The Silence of the Girls: A Novel (The Women of Troy Series)
From the Booker Prize-winning author of the Regeneration trilogy comes a brave and masterful retelling of The Iliad, as experienced by the captured women living in the Greek camp in the final weeks of the Trojan War.
Shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award • Finalist for the Women’s Prize for Fiction
One of the Best Books of the Year: NPR, The Washington Post, The Economist, Financial Times
Here is the story of the Iliad as we’ve never heard it before: in the words of Briseis, Trojan queen and captive of Achilles. Given only a few words in Homer’s epic and largely erased by history, she is nonetheless a pivotal figure in the Trojan War. In these pages she comes fully to life: wry, watchful, forging connections among her fellow female prisoners even as she is caught between Greece’s two most powerful warriors. Her story pulls back the veil on the thousands of women who lived behind the scenes of the Greek army camp—concubines, nurses, prostitutes, the women who lay out the dead—as gods and mortals spar, and as a legendary war hurtles toward its inevitable conclusion. Brilliantly written, filled with moments of terror and beauty, The Silence of the Girls gives voice to an extraordinary woman—and makes an ancient story new again.
Shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award • Finalist for the Women’s Prize for Fiction
One of the Best Books of the Year: NPR, The Washington Post, The Economist, Financial Times
Here is the story of the Iliad as we’ve never heard it before: in the words of Briseis, Trojan queen and captive of Achilles. Given only a few words in Homer’s epic and largely erased by history, she is nonetheless a pivotal figure in the Trojan War. In these pages she comes fully to life: wry, watchful, forging connections among her fellow female prisoners even as she is caught between Greece’s two most powerful warriors. Her story pulls back the veil on the thousands of women who lived behind the scenes of the Greek army camp—concubines, nurses, prostitutes, the women who lay out the dead—as gods and mortals spar, and as a legendary war hurtles toward its inevitable conclusion. Brilliantly written, filled with moments of terror and beauty, The Silence of the Girls gives voice to an extraordinary woman—and makes an ancient story new again.
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Community Reviews
beautifully written but it was hard to get through the chapters that were in achilles' perspective. i was surprised that a third of this book was written from his POV when the book is literally called 'the silence of the girls' and is marketed as a re-telling of the Iliad from Briseis' perspective?? despite that though, i still really enjoyed this!! major trigger warnings obvi!!!
Before I begin the review of Writer Pat Baker’s novel The Silence of The Girls, I have not read the works of the Ancient Greek Poet Homer. I thought this was important to mention because Pat Baker’s novel is reimaging parts of Homer’s The Iliad from the point of the enslaved Trojan “battle-won concubine” (Cahill 20) named Briseis (Baker 8) who the Ancient Greek warrior Achilles and the Ancient Greek Leader Agamemnon have a falling out over. In parts two and three, chapters are told from the point of Achilles and Briseis. In the epigraph of The Silence of the Girls, Baker quotes the writer named Philip Roth that Achilles and Agamemnon were having essentially “a barroom brawl. They are quarreling over women. A girl, really. A girl, really. A girl stolen from her father. A girl abducted in a war” (Baker ix). The story of The Iliad starts with the story of the fight between Achilles and Agamemnon (Cahill 20). Since Roth believes The Iliad is the first work of European literature, this fight over Briseis is the start of European literature (Baker ix). I believe this passage from Roth heavily influenced Baker’s The Silence of The Girls. Baker was interested in putting the character of Briseis back into The Iliad. By focusing on the character of Briseis, Baker is able to look at the effects of war on women in the Ancient Greek World, including the role of sexual violence in war. I read The Silence of The Girls on my Kindle. I thought that Pat Baker’s novel, The Silence of The Girls was an interesting novel about how war affected women in Homer’s The Iliad.
Works Cited:
Cahill, Thomas. 2003. Sailing The Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter. New York: Random House, Incorporated.
This book is a very intense read. It’s a realistic portrayal of what happens to women after a city is conquered. Characters are well developed and the story is true to the Iliad. It details parts of the Iliad more than others while closing over other major events in the story.
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