Status
Available
Series
Publication
Doubleday (2021), Edition: 1, 304 pages
Description
Fiction. Literature. Historical Fiction. HTML:A daring and timely feminist retelling of The Iliad from the perspective of the women of Troy who endured itâ??an extraordinary follow up to The Silence of the Girls from the Booker Prize-winning author of The Regeneration Trilogy and â??one of contemporary literatureâ??s most thoughtful and compelling writers" (The Washington Post). Troy has fallen and the victorious Greeks are eager to return home with the spoils of an endless warâ??including the women of Troy themselves. They await a fair wind for the Aegean. It does not come, because the gods are offended. The body of King Priam lies unburied and desecrated, and so the victors remain in suspension, camped in the shadows of the city they destroyed as the coalition that held them together begins to unravel. Old feuds resurface and new suspicions and rivalries begin to fester. Largely unnoticed by her captors, the one time Trojan queen Briseis, formerly Achilles's slave, now belonging to his companion Alcimus, quietly takes in these developments. She forges alliances when she can, with Priam's aged wife the defiant Hecuba and with the disgraced soothsayer Calchas, all the while shrewdly seeking her path… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member davidroche
The Women of Troy (Hamish Hamilton) by Pat Barker continues the story of Briseis after the fall of Troy from the wonderful The Silence of the Girls, which was shortlisted for multiple awards. The books opens inside the Trojan Horse and sets the context for what follows. The Greeks have won the war
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but despite their treasures and spoils, they are becalmed on the beaches outside the city and can’t get home. The politics of the peace become as difficult as the battles that have been and gone. Briseis tries to endure while carrying the child of the deceased Achilles, by using her wits and brutally earned experience to win friends and influence others in the enemy camp, as their fragile society starts to disintegrate. The Gods are upset and something has to give… This book is out on August 26th and is as engaging as its predecessor – plenty of time to get up to speed before then and you won’t regret it. Show Less
LibraryThing member Cariola
Barker picks up the narrative she began in The Silence of the Girls, the story of Briseis, a Trojan queen awarded to Achilles as a prize of honor. After Achilles's death, she was given to one of his captains, Alcimus, a kind and honorable man who is happy to marry the woman carrying the great Greek
Briseis's relative freedom of mobility allows her to visit the captive women's quarters and huts. Many of the enslaved women have been relegated to lowly tasks in the camp hospital or laundry, or to being used by the soldiers. Briseis visits her friend Ritsa, who now works in the hospital, and the fallen Trojan royals, including Andromache, Hecuba and Cassandra. She also forms a hate/love relationship with Amina, a slave who has been assigned to accompany her whenever she leaves the house. Amina appears to be a withdrawn, quiet girl, but a fire burns within her heart, and she draws Briseis dangerously close to the flames.
I was totally engrossed in this story and in Briseis's ability to act while remaining within the bounds of her captive role. I am sure there will be a third installment, since her child has not yet been born at the book's conclusion (and, of course, we all know that Barker loves trilogies!)
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warrior's child. As a wife, Briseis has a measure of privilege and freedom not granted to the other captive women, but she is still watched and limited in her actions. She is also the target of jealousy from Achilles's son Pyrrhus. Although he never met his father, Pyrrhus has inherited his sword and shield and the command of a large number of troops. He is lauded for killing the Trojan king Priam, but rumor has it that this wasn't exactly a clean, honorable kill but more of a botched butchering. Pyrrhus's insecurities often erupt into cruelty. One such act is his edict that Priam's body be tossed on the shore and left to the birds, the animals, and the weather rather than being granted the burial customary for his status. Pyrrhus is sensitive to any criticism that might suggest that he is not worthy of being Achilles's son--and, of course, concerned that a new brother might outshine him in time. Briseis's relative freedom of mobility allows her to visit the captive women's quarters and huts. Many of the enslaved women have been relegated to lowly tasks in the camp hospital or laundry, or to being used by the soldiers. Briseis visits her friend Ritsa, who now works in the hospital, and the fallen Trojan royals, including Andromache, Hecuba and Cassandra. She also forms a hate/love relationship with Amina, a slave who has been assigned to accompany her whenever she leaves the house. Amina appears to be a withdrawn, quiet girl, but a fire burns within her heart, and she draws Briseis dangerously close to the flames.
I was totally engrossed in this story and in Briseis's ability to act while remaining within the bounds of her captive role. I am sure there will be a third installment, since her child has not yet been born at the book's conclusion (and, of course, we all know that Barker loves trilogies!)
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LibraryThing member m_k_m
Grounds mythic events in emotions and reactions recognisable to a modern reader. The purpose being to draw comparisons between these peoples lives and our own. And with recent events in Afghanistan, it’s easy to understand its point about the contingent nature of women’s rights; contingent that
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is on men’s wants, insecurities and vanities. Not that Barker is unsympathetic to her male characters, and we get to understand much of their unhappinesses too. The end of war is the end of the certainties that came with it; it’s certainly not an end to suffering or unfairness. Show Less
LibraryThing member ecataldi
Not as strong as her first book in the series, The Silence of the Girls, but still a wonderful imagining of what happens to the women left behind or captured in war. The Women of Troy takes place right after Rome has fallen to the Greeks. Instead of sailing back to their homes as victors, the
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Greeks are stuck on the beach as the gods punish them with horrible winds. Briseis, once a queen of Troy, then a slave bride of Achilles, is now forced to marry Alcimus. She is largely overlooked because she is a woman, but her life has drastically improved now that she is no longer a slave. Alcimus is a good man that doesn't force himself on her and for that she is grateful. Briseis spends her time trying to improve the lives of the slave women in her camp while also tracking down the former Trojan women who lived in the palace; Hecabe, Helen, Cassandra, and Andromache. With the exception of Cassandra, all are slaves forced into uncertain futures. As the Greek men get more frunk , belligerent, and angry as they are stranded on the shores of Trot - the atmosphere is like a powder keg. Could life get any worse for these women. Great for readers of Greek mythology. Show Less
LibraryThing member froxgirl
This excellent sequel to The Silence of the Girls continues the saga of the women of Troy in the aftermath of the war. Briseis, given to Achilles as a battle reward, has outlived him and his devoted friend Patroclus, and was made the wife of a Greek leader at the direction of the Greek hero before
Quote: "It was one of those moments that I think everyone experiences - and they don't have to be dramatic - when things begin to change; and you know there's no point ruminating about it, because thinking isn't going to help you understand. You're not ready to understand it yet; you have to live your way into the meaning."
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his death. This raises her status above that of the other Trojan women, most of who serve as slaves to the restless surviving Greek fighters, who await the changing of the wind that will send them home. The other narrator is Pyrrhus, the teenage son of Achilles, who has murdered Priam, King of Troy, in a most brutal manner and whose act is presumed responsible for the God-sent endless winds that disturb the camp. Surprisingly enough, there are no gods in this tale, and some of the company and the Trojan women lack belief in them at all. Cassandra, Hecuba, Helen, and the prophet Calchas all speak their truths and play their roles as the tragic chorus. This is a cornerstone of interpretation of the post-drama and aftermath of literally the most important conflict ever documented, as the author focuses on the stories that Homer and the Greek dramatists have neglected to tell.Quote: "It was one of those moments that I think everyone experiences - and they don't have to be dramatic - when things begin to change; and you know there's no point ruminating about it, because thinking isn't going to help you understand. You're not ready to understand it yet; you have to live your way into the meaning."
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LibraryThing member Gwendydd
This was an engaging read, but not nearly as good as [The Silence of the Girls]. It picks up where the first book left off, and describes the months after the Greeks won the Trojan war, as they're waiting for the winds to calm so that they can sail home. It is again narrated by Briseis, with
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occasional third-person narration about some of the men in the story. It focuses on the women: Briseis, Helen, Hecuba, and Cassandra, as well as many of the enslaved women, and how they navigated the events controlled by the men around them. Show Less
LibraryThing member Eyejaybee
As a boy I loved old legends, especially those of the Ancient Greeks, in which humans so often seemed like chess pieces moved around at the whim of the gods. They certainly seemed to bear out the Duke of Gloucester’s lament in King Lear, ‘As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; they kill us
One Christmas, now probably not far short of fifty years ago, my sister gave me a boxed set of Puffin paperbacks by Roger Lancelyn Green, in which he retold a wide selection of old myths. One volume included tales from ancient Egypt, and the antics of their strange gods with those human bodies topped by animals’ or birds’ heads; another recounted the Norse legends, and the grim adventures that befell the people and gods of Middle Earth. The ones I liked best, however, were those about the Greek legends, and in particular, Green’s retelling of the Trojan War, in which wily Odysseus and his friend Diomedes contributed just as much to the success as the physical might of Ajax, or the harsh valour of Achilles. I read them over and over again, and thought I knew everything about the Greeks’ ten-year campaign to avenge Paris’s abduction of the beautiful Helen.
Of course, I knew of The Iliad and The Odyssey, composed (according to legend) by the blind minstrel Homer, which stand at the fountainhead of Western literature. It came as quite a surprise, however, when I finally came to read The Iliad to discover that it didn’t relate the whole ten years of the Trojan War, and all the ins and outs of that dreadful conflict. It is, instead, restricted to a period of about eight weeks, towards the end of the war (although, of course, the protagonists did not know that), and focuses primarily on the bitter dispute between Achilles, unrivalled hero of the Greeks, and Agamemnon, overall leader of the Greek forces and brother of Menelaus, from whom Paris had abducted Helen.
That dispute hinged round two young noble women (Briseis and Chryseis) whom the Greeks seized from one of the cities near Troy that they had sacked. Briseis, was given to Achilles, while Chryseis was delivered to Agamemnon. Chryseis was the daughter of a senior priest of Apollo, and her father came to plead with Agamemnon for her release, offering a large ransom in return. Agamemnon, notable for his pride, anger and utter lack of wisdom or humanity, scorned Chryseis’s father, sending him away empty handed. The priest scurries away, praying to Apollo, whom he addresses by various titles, including the apparently innocuous title ‘Lord of Mice’. Seeing his priest treated with such disdain, Apollo vents his rage. We quickly learn that the epithet, ‘Lord of Mice’ refers to his ability to send plague, which was spread throughout the ancient world by rodents. The Greek camp is soon overrun with a virulent plague, which renders far worse casualties than the Trojans had achieved. After consulting various oracles, the wiser Greek leaders persuade Agamemnon to send Chryseis back to her father, and offer huge sacrifices to appease Apollo. He grudgingly does so, but then insists upon seizing Briseis from Achilles to replace her. This so angers Achilles that (‘sulking in his tent’) he withdraws his men from the campaign. Without the ferocious Achilles and his loyal Myrmidons, the Greeks falter on the battlefield, and lose much of the ground they had so painstakingly won over the previous nine years.
Pat Barker’s second novel revisiting this ancient story focuses primarily on Briseis, and tells the story of the aftermath of the fall of Troy from the women’s perspective, picking up from her previous book, The Silence of the Girls. Briseis, had been a princess in her own realm (a city state that fell within the overall domain of Troy), but was captured when her city was sacked by the Greeks, and dragged back to their camp. Terrified, and unsure whether she will even survive the first night, she finds herself given to Achilles. In the Roger Lancelyn Green version that I read as a boy, it was merely stated that she was passed to him as a maidservant. Barker shuns any such euphemism, and makes it abundantly clear that Briseis’s future will be as a sexual plaything of Achilles, on call whenever required. Barker’s Briseis is a great character. Caught in a dreadful predicament, she remains strong and resourceful, emerging with far more dignity than her cruel and petulant captors.
Where Barker excels is in taking a story with which her readers are already familiar, and successfully reversing the perspective while retaining all the immediacy and draw of the plot. Anyone familiar with the story of Troy knows what is about to happen, and how the different fates of the principal characters will play out. Despite that, the reader is hooked immediately, and drawn in to Briseis’s story. The book races along, driven by Barker’s clear prose.
The book is a dazzling success.
Show More
for their sport.’One Christmas, now probably not far short of fifty years ago, my sister gave me a boxed set of Puffin paperbacks by Roger Lancelyn Green, in which he retold a wide selection of old myths. One volume included tales from ancient Egypt, and the antics of their strange gods with those human bodies topped by animals’ or birds’ heads; another recounted the Norse legends, and the grim adventures that befell the people and gods of Middle Earth. The ones I liked best, however, were those about the Greek legends, and in particular, Green’s retelling of the Trojan War, in which wily Odysseus and his friend Diomedes contributed just as much to the success as the physical might of Ajax, or the harsh valour of Achilles. I read them over and over again, and thought I knew everything about the Greeks’ ten-year campaign to avenge Paris’s abduction of the beautiful Helen.
Of course, I knew of The Iliad and The Odyssey, composed (according to legend) by the blind minstrel Homer, which stand at the fountainhead of Western literature. It came as quite a surprise, however, when I finally came to read The Iliad to discover that it didn’t relate the whole ten years of the Trojan War, and all the ins and outs of that dreadful conflict. It is, instead, restricted to a period of about eight weeks, towards the end of the war (although, of course, the protagonists did not know that), and focuses primarily on the bitter dispute between Achilles, unrivalled hero of the Greeks, and Agamemnon, overall leader of the Greek forces and brother of Menelaus, from whom Paris had abducted Helen.
That dispute hinged round two young noble women (Briseis and Chryseis) whom the Greeks seized from one of the cities near Troy that they had sacked. Briseis, was given to Achilles, while Chryseis was delivered to Agamemnon. Chryseis was the daughter of a senior priest of Apollo, and her father came to plead with Agamemnon for her release, offering a large ransom in return. Agamemnon, notable for his pride, anger and utter lack of wisdom or humanity, scorned Chryseis’s father, sending him away empty handed. The priest scurries away, praying to Apollo, whom he addresses by various titles, including the apparently innocuous title ‘Lord of Mice’. Seeing his priest treated with such disdain, Apollo vents his rage. We quickly learn that the epithet, ‘Lord of Mice’ refers to his ability to send plague, which was spread throughout the ancient world by rodents. The Greek camp is soon overrun with a virulent plague, which renders far worse casualties than the Trojans had achieved. After consulting various oracles, the wiser Greek leaders persuade Agamemnon to send Chryseis back to her father, and offer huge sacrifices to appease Apollo. He grudgingly does so, but then insists upon seizing Briseis from Achilles to replace her. This so angers Achilles that (‘sulking in his tent’) he withdraws his men from the campaign. Without the ferocious Achilles and his loyal Myrmidons, the Greeks falter on the battlefield, and lose much of the ground they had so painstakingly won over the previous nine years.
Pat Barker’s second novel revisiting this ancient story focuses primarily on Briseis, and tells the story of the aftermath of the fall of Troy from the women’s perspective, picking up from her previous book, The Silence of the Girls. Briseis, had been a princess in her own realm (a city state that fell within the overall domain of Troy), but was captured when her city was sacked by the Greeks, and dragged back to their camp. Terrified, and unsure whether she will even survive the first night, she finds herself given to Achilles. In the Roger Lancelyn Green version that I read as a boy, it was merely stated that she was passed to him as a maidservant. Barker shuns any such euphemism, and makes it abundantly clear that Briseis’s future will be as a sexual plaything of Achilles, on call whenever required. Barker’s Briseis is a great character. Caught in a dreadful predicament, she remains strong and resourceful, emerging with far more dignity than her cruel and petulant captors.
Where Barker excels is in taking a story with which her readers are already familiar, and successfully reversing the perspective while retaining all the immediacy and draw of the plot. Anyone familiar with the story of Troy knows what is about to happen, and how the different fates of the principal characters will play out. Despite that, the reader is hooked immediately, and drawn in to Briseis’s story. The book races along, driven by Barker’s clear prose.
The book is a dazzling success.
Show Less
LibraryThing member annbury
Pat Barker's "The Women of Troy" is a sequel to her "The Silence of the Girls", and was just as compelling a read. The earlier book focusses on the events in "The Iliad", seen from the perspective of Briseis, the captive who was the cause of the anger of Achilles. This book moves the story forward
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to the time after the fall of Troy. All the Trojan men have been killed, all the Trojan women have become slaves. Again, most of the story is told by Briseis, with a few parts focussed on Phyrrus, Achilles' son, and on Calchis, a priest. The story is bleak, but deeply engrossing, and the character development is gripping. For this reader, both novels capture the spirit of the Bronze Age through the eyes of women. I hope there will be more novels continuing the story. Show Less
LibraryThing member decaturmamaof2
Just like it's predecessor, The Silence of the Girls, The Women of Troy is a masterpiece: eloquent tale, impassioned manifesto - an inclusive rewriting of the history. HIGHLY RECOMMEND!
Awards
Independent Booksellers' Book Prize (Shortlist — Fiction — 2022)
Language
Original language
English