rivalries.
From the start of this book, Briseis has officially moved beyond the status of slave and now enjoys some of the comforts of her former life as the bearer of Achilles' child and Alcimus' wife. Achilles' presence lingers in this book across all the characters' lives, but not as much as it hangs between Briseis and Alcimus. Briseis no longer seems to despise the position she is in the way she once did, she now has accepted it as now she has more freedom and security in her life. But every time she and Alcimus are together, or when his absence is obvious, her former place as Achilles' Prize of Honour stands between them. It's something I would like to see develop further if Pat Barker revisits these characters.
Briseis' newfound freedom shows another side of who she has become. In The Silence of the Girls, she talks about how in her father's household, slaves were always treated fairly and with kindness and you get the chance to see whether or not she lives up to this ideal and what her own experience taught her. A lot of her focus is on taking care of the women who were once Trojan royalty and noble ladies who had now become slaves - much like she had. Briseis takes care of Andromache, grieving a husband and child brutally lost by the hands of a father and son while being raped at any given moment; Helen, who may have been the cause of the war and resented by every member of the camp but wasn't as well treated by Menelaus for her leaving him; headstrong and stubborn Hecuba who won't let the Greeks break her even as she grieves the deaths of her husband, children and grandchildren; and last but not least, Briseis lends an ear to Cassandra, no matter how outlandish her very specific prophecies are. And those are just the significant names of the women of the Trojan War - Briseis has such a pure and open heart, she acts as a mother hen taking care of every one of the women she can, whether they are in her care or not.
In this book, we are introduced to Pyrrhus, the son of Achilles that arrived just too late to fight by his father's side. Where The Silence of the Girls delved into chapters focusing on Achilles' mindset, The Women of Troy visits the mind of Pyrrhus and the seer, Calchas. Pyrrhus is a complex character - by trying to live up to his father's legacy, he ends up being worse and dishonourable. You see him evolve from self-righteous and entitled to something resembling a sense of humanity. Calchas is the priest who will follow power where he can to save his own skin despite not being entirely committed to his position. Of the three perspectives, his was likely the least fulfilling in this book.
Reasons to Recommend:
- A love for retellings of The Illiad and The Odyssey
- You want to see where Briseis' story leads on
- The aftermath of the Trojan War from the perspective of someone who first lost and then gained from it
- The quiet after (and before) the storm, both literally and metaphorically
- Furthering the aim of the first book in giving a voice to the women whose voices were too quiet in this story before
Comments
Post a Comment