So, what is this book about? The Song of Achilles is the story of our hero ‘Achilles’ told from the viewpoint of his lover, Patroclus. Patroclus is a prince but due to an incident when Patroclus is 10 he gets exiled to the kingdom of Phthia, where Achilles is Prince. Whilst Patroclus seems to have no obvious redeeming features at all, Achilles, by contrast, is the son of a King and a (minor) Goddess and is athletic, beautiful, skilled at music, beloved by his people, and is Aristos Achaion, Best of the Greeks in battle. The story follows the blossoming romance between Patroclus and Achilles as they grow up together (though I have no idea what they see in each other), get educated by Chiron the Centaur in a period of idyll, and then find themselves embroiled in the 10-year siege of Troy trying to get Helen back to her rightful husband, Menelaus.

Throughout the novel we see Thetis, Achilles’ mother, filling Achilles’ head with notions of the glory that is to be his whilst at the same time trying to prevent him from going to Troy. Thetis has a deep dislike of Patroclus but this does not stop Achilles from taking him as his partner.

The siege of Troy changes Achilles from a relatively nice young man to an entitled, arrogant ‘hero’ and gives us the opportunity to see some of the personalities of other ‘heroes’ such as King Agamemnon. It must be hard to fit 10 years of war into half a book but Miller does this well. There is enough discussion of the battles to remind us of the unpleasantness and futileness of war whilst not digging into the gore and atrocities in agonising detail. We do get to meet a new character Briseis, a slave rescued by Achilles at the urging of Patroclus. Brisies becomes enamoured of Patroclus but he loves her like a sister, though he does contemplate what life would be like with a family of his own. Ultimately, Patroclus chooses Achilles. But the main purpose of the siege is to see the various prophecies surrounding Achilles unfold and Briseis has a part to play in this. To say more would spoiler the book, unless you were a scholar of Greek mythology and knew the ending already.

It is not until three or four years into the siege that Patroclus finally does something interesting. He helps out the physician there and starts getting to know the people that Achilles ultimately leads to their death in one way or another. Yet, he doesn’t even seem to to physic all that often. This is my biggest bugbear of the book. Patroclus is so enthralled to Achilles that he often just hangs around waiting for Achilles to come back from fighting and describe all the details of the battle to Patroclus in detail before Achilles goes to sleep. The ending therefore feels a bit forced.

In my opinion, neither of the main characters, Patroclus and Achilles, have much going for them except each other. And perhaps this love is enough because I was rooting for them and wanted them to have a happy ending.