Ep 678 - The Song of Achilles, by Madeline Miller

Summary

Overdue Podcast Episode Summary

Episode: Ep 678 - The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
Release Date: November 25, 2024
Hosts: Andrew and Craig
Podcast: Overdue by Headgum

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Introduction

In Episode 678 of Overdue, hosts Andrew and Craig delve into Madeline Miller's acclaimed novel, The Song of Achilles. As part of their mission to explore the books listeners have been meaning to read, the duo provides an in-depth analysis of this modern retelling of Homer’s Iliad, focusing on its unique perspective and thematic depth.

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Overview of The Song of Achilles

The Song of Achilles reimagines the Trojan War narrative through the eyes of Patroclus, offering a fresh and intimate portrayal of his relationship with Achilles. Unlike the traditional omniscient narration of the Iliad, Miller’s novel centers on Patroclus, providing a more personal and emotionally resonant story.

Andrew [03:05]:

"It also goes back in time many years before the Trojan War to cover the childhood and young adulthood of Patroclus…"

Craig [03:37]:

"…falling in love and going to war together and how everything kind of unfolded, but from a Patroclus-centric perspective."

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Character Analysis

Patroclus

Patroclus is portrayed not just as Achilles' companion but as a deeply empathetic and morally driven individual. His journey from exile to becoming an essential figure in the Greek army highlights his growth and the complexities of his relationship with Achilles.

Craig [54:12]:

"The Briseis-Patroclus relationship develops where he… becomes more helpful as a support person."

Andrew [22:16]:

"Patroclus is a lonely, isolated child with a streak of appealing sadness…"

Achilles

Achilles is depicted with more vulnerability and introspection than in traditional accounts. His internal struggles and sensitivity add layers to his character, contrasting with his renowned prowess as the greatest Greek warrior.

Andrew [41:07]:

"He is not we… he is very pretty. He loves music, he loves Patroclus, he loves learning…"

Craig [43:43]:

"Achilles is just like, hey, I did talk to my mom…"

Supporting Characters

The novel introduces nuances to characters like Odysseus and Neoptolemus, offering interpretations that align with Miller's thematic intentions. Odysseus, traditionally seen as a cunning trickster, is portrayed with a blend of honor and deceit, while Neoptolemus emerges as a complex antagonist.

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Thematic Exploration

Love and Representation

A significant focus of the novel is the romantic relationship between Patroclus and Achilles, providing representation that challenges traditional interpretations of their bond. Miller emphasizes their love as both tender and profound, aiming to inspire interest in mythology and combat contemporary homophobia.

Craig [12:15]:

"She wants to inspire interest in mythology… to combat homophobia by increasing representation…"

Andrew [57:25]:

"A very close to a monogamous homosexual relationship that he and Patroclus are…"

Fate and Prophecy

The interplay between destiny and personal agency is a recurring theme. The prophecy surrounding Achilles' fate influences his decisions and relationships, adding tension and urgency to the narrative.

Andrew [64:14]:

"He is trying to do all this, like, straddling of the human world that he lives in with his mother…"

Craig [48:58]:

"There is some chatter with Odysseus about the nature or it comes up around their conversation…"

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Comparison with Homer’s Iliad

Miller's retelling remains faithful to the core events of the Iliad while expanding on aspects not deeply explored in the original text. By focusing on Patroclus, the novel adds emotional depth and alternative viewpoints to the well-known saga.

Andrew [04:02]:

"And we're just talking about the Iliad… nothing about the supernatural parts…"

Craig [04:16]:

"Yeah, if you didn't listen to, you know, 12 or 13 episodes of Stop Homer Time…"

Author’s Intent and Modern Relevance

Madeline Miller aims to breathe new life into classical myths by addressing contemporary issues such as representation and personal identity. Her portrayal of Achilles and Patroclus seeks to resonate with modern readers while maintaining the essence of the original epic.

Andrew [07:44]:

"But she is writing about personal responsibility… what can you do as an ethical person in a violent world?"

Craig [09:47]:

"She wants to inspire interest in mythology… you don't need to know the classic to enjoy the story."

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Critical Reception and Reviews

The Song of Achilles has been widely celebrated, winning the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2012. While most reviews praise its emotional depth and innovative perspective, some critics have found fault with its portrayal of relationships, deeming them immature.

Andrew [38:21]:

"Andrew mentions that same stuff, but for me it's purely complimentary."

Craig [38:53]:

"Mary Doria Russell, who wrote the Sparrow… referred to Patroclus as a lonely, isolated child with a streak of appealing sadness…"

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Notable Quotes

• Craig [02:55]:

  "Before the Elevator Ends is a book that is…"

• Andrew [27:14]:

  "Still I'm not going to get mad again. I can only get mad like once per episode."

• Craig [43:56]:

  "Achilles is out fighting all the time. Patroclus starts going out in the battlefield for a bit, but he's totally useless and he eventually stops going."

• Andrew [65:02]:

  "He is one shotting dudes left and right."

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Conclusion and Final Thoughts

The Song of Achilles offers a nuanced and heartfelt exploration of the Trojan War, focusing on the personal dynamics between its central characters. Andrew and Craig commend Madeline Miller for her ability to infuse classic mythology with modern sensibilities, making the ancient tale accessible and emotionally impactful for contemporary audiences.

Andrew [73:25]:

"…we have a lot of stories that have been myth-heavy for us for the show."

Craig [73:54]:

"And that's the Song of Achilles. And that…"

Listeners are encouraged to reflect on how the Trojan War might have unfolded differently, fostering a deeper connection with the timeless themes presented in the novel.

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For More Information:

Visit overduepodcast.com to explore more about the show, upcoming episodes, and additional resources.

Transcript

[Andrew]

This is a headgum podcast.

[Craig]

While Andrew and Craig believe the joy of discovery is crucial to enjoying any well told tale, they will not shy away from spoiling specific story beats when necessary. Plus, these are books you should have read by now. Hey, everybody. Welcome to Stop. No, wait, it's just overdue. A podcast about the books you've been meaning to read. My name is Craig.

[Andrew]

My name is Andrew.

[Craig]

And it may feel like an episode of Stop. Homer time. It's like a cousin.

[Andrew]

It's like our bespoke. Yes, again, our bespoke podcast where we talk exclusively about Emily Wilson translations of epic poems.

[Craig]

Yes. Most recently, the Iliad. And this time we are talking about a very Iliad. A very ill liad book. It's so ill. The guys in this story, they're so.

[Andrew]

Ill. Homer was illing.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

That guy. That guy Homer. We are that collective. Sorry, that collective of poets that we know today as Homer.

[Craig]

Yeah, it's just four poets stacked on top of each other in a row.

[Andrew]

Trench coat.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

An atoga.

[Craig]

A toga.

[Andrew]

A big toga.

[Craig]

You can see them in there in a toga. We're gonna be talking about the Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller. The 2011 publication. Her first novel.

[Andrew]

Her first novel.

[Craig]

And Andrew, you had read Cersei after the Odyssey.

[Andrew]

Yes, told me all about her episode.

[Craig]

Yes. That was episode 358. All the way back in May 2019. If you're scrolling through that podcast app, you're like, oh, I gotta find the first week. I go all the way back. 2019. There's not a good way to do. I guess you could use the search. Doesn't you just search?

[Andrew]

You could use the search. Have you never used a computer before?

[Craig]

Sometimes I use. Sometimes my brain is ready to use the search and sometimes I just need to scroll and I probably shouldn't scroll as much as I do. But we're going to talk about the book. We kind of broke our typical structure. Seems like every month or so we kind of break the rules. We both read this book because we had both read the Iliad. Seemed appropriate. And if you've never heard of this book, Andrew, what's the pitch? What's the. I'm in an elevator. I'm grabbing you by the lapels, I'm screaming at you. What book am I screaming about?

[Andrew]

Before the Elevator Ends is a book that is. It encompasses the events of the Iliad, but it also goes back.

[Craig]

Ding, ding, I'm at my floor, I gotta get off.

[Andrew]

It also goes back in time many years before the Trojan War to cover the childhood and young adulthood of Patroclus, who is the friend and lover of Achilles, talks about them falling in love and going to war together and how everything kind of unfolded, but from a Patroclus centric perspective and not the sort of detached, omniscient narrator perspective that we get in the Iliad.

[Craig]

Sure.

[Andrew]

Also famously, if you listen to our Iliad episodes, now, this is past the elevator pitch, so stop making elevator jokes to me.

[Craig]

I was just gonna say that was a really long but comfortable and interesting elevator ride.

[Andrew]

Yeah. I mean, elevators go different speeds.

[Craig]

Yeah, they do. You're right.

[Andrew]

And maybe we're like, you know, we're at the bottom floor of a building and we're waiting for the elevator to come while I'm talking to you also. So there's, like, extra time for the pitch. But now we're past the elevator pitch.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

And we're just talking about the Iliad, famously, as we talked about a lot when we talked about the book, the poem. None of the. None of the stuff that starts or finishes the war is in there at all. Including the Trojan horse thing.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

So if you didn't listen to, you know, 12 or 13 episodes of Stop Homer Time, that's the. That's the big thing to know about the Iliad is we come in, like, most of the way through year nine and we get a smattering of things. But it's mostly just about the part where Achilles is mad, is what that.

[Craig]

Poem is, where the best warrior on the Greek side of the army against the Trojans decides to hang up his cleats, walk off the field.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

Take off his gear, put his jersey.

[Andrew]

Hang his jersey in the gymnasium up in the rafters.

[Craig]

There's such a good job. I'm done. He's so mad and so, so mad. And the gods are all mad and doing their own thing. And then it ends with him killing the Trojan hero Hector, and. And then he gives his body back, and that's like the end of the poem. And as Andrew said, anything about Achilles and his heel and the horse and all that stuff, none of that's in there. So much of it is.

[Andrew]

Much of it is alluded to. We do get some things in flashbacks or in, like, you know, they talk about the whole Helen thing.

[Craig]

Oh, yes, they do talk about the Helen thing, but you don't.

[Andrew]

You don't see it happen. You just don't hear of it from guys who are talking. And that book does have a lot of guys talking.

[Craig]

It does. It does and so this is an interesting novel to me, because it is not. I don't remember how Cersei handled this. It doesn't attempt to, like, make any of the supernatural parts go away. Like, I think there's a. There's an urge maybe with a contemporary retelling sometimes. I'm thinking of you, David Benioff written movie Troy of, like, you just get rid of all the gods and you make Patroclus, like a cousin or something. And it's just about dudes throwing spears around and, like, that's it. And there is something interesting about this novel, really. Feeling like it is steeped in the world of the poem with just a few winks and nods to the 21st century reader in both, like, tone and its focus and a few characters that feel just like a little on the take, as it were.

[Andrew]

Yeah. If there's a through line between A Song of Achilles and Circe. And I apologize, because my memory of this book that I read five years ago is probably foggier.

[Craig]

How dare you.

[Andrew]

But, yeah, it's not about, like, totally transforming those stories. It's mostly about trying to find a discarded or underserved, like, perspective in those stories and, like, dig into them and find what the. Find what the story is. And you're finding a story that is both in. You're finding stories where the literal events that happened are the same. Things are not changing, but you are adding texture through, you know, seeing them through other people's eyes. Yeah, yeah. Madeline Miller, we talked about her in the Searcy episode. Not a whole lot to add since then. She is Currently, as of 2021, working on a book about Persephone.

[Craig]

Yep.

[Andrew]

But she also wrote, you know, eloquently and devastatingly, as she. As she does in the Washington Post in 2023, about how long Covid has derailed her life. And that's. It's pretty devastating. If you know anybody who's still suffering symptoms from that, like, I think you're going to recognize a lot of that in what she writes about. And just a fun read as we invite the person who presided over the COVID 19 pandemic back into office without, I don't know, really thinking about it very much. I don't think.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Because we just all don't want to remember that period so intensely that we kind of forget who was literally president when it went.

[Craig]

Yeah, yeah.

[Andrew]

Just, you know, just thinking about things. Just thinking about here in late November 2024.

[Craig]

Yep. That is when we're recording it. That's True. As we said this, I don't have anything to add. I'm just going to segue way.

[Andrew]

No, I'm just still mad. No, I simply am still mad. And I couldn't, you know, like Achilles, I could not keep my anger from. From flowing out of me in that.

[Craig]

That's very reasonable. If you need to fight a river about it, just let me know. I'll. I'll vamp while you go do that. If folks don't remember, this book did win the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2012. And she went on, I think she published like a short story about the bow of Heracles. And you mentioned she's working on a Persephone book. The thing that I kind of found interesting just is like, where this book came from. She wrote in the Guardian and has done a few interviews that, you know, in the 2000, she was working on her classics degree and was getting a little frustrated with, you know, contemporary homophobia. Just erasing romantic readings of this very, like, seminal relationship in Western fiction.

[Andrew]

Yeah. I feel like having attended college and done the classics degree thing in the early mid aughts, like, the way I remember it being presented was very much like, well, some people think you.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

That they are romantic, that they could be romantically involved. And it was presented as like. Like either as that or as like, well, Greek society was very different. And so would. It wouldn't have meant the same thing for these two guys to have been, like, physically or romantically involved with each other.

[Craig]

Yes. And there, there is a lot of that that we can talk about, but.

[Andrew]

It was never presented as like, the main thing about the poem or even like the main thing about their relationship.

[Craig]

Yeah. And I don't know that Miller would argue that it is the main thing about.

[Andrew]

Yeah, yeah, but it is.

[Craig]

Yeah. And so she's working on this thesis that's going to dive into this stuff. But she is invited to direct a production of Troilus and Cressida, which is Shakespeare's Trojan warplay, where characters do talk about this as a romantic relationship. I think you could make choices in your production on how. How much of that is external assessment versus truth. But it's in there. And so she has this impulse to turn it from a work of, like, academic, you know, nonfiction into a novel. She's remarking there's a quote from her that she remembered a Brown professor saying, this is a class on Greek history, so I don't want to hear any questions about women or slaves. And she was like, huh, I don't know. That I want to do that. Um, and she was a little worried that there would be some backlash from the classics like field when this book came out. And she did, she did not think that that came to pass as she.

[Andrew]

Worried, you know, what is like over discussed and over represented, just like historically is like the perspective of women and slaves. Yeah, yeah, just too much of that stuff.

[Craig]

Too much of that stuff.

[Andrew]

Can we just get away from that for a minute, please?

[Craig]

On her website she has a Q and A that has some pretty like straightforward. Here's what I'm trying to do here with this book from her and we can assess how well she did this or not. She wants to inspire interest in mythology. I think we've, we've been inspired by plenty of people and including her, she wants to make it so you don't need to know the classic to enjoy the story. Well, Madeline, we do know the classic and we will enjoy the story. It's okay.

[Andrew]

Yeah, don't tell us what to do.

[Craig]

She is like aware that this type of story can help combat homophobia by increasing representation and getting people aware of relationships like this if they don't see them in their day to day lives. And she's interested in Patroclus as a story about personal responsibility. The quote she has on it is, what can you do as an ethical person in a violent world? She makes a point that like Achilles is this big hero. Patroclus is not portrayed that way in the poem. So there's room to portray him as more of an ordinary quote unquote guy. And that's an entry point for us as a reader to identify with.

[Andrew]

And it's also making a. In addition to fleshing Patroclus out, it's also saying, okay, what if we let Achilles be more than like this murder, this angry murder machine, which is what he is doing in the Iliad.

[Craig]

And I found that one of the like sources that she used, like she name checks Plato and she name checks an Escalus play called the Myrmidons, that you takes this relationship in the same way that she does. But then she also checks this thing called the Achilleid by a guy named Statius from 94 to 96 CE. And he is maybe one of the first places that we encounter the like d dipped him in the river to make him invulnerable thing. We only have this in fragments, but it is one of the first sources that puts them in roughly the same age group. I think in the Iliad. Patroclus is Supposed to be older, but there, but there is like still a Achilles is the protector relationship thing going on. It is the source of what we'll see in this novel where like Achilles's mom is afraid of what's going to happen to him. The whole episode that we'll dive into where Achilles is hidden as a girl in some kingdom is from the Achilleid. And then how he gets out of there as well, as well as his time training with Chiron. So it's just an interesting source that I literally did not know existed.

[Andrew]

And then you get a little bit of stuff in the end of this that I didn't really, I hadn't really ever encountered. Like a primary source for just all the stuff with Neoptolemus.

[Craig]

Oh yeah.

[Andrew]

Pyrrhus, Achilles son who is raised by Thedas, who is Achilles mom.

[Craig]

Yep, yep.

[Andrew]

And comes in at the end of the Trojan War to help win it, but is a real jerk. And you can my. The. My favorite tell for when someone is a jerk in kind of a classical or like, like an old timey medieval story is if they have a throne. And they can be. Instead of sitting on the throne normally, if they can be kind of lounged across it with their leg slung carelessly over the arm, that's how you know somebody's a jerk.

[Craig]

Yeah, you're right.

[Andrew]

That, that sit. If you encounter that sit, you know somebody's bad news.

[Craig]

That's so funny.

[Andrew]

And that's what Pierce does in this book.

[Craig]

And I, I also had not encountered him much before. I've. I know I mentioned it once or twice in the Homer Times series. I'm a big fan of the play Philoctetes by Sophocles that has Neoptolemus as a main character, but he is not the guy we meet here. He's got, you know, a different vibe going on. He's trying to get a bow so that he can go to help win the Trojan War. But no, this is not a part of the story that I was familiar with. Even though I do think it, you know, it's out there. So, yeah, it's. And I, you know, as we said, this book was well received. I did find one or two reviews that were not as positive. I found one that was really positive. And yeah, that's it, I think. Anything else you want to say about these boys?

[Andrew]

No, not up front, I don't think.

[Craig]

Okay, well, let's take a quick break and then you can sing me the song of Achilles. Andrew, hope you're ready.

[Andrew]

Okay. Craig, Holidays are coming up. Do you know that I hear the.

[Craig]

Strains playing on the radio. I don't think I'm prepared. Andrew Help me if you would like.

[Andrew]

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[Craig]

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[Andrew]

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[Craig]

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[Andrew]

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[Craig]

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[Andrew]

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[Craig]

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[Andrew]

Should we do some vocal warm ups first before we start singing? Singing this song?

[Craig]

Yeah, Lead the way, please.

[Andrew]

No, I'm not gonna. No, that's me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me. Ma. Ma. Masondos. What were you saying before I said the stupid thing that I said just.

[Craig]

Where like, makes sense for two guys who recently reread the Iliad together. And now we've got this Makes it sound very intimate.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I guess it was.

[Craig]

But we've got this book in front, let's say like a third the Iliad. How do you want to tackle the other two thirds, I guess. Or like, what struck you? Just about the tone and the setup, maybe.

[Andrew]

I mean, I think just starting from the beginning. For a while you don't even. Yeah, I know, right? For a while you don't even really know who you are inhabiting the perspective of. You are like, it's a. And you know, probably if you know every name of every, like, Greek guy from classical.

[Craig]

Sure. Yeah.

[Andrew]

Maybe you realize pretty quickly who you're. Who you're hanging out with, seeing through the eyes of. But all you know, for the first little bit is it's like, you know, it's some like, lesser Greek prince. Nobody thinks very much of him, including his parents. His. His mother is simple in some.

[Craig]

Yeah. Described as simple. Yeah.

[Andrew]

Yeah. His dad kind of sucks. And that's, that's what we, that's what we know at first. Like, then, then the first big event of the book, I think that starts tying it into the whole Trojan War thing is this, this kid who ends up being Patroclus is with his dad at this big gathering of like, Greek royalty where they find a suitor for Helen.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

It ends up being Menelaus. And we see them all, like, swear in a way that, I don't know, maybe this will. Maybe this will be important later and maybe it won't. They all swear that if anything happens to Helen, they're. They're. They're all honor bound to come to her defense.

[Craig]

Yeah, I was kind of. I don't remember which text this is in. This is in some antiquity somewhere. Like, I, I was struck by this passage as like a real convenient way for Miller to set up a lot of the characters that will be in the poem part.

[Andrew]

Yeah, you get a lot. You get, you know, you get some good Odysseus like, he is a lot.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

You get some, you know, Agamemnon, Menelaus, Diomedes. Is there the big Ajax? Is there little Ajax. Little Ajax really doesn't appear in this very much.

[Craig]

No. A lot of big Ajax, though.

[Andrew]

A lot of big Ajax, who seems like a cool dude.

[Craig]

Yeah. And yeah, there's like, you know, part of what Odysseus is doing there is that he. He wants Penelope, who's like Helen's cousin or something, so he's gonna. He's got this idea for Helen's dad that, you know, what if they swear this oath? I think maybe an invention of the novel is that he's also like, what if Helen chooses and she chooses Menelaus?

[Andrew]

Always being crafty and clever though. This guy is.

[Craig]

He is. And yeah. Anything else that we've learned up until that point is that like, yeah, Patroclus is a bit of a runtime. He does not give off big prince energy to anyone. And everyone seems kind of disappointed in him.

[Andrew]

And it's a little like. So what we know about Patroclus from the, the poem is that he, you know, we mostly see him hanging out with Achilles, but he, we do see him fight. He does seem like kind of a, you know, not a standard issue Greek fighter exactly, but he's got kind of the same basic competence with, like, weapons and war as most people in this society would have been expected to be. But that's not the Patroclus that we see, like through the entire book. It's not the Patroclus we see.

[Craig]

No. And. And when it does get to the part where Patroclus kills some dudes, it like, comes up with a. A very, an explanation that works for this book, I think.

[Andrew]

It does. Yeah.

[Craig]

And does not, like, break the canon of the poem. That's mostly. I think this novel does a really good job of if you're familiar with these tales and these poems, giving you what's already out there and then some other stuff. And it's not necessarily, you know, Generation Remix down here, you know.

[Andrew]

Yeah. It's like the most it does of that is like, for people who are intimately familiar with the Iliad especially, it likes to drop little breadcrumbs of things, like little knowing winks about things that are coming.

[Craig]

Yep.

[Andrew]

Especially when talking about, like, prophecies about when exactly Achilles is going to die. Like, a lot is made of, like, the order in which people are going to die.

[Craig]

Yes. And that, that. And who knows how much of that, I think, is a little Bit of Miller invention or at least it stood out to me on that. I went back and checked something, we'll talk about it. Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself. The only other thing that happens in the beginning is I think there's like a games where maybe Patroclus saw Achilles there run fast. Yeah, it's not made, they don't make a lot out of it but. And then Patroclus killed a kid accidentally.

[Andrew]

Well, but he did kill him and then he didn't think to lie about doing it in self defense. And both, both of these things but mostly the fact that he wasn't quick enough to lie about it makes his dad banish him and disown him. Yeah, yeah.

[Craig]

He's you know, cuz he's got run energy. His dad's like I'm not going to miss this guy. And he like a kid tries to take something from him and he shoves him and his head lands on a rock. I think in. I don't know if it's spelled out exactly in the Iliad, but what happens is then Patroclus gets exiled. He goes and he lives with King Pellias who is Achilles dad, King of Pythia. Of Pythia, yeah. And that's how he hooks up with Achilles. And that's all part of you know, quote unquote canon that Miller is sketching in around and I think and the.

[Andrew]

Book presents Pelias as a guy who's like, you know, he's, he's happy to take in some exiles in exchange for some riches and just build, build power that way. Like we see a lot of different ways of like all these little guys and their little tiny kingdoms and fiefdoms just like how they amass power, how they amass power and view the other little kingdoms all around them. Like one of the more interesting little asides that I think Miller throws in is just like, you know, we were doing this war for 10 years together. We came and we were all these citizens of these different kingdoms. But then we lived together basically for a decade here and it forged a common identity of us as Greeks. And for like a generation after this war, nobody, no Greeks fought each other.

[Craig]

Yeah, I liked how it was written that way that it was like for, for the next generation.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Until people forget as they do.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Still I'm not going to get mad again. I can only get mad like once per episode.

[Craig]

Sing me a song of a complicated Andrew. And so yeah, so Patroclus has been exiled. He's in this, like, you know, wayward boys home.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

He's in this boy barracks and he does realize Pythia is like basically making an army out of these boys. Like that's the goal here. And he also learns about where Achilles came from and that there was a prophecy about the God, the goddess Thedas, who's a sea nymph goddess, that she's.

[Andrew]

Really kind of like a sea monster.

[Craig]

She's a mermaid lady monster. Yes. That you know, her son would grow to greater glory than his father. And Zeus was like, I was interested in you until I heard that part.

[Andrew]

Yeah. So the gods, Zeus, very sensitive, always very sensitive to notions of patricide. The.

[Craig]

Huh.

[Andrew]

Prominent practicer of patricide himself.

[Craig]

And so he has plais do it and it's described as rape. Like that, like this book does not pull punches on that front. You know, that is not. Is not what they basically say is like, now that that has happened, now this is effectively a marriage. Like you're gonna have a kid. And that's where Achilles comes from. And Patroclus is also wandering around this boy's camp kind of haunted by having killed a kid. Like his little.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I think just thinking about how the he. He describes it to Achilles once or he. He describes it to Achilles in detail once and it's just like. Yeah, the blood, like there was so much of it and it came out so fast.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

I saw his brain. And what did you just like bad.

[Craig]

What did you think about like Achilles and Patroclus just kind of like becoming enmeshed Because Achilles just kind of was like, hey, come over here.

[Andrew]

Yeah, there's like a. I don't know, a little Genesee Qua.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

There is troclas that. That Achilles is into and they just like catch each other's eyes across the room. This, this section of the book I actually thought was very like slash fic romance novel.

[Craig]

Sure.

[Andrew]

Of Madeline Miller.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

Because it is very. There are a lot of elements of like, like exploring each other's bodies very tentatively and lovingly for the first time and seeing each other across a room and, and not really fully understanding why they're into each other, but they are really into each other.

[Craig]

It did not read to me as such. I did encounter one review that was less than kind. That made, I would say, negative comparisons to like YA fiction that.

[Andrew]

Yeah, see, I am, I am mentioning that same stuff, but for me it's purely complimentary.

[Craig]

Yeah, no, I agree. I think it, it overlaps with some of those concerns. But is is doing it, you know, in the good way, in the way that is enjoyable to read. The. The thing that struck me, and it's part of this whole episode where Achilles has, like, helped him from cutting class, and now they're playing lyre together. And by liar, I mean the instrument. They're not playing a game called lying.

[Andrew]

No.

[Craig]

Because as we realize, Patroclus doesn't think to lie. Right. But there's a beat where he's explaining to, I guess, his dad why he wants Patroclus around, and he says, yes, but it is not his fault. I forgot to say I wished him for a companion. And then Patroclus, as the narrator says, therapon was the word he used. A brother in arms, sworn to a prince by blood oaths and love. And this happens, like, maybe half a dozen times throughout the book, where after a line of dialogue, Miller, via Patroclus, tells us what the person was saying in Greek.

[Andrew]

Tells us, like, the Greek word. Like, another big one is Patroclus and Achilles are fighting toward the end of their time together during the Trojan War. And Patroclus kind of curses Achilles pride, and he uses the word hubris.

[Craig]

That's.

[Andrew]

Yeah. And that's. And we all know we're all familiar with the concept of hubris.

[Craig]

It's just interesting. I have a theory about it that is probably what the book is doing.

[Andrew]

What's your theory?

[Craig]

Well, it's related to the end of the book.

[Andrew]

Oh, okay, fine.

[Craig]

So I have a theory.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

It's like, how Patroclus gets to be a narrator, basically.

[Andrew]

Sure.

[Craig]

It's just an interesting device, I think, to like. It is. It honors what we like about digging into the Wilson translations, where she is, like, very upfront about, like, I don't know what to do with this word. It's very specific. I need to just tell you the word, and then I'll tell you a bunch of other stuff about it. Mm. So they hang out all the time together now, and our Pat learns that Achilles. It's in my notes. I didn't want to keep typing. Patroclus. Pat learns that Achilles, who's going to be the greatest warrior in Greece, doesn't train with anyone. He just, like, goes into a. Like, a field and just, like, waves his weapons around and gets good at.

[Andrew]

Fighting nobody and nobody sees him.

[Craig]

He's not allowed.

[Andrew]

He's allowed.

[Craig]

Yeah. And at one point, Patroclus tries to, like, fight him, and they wind up on the floor together, and they're like, ooh.

[Andrew]

And nobody. Nobody kisses, but everybody's thinking about it.

[Craig]

Well. And then Thedas is like, I saw that.

[Andrew]

I'm mean, Thedas gets mad. She does not like Patroclus at all, or really any humans except for Achilles. And even then, only barely, I think.

[Craig]

Yeah. And there's like, there's a read of this book which is her being, like, aggressively homophobic. And I don't. The book, I think, is trying to take pains for that to be not the case. It's more that she does not want him, like, being mortal, basically.

[Andrew]

Yeah. That's exclusively how I read it. Not. Not a homophobia read, but like, you are. You are immortal. You are a mortal. Therefore you, Patroclus, are not good enough for my son, who I really, really am trying to convince to come be a God. And she only like, she's. When Achilles impregnates somebody else and she's like, okay, I'm gonna take this kid and raise them to be a God. Like, I guess that's a fine consolation prize.

[Craig]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Andrew]

I don't know. But yeah. So she. She is very mad about this. And she basically takes Achilles and sends him to train.

[Craig]

Kiss. And then she takes him away.

[Andrew]

She takes him away. He is sent to train with Chiron, the. The centaur boy, who we know very well from the Percy Jackson books. Of course. We've done a lot of, like, myth this year.

[Craig]

Same thing about the.

[Andrew]

I was thinking about the Penelope AD Too. Oh, yeah, the Atwood book.

[Craig]

Huh.

[Andrew]

And it's all. There's just a lot of. A lot of different takes.

[Craig]

Yeah, a lot of takes. And this Chiron is like, fun. Like, he's just kind of like, yeah, I'm a centaur. I also don't like other centaurs. I'm always up on this mountain training heroes and I don't know, gods give me a hard time, but no one's gotten rid of me yet.

[Andrew]

Yep. Because I'm son of Kronos and nobody wants to mess with me.

[Craig]

Yep. And he's. He basically gives them, like, cool Boy Scout training.

[Andrew]

Yeah. So Achilles is taken away by Chiron, and then Patroclus is like, well, I don't. There's nothing for me here. I'm going to try and catch up with him. And he does manage to catch up with him. And Chiron is like, thedas doesn't really, really doesn't want you.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

But if you want to be here, then I will. I will stand up for you and I will let this happen.

[Craig]

And that's cool.

[Andrew]

How it. How it goes. Yeah.

[Craig]

Kyron's cool hang. I was kind of thrown by the part where after they learn about medicine and they learn about hunting, and there is the element. I did, like, when Miller is like, yeah, they're two princes. And this guy was like, here's how you cook stuff. And they're like, you've never cooked before.

[Andrew]

Yeah. That's like, when you go to college and learn how to do your own laundry.

[Craig]

Yeah, it's free. But then when they get to, like, fighting, training, Chiron takes one look at Achilles is like, I literally have nothing to teach you. I can, like, make you aware of how to make better weapons, but, like, you're the best one.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

And then.

[Andrew]

And then he turns to Patroclus. He's like, do you want to learn how to fight? And Patroclus is like, not really.

[Craig]

Really?

[Andrew]

That's the end of that conversation. Like, was the first of many times where I was like, okay, when is Patroclus gonna learn how to be good at fighting, though? Like, because he does fight in the Iliad. When's it gonna happen?

[Craig]

No. And, like, they spend a few years there.

[Andrew]

Two or three years. Yeah.

[Craig]

They're 16 by the time they get another round of, like, birthday gifts. And this is when they hook up and listen. So Patroclus, want to tell me about this one? I know you like this.

[Andrew]

Patroclus and Achilles swooshed once back at Amphithea.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

But then there's just, like, a lot of unspoken kind of tension between them that nobody does anything about.

[Craig]

Off of season one. Yeah.

[Andrew]

Yes. And while Achilles is training and doing all this stuff with Chiron, sometimes Patroclus just kind of goes off by himself to jerk off in the woods.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Alone.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

I just. Just the description of that struck me very funny.

[Craig]

Yeah. Something about, like, it was. She does a pretty good job, I think, of euphemism that does not feel. It is. It is funny. Be here to talk about out loud.

[Andrew]

Well, and it was. It was very true, I think, to a teenage experience, because Patroclus is like, I didn't feel good about this, but I did not stop doing. Yeah, I did keep doing it.

[Craig]

Ultimately, though, they do hook up because Achilles is like, hey, I did talk to my mom, and she did tell me that even though she doesn't like you, she doesn't watch us while we're here and they're laying in the cave while Chiron. Somewhere else.

[Andrew]

What do you think about the descriptions of the of the sexual contact. Like, it's, it's not quite a fade to black, but it's very like euphemism heavy.

[Craig]

It's very. Use euphemism heavy. It's like using like pleasure as a noun for what you are inferring to be body parts. You know, that kind of stuff. And I thought it was fine. I, I think again, like the, the negative review that I'm referencing is by a guy named Daniel Mendelsohn in the New York Times from 2012.

[Andrew]

New York Times.

[Craig]

Times. And he has like, he has good things to say, but this is kind of the stuff that he didn't like about it is he thought it was a little too. I don't know if he found it immature. I did not find it immature. I found it like, interested in what this would feel like to two 16 year olds.

[Andrew]

I assume he's writing this from 2011 also.

[Craig]

Well, it's published in 2012 when, when.

[Andrew]

The book came out. I mean.

[Craig]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Andrew]

So we're like, we're like well before Obergefell.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

May or may not be before that Joe Biden interview where he said he supported gay marriage and then Obama had to say that he did also.

[Craig]

Oh, yeah.

[Andrew]

But it's like a, it's a, it's a moment where things are just kind of culturally starting to tilt.

[Craig]

That's a good point. Yep. Yeah, that's a good point.

[Andrew]

Away from the place where they were in like the mid to late 2000.

[Craig]

He tries to couch it in some, like, other like, authors from 40 years ago, like, not liking how romances are written. And that's. I, I did not, I didn't cotton with any of that. If you want to read a review that's closer to how I enjoyed the book, you can read Mary Doria Russell, who wrote the Sparrow in Washington Post, who referred to Patroclus as a lonely, isolated child with a streak of appealing sadness, which just, you know, we've ever all felt that way.

[Andrew]

No, we all want to be described that way at one point in our lives.

[Craig]

Yeah. I don't want to be that way forever. But if you saw me in my, in my Hot Topic T shirts in high school and said I had a streak of appealing sadness.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Just like, what if somebody mistook how sad I seem to be with having emotional depth? What is that?

[Craig]

So, yeah, they bang. And I did like the Beat where like Patroclus doesn't know what to say and Achilles just looks at him and says, patroclus and Patroclus, like, he was always so good with words, but then he is summoned home for the war. Andrew. Helen has been taken. Yep. But before Achilles can, like, he's, like, open to it, but before he can get pitched by anybody, Thedas snatches him away.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Achilles. So Achilles, let's talk about his characterization so far. Sure. Yeah. He is. He is. He knows. He knows what he is. Like, he knows he's the, like, sort of the greatest of the Greeks. He knows how good he is at fighting. He knows this is kind of his destiny, but it's not a. And this is the big difference between how he is portrayed versus how Pyrrhus is portrayed later in the book. It's like he is. He is not. He doesn't have an inflated head about it.

[Craig]

No.

[Andrew]

Most of. The. Most of the time, like, it is just. He is. When he says this stuff, he is stating facts because they are true, but he is not we. And. And we. We do not. The one. The only time we see anything of the anger that will eventually, like, come to define him in the Iliad is like, he and Patroclus are talking about. About someone taking something from someone else. They may be talking about. Helen. I don't remember exactly what the context is, but Achilles just, like, muses, you know, nobody's ever taken anything.

[Craig]

Anything from me.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I imagine. But. But if it happened, I think I might be angry.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

I think it might make me mad.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

And that's the only thing. That's the only angry Achilles that we really get. Like, the rest of the time, Achilles is just like, he's very pretty. He's very. He. He loves music, he loves Patroclus, he loves learning. Like, there, There's a lot of, like, depth to him as a. As a person. Like, he. And he's trying to do all this, like, straddling of the human world that he lives in with his mother, who he talks to all the time.

[Craig]

Yep. He does call home all the time. He's very sensitive. Yeah. He is described as being honest to a fault sometimes maybe honest and, like, also. And trusting is the word they use a lot. Yeah. Flip side of that. And that's part of what's getting in here. But then, yes, his mom kind of sails off with him. I. Yeah, it makes him. I think if he were Achilles, the guy who's quick to anger, it would. Wouldn't be as easy to. To watch Patroclus love him. You know what I mean?

[Andrew]

Yeah. It would feel very like going back to an abuser. I think Achilles was just like, mad all the time. But it's very important that Achilles only get mad. Like, the only time he is as mad as he is in the Iliad is the part of the book that is just covering the events of the Iliad. And you see how hard that is for Patroclus and how. How out of character it makes Patroclus act.

[Craig]

Yes, yeah.

[Andrew]

And that's all very important to how that part of the book unfolds. But yeah, let's, let's, let's.

[Craig]

We can keep rolling here.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

So there's the scheme that I referenced earlier, where Thedas has taken him to the island of Skyros to hide him. Patroclus tracks him down with the help of Achilles's dad, finds him in disguise as one of the king's daughters or another woman there.

[Andrew]

Yeah, just like a woman in the court.

[Craig]

And Achilles is like, hey, pretend to be my husband and like, I guess we'll get out of here or something. I don't really know. And the princess is like, no, I know what's going on here.

[Andrew]

We're married. I'm pregnant.

[Craig]

Your mom said that we're married because she made you get me pregnant. And then the king's like, wow, this is all news to me. And Patroclus is like, yeah, this is news to me. But I guess let's stay here because this is. You've been told that you're gonna be sent to the Trojan War and that your. The prophecy is that you will go there and either die with glory or you could live unknown and kind of wither away somewhere else. And that's.

[Andrew]

Well, that's.

[Craig]

So that's what, that's what Patroclus would prefer.

[Andrew]

Well, when Odysseus.

[Craig]

Who brings that?

[Andrew]

When Odysseus and Diomedes come looking, and Odysseus is doing like classic trickster stuff.

[Craig]

It's a good trick.

[Andrew]

He's like, pretend not to know who anybody is, but. But they bring out a bunch of, like.

[Craig]

They bring out a bunch of, like, stuff for all the women. And then also there are some weapons. And then someone makes a loud noise outside. And Achilles is like, who needs a weapon? I got a weapon.

[Andrew]

Yeah, Pretty good trick. I think what I think this book's perspective on. On Odysseus is that, yeah, he's a big. He's a trickster, he's a liar. But at the. But that at the end of the day, when the rubber really hits the road, like, he is he tries to do the honorable thing, and he actually is, like, genuinely driven by, like, love of his. Of his wife. Like, those are genuine things about him. Which differs from the depiction of him in the Penelope hat that we.

[Craig]

Yeah. Yes.

[Andrew]

A little while ago, where he's just kind of always compulsively lying and he doesn't really feel any way about anything.

[Craig]

No. And. And my take on Odysseus in this novel is he is a way where Miller can sneak in a little bit of modern awareness of how this is all gonna go.

[Andrew]

Yeah. There are a couple times where he's just like, yeah, maybe one day I'll be famous. I don't know.

[Craig]

Yes. And he can justify. And like, she leans on Odysseus, the cleverest dude who ever lived, to justify that in a way that I think is really clever because you buy it coming from him. But if you're, like, reading it correctly, you're getting that she is winking and nodding a little bit as she delivers that stuff. Yeah. And I think, too, there's, like, one or two elements of the prophecy that either he knows or that when he throws it back in Achilles's face later in the book, it's a little bit different from how it is in the poem when he is like, hey, we need your help, because they're gonna come burn our ships. And he says something to the effect of like, and this is what the prophecy takes a hold on Achilles. He's like, you are just trying to get more time by not fighting Hector. We all. I can see that because I know the prophecy.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

And that is not in the poem.

[Andrew]

Yeah. There's a lot of stuff about like, hey, hey, Achilles. Like, you're. You're the greatest of the Greeks and everything, but part of what you are driven by is the reputation that you will have and how you will be remembered. And the way you are stretching things out or the way that you are not coming to the defense of the Greeks, that that is going to influence exactly how you are remembered.

[Craig]

Yep. Yep. And. And the thing that one of the, like, foreshadowing things that Miller gets to kind of have on her own is once Hector is brought into the story and people are like, hey, you know, we need you to help kill this guy Hector. Even though the prophecy says that you will die after he's dead, Achilles just keeps saying, well, he hasn't done anything to me.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

And that, of course, is gonna not be true at a certain point. Yeah. But so he. They get him off this island and then there's like a few chapters.

[Andrew]

Yeah, but, but yeah, the, the, the thing though disease brings to the island is, is specifically the like if you, if you don't go to war then you are gonna, you're gonna lose your strength. And all the stuff that like you all this like confidence and all this, this stuff about your identity that you're so like, you know, secure. Ian is going to fade and go away. And that's, that's ultimately what convinces Achilles to go.

[Craig]

Yeah. And so they go together. Patroclus will not leave him. Achilles doesn't want him to. They're going to go back to Pythia and get their army and then join the Greeks. There is some chatter with Odysseus about the nature or it comes up around their conversation with Odysseus. But it might be in Patroclus narration the nature of their relationship being like it's fine to have a, you know, lover you're messing around with as you're growing up. But the, the line in the book is our men liked conquest. They did not trust a man who was conquered himself. And that I think is Miller kind of like squaring the circle of all the, of like it, it functioned differently if you're talking about pederasty or if you're talking about different types of same sex relationships.

[Andrew]

But yeah, like if, if the, if the version of Achilles and Patroclus in the Iliad that we see, if there's any ambiguity at all in what their relationship to each other is, it's because they are both operating with that in mind.

[Craig]

Yes, basically. Whereas here in the book they're the same age, they are definitely in love with each other, they are physically interested in each other and every other relationship they have has to run through that nexus.

[Andrew]

Yeah. So there's like a little bit where all the Greeks gather to set off to Troy but the wind stops blowing for a couple of months.

[Craig]

This is the Iphigenia Aulis. Other plays exist of this story where Agamemnon kills his daughter to make the wind go. It sucks. And the thing that this book drives home is that that is the first dead person that Achilles has seen. Yeah, he sees her killed in front of him. He thought he could stop it.

[Andrew]

Well, and Agamemnon is, they have, they, they butt heads. Agamemnon and Achilles.

[Craig]

Oh yeah.

[Andrew]

Because Achilles is, has a justified but very reads as disrespectful like sense of his own self. So yeah, he won't, he won't like formally submit to Agamemnon being the guy who's running the operation, he's like, I'm here of my free will. I'm really good at fighting. I'm really popular, and everybody likes me.

[Craig]

I'm real excited to be here with you all.

[Andrew]

And, like, there's a moment where Agamemnon, you know, brings him in and is like, hey, do you want to marry my daughter? And Achilles, it's. It's not a. It's not really Achilles, like, submitting to Agamemnon, but it is Achilles reading the room and being like, it would be better if this guy had some reason not to dislike.

[Craig]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Andrew]

So he's like, yeah, sure, I'll marry your daughter. And then she comes in and he. And she and Achilles, like, almost touch. And then Diomedes drags her back and kills her, and they sacrifice her and get the wind going. Yeah. An effective depiction of that story.

[Craig]

I think Odysseus talks to Patroclus afterwards because Patroclus is like, this was a scheme. You used him. And Odysseus is like, you. If you care about him and you care about any of us or even yourself, you need to, like, toughen him up. Yeah, though. Because he is a weapon and he needs to be ready to be used a lot. I really like this line. You can use a spear as a walking stick, but that will not change its nature. Yeah. He's like, this is what Achilles is for. And if you are indulging him in being something else that is bad for everyone. And then we get the part, like, then I'm like, okay, we're, like, almost maybe halfway through the book and we're getting to sailing of the Trojan War, which is kind of fun. I like, they have, like, a little beach fight where the Trojans are on the beach to like, prove that this is not going to be super simple.

[Andrew]

And they're out of. Like, everybody is out of spear and arrow range.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

And Achilles grabs a spear and throws it. And Patro. Even Patroclus is like, this is just for show. Like, this is. This is not going to go all the way, but it does launch all the way into a guy on the opposite shore and becomes the first death of the. Of the Trojan War.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

He gets Achilles scoping. Yeah. From the boat with a spear.

[Craig]

And as they're, like, fighting, and then as they. I guess they start going into raiding pretty soon because the goal is to, like, raid all the surrounding lands so that there are refugees flooding the gated city.

[Andrew]

What. What millard seems to be concerned with doing here is like, okay, let's make it make sense that this takes 10 years to come to a head the way it does in the Iliad.

[Craig]

Yep.

[Andrew]

So, yeah, like, at first, nobody from Troy is, like, coming out and fighting back at all. So the Greeks are just kind of raiding the countryside. And then once fighting does pick up in earnest, it becomes. Yeah, what. What you already talked about with, like, Achilles not wanting to kill Hector because once Hector is dead, then the prophecy says Achilles is going to die.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

Then, like, part of the way through this, we get another wrinkle to it, which is that Hector will not die until the best of the Myrmidons has died.

[Craig]

Yep. And we get some fun stuff on that because by this point, Achilles has claimed Briseis, who is one of the women of, you know, the outer Troy lands, who will become important.

[Andrew]

And just a very. I think the thing about the book I like the most is the Briseis Patroclus relationship that develops where he, like. So he's just been kind of a nobody this whole time.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

But once he is, like, living with Achilles and, like, they formed this community, he starts coming to. Into his own as somebody who, you know, he. He is kind to the. The women who they. They take. And, you know, nobody is forced to do any sex against their will, which we're gonna have to count as a W in this. This particular society. He uses. What?

[Craig]

Yeah, I think that happens to some of them because they do talk about people giving birth.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

And. But not. But it's. It's.

[Andrew]

It's implied that of the people who Achilles takes, the only people and, like, marry Greeks and get pregnant and stuff, who want to. Who want to go do it. Yeah, sure. Patroclus uses the knowledge of, like, surgery and medicine that Chiron gave him to, like, become helpful in the medical tent and in this way gets to know pretty much everybody in the camp, which is. There was a really.

[Craig]

Oh, yeah.

[Andrew]

The really cool moment is, like, so Achilles is out fighting all the time. Patroclus, like, starts going out in the battlefield for a bit, but he's totally useless and he eventually stops going. And he becomes more helpful as, like, a support person.

[Craig]

Yep.

[Andrew]

But everybody, like, he. Patroclus, knows everybody because he is, like, fixed their, like, arrow wounds and their ingrown toenails and, like, all the stuff that happens to people when they're fighting for a decade. And Achilles is, like, surprised that he knows everybody. And the thing that Achilles says, that's that's really, really wonderful. Is like, it's, it's really. There are a lot of these guys. It's really easier if they all know me instead of me having to know.

[Craig]

It's really funny.

[Andrew]

But you. That Best of the Myrmidons thing, like, we, we know instantly. Like, somebody says, yeah, it's not you, Achilles. We're talking about somebody else. Some other Myrmidons.

[Craig]

I know there's where they're like, oh, is it Achilles's dad? Is he gonna die while we.

[Andrew]

And they're like, well, maybe, maybe. But, you know, you suspect partly because this is the part of the book where Patroclus is kind of coming into his own, like, skilled set.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

That, you know, Patroclus is going to be the best of the, of the Myrmidons because he is. He is the one who's making all these connections with everybody.

[Craig]

Yep. Brin calls him that later and you're like, oh, yeah, I get it.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

And yeah, and she gets to kind of be like a matron and like an aunt to all of the women and gives her like a role, which is neat that the poem does not.

[Andrew]

And there's. There's a nice moment with. With them where Briseis basically says like, hey, have you ever thought about, oh yeah, she's getting married and have it and having kids. And Patroclus is like, is. That's the. That's one of the interesting things this book does with the like, well, in Greek society, it would have been fine for a guy to be having sex with men and also with women. Like, it wouldn't.

[Craig]

He did have sex with the princess on, on that island, but he's a.

[Andrew]

Whole complicated episode that we don't have time space of an hour long book podcast, but it multiple times for both Achilles and Patroclus. Like, there are lots of opportunities, lots of other opportunities for them to have sex with other women. And like, and they, and they. And they just choose not to because they are in a. They are in a relationship with each other. It is not necessarily just a, like, yeah, Achilles sleep with Patroclus, but also he's sleeping with the other women in the camp. Like, it is very much like a very close to a monogamous homosexual relationship that he and Patroclus are.

[Craig]

There is a beat in that conversation with her that felt very modern to me where when she asks him about children and he's like, I don't think I would be a very good father. And like, I don't Know, that just doesn't. That's not a concern I've ever read in a work of Greek antiquity. Yeah.

[Andrew]

Because being a father is not that hard.

[Craig]

No.

[Andrew]

You could just kind of leave. Like, there are other people in society, especially in, like, Royal society, who are tasked with the. The. The job of child rearing.

[Craig]

Yes. And so. And like, I. I like it as part of this Patroclus's character, but, like, the specific word choice of it felt like a lot of other stories and media I've consumed throughout my life that. That are all contemporary. And it. She didn't find, like, the next level of what that might be in this, like, in their world. I guess that it was kind of just like. Yeah. I mean, I believe that this Patroclus would not think he would be a good father. I need, like, one more step of, like, what that means for fatherhood in the context of the Iliad a little bit.

[Andrew]

Sure.

[Craig]

But then we kind of move forward a few years. We get a little interlude about the, like, four years in. There's some folks who are, like, mutinying, and that gets put down.

[Andrew]

Continuing sparks between Achilles and Agamemnon.

[Craig]

Yes. I do like the part where they're like, the guys are, like, really just getting out of control. Like, is she even in there anymore? Like, where is she? And that's where we get the. The prophecy about the best of the worm. It's. And then we creep up on a few years later, I suppose very quickly.

[Andrew]

We get to the beginning of the Iliad.

[Craig]

Like, we get to Agamemnon and the Chryseis thing.

[Andrew]

Agamemnon and Chryseis and the, like, the plague visited upon the camp by Apollo.

[Craig]

Yep.

[Andrew]

And the Briseis episode where she is taken from Achilles and he gets very, very mad about it. And it, like the way. And this Emily Wilson talked a lot in the Iliad about, like, part of. Part of the reason why it still resonates is because it is still true to the experience of war and, like, fighting. I did find the actual, like, when Patroclus, that first time that he goes on the battlefield and he is just in the thick of it.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Like, that hit in a much more visceral way, I think, for me, than the descriptions of the fighting in the Iliad.

[Craig]

I agree. That's Miller doing some more contemporary work, for sure.

[Andrew]

Yes. And that also, like, it feels much more desperate and much, much more selfish and, like, awful of Achilles to be abandoning the Greeks to, like, slaughter by the Trojans just because he's Mad. Like, it is described in much more desperate terms here than it is in the Iliad, where, I think throughout the Iliad, like, constantly you're just reminded that the Trojans are going to lose. And so you never really take them super seriously as a fighting force. Like, even when they're on the upswing, the book is like, just wait, it's gonna go bad for them. Like, that's. Because that's how history went. Like, that's a good point.

[Craig]

That.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

The. The, like, the narrative or dramatic, like, framing of the poem, I think, does lessen some of the, like, tension of what it is to be in war for some of the characters immediately. And also, I think there's an internal thing that is, like, the poem is all about, like, what the characters do. And, like, in a novel, you could get a little bit further into, like, why they are doing what they're doing and how they're feeling about how it lands and stuff.

[Andrew]

Yeah. But there's just, like, much, much less of a sense of the Trojan War as a foregone conclusion.

[Craig]

Correct.

[Andrew]

Book.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

Which drives how characters react to situations.

[Craig]

There's like a.

[Andrew]

That was. There's compelling.

[Craig]

No, you're right. There's this interesting machination thing that happens when Achilles gives up Briseis. And Patroclus is like, how could you do that? And then a light bulb goes off and he goes to Agamemnon and he's like, hey. He's letting you have her because he thinks that you're going to defile her. And then all the men will be mad at you for doing that, because that's not what they signed.

[Andrew]

She belongs to him.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

And we talked in the Stop Homer time, I think, especially in episode zero, we talked a lot about what Wilson had to say. Just about, like, women treated as. Treated the same as, like, a nice bowl. Yeah. I'm like, this is just how she is being, like, passed around is like, yeah, she's his property, and if you do anything bad with her, it's going to, like, redound negatively on you.

[Craig]

Yeah. And so Patroclus is, like, doing this interesting thing where he is, like, going behind Achilles's back to tell Agamemnon this and then say Brise.

[Andrew]

Like, yeah.

[Craig]

Oh, yeah, yeah. That's what he's. Yeah. He cares about her. And then he's, like, going back to Achilles and they kind of have to, like, work it out, like, what they're doing. But then there's. We kind of. We do yada, yada, some battlefield stuff. From the poem where it's just like, oh, it's going bad out there for those Greeks.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

Coming for the ships.

[Andrew]

Yeah. We jump from the brise thing to the like, Trojans are breaching the walls thing, like super quick. Where in the, in the Iliad, that's like two thirds of the poem is the gap between those two events.

[Craig]

And then.

[Andrew]

Because we don't spend any time with any Trojans in this.

[Craig]

No, we really do not take breaks.

[Andrew]

To do that in the, in the.

[Craig]

Iliad a few times and really do. Like, we get like rumors through Thetis, I think, and maybe Odysseus that like, the gods are doing specific things.

[Andrew]

Yeah. But we do like in the, in the scenes where a God specifically intervenes into like a human conflicts. Like when Menelaus and Paris are fighting.

[Craig]

Yeah, they do talk about it. Yeah.

[Andrew]

Like, that does happen. It's just you're not.

[Craig]

You're not privy to the gods.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Like the God. The stuff that the gods are doing is just kind of a rumor. Beyond that.

[Craig]

Yeah, yeah. And the ship stuff is going so bad that Patroclus is like, hey, Achilles, can I at least put on your armor and like, tell the Myrmidons that we should fight?

[Andrew]

Yeah. Like, what's the loophole that we can find where we, where we can sweep in and like, save people from dying? Like, that's always Patroclus.

[Craig]

Yep.

[Andrew]

Like, his M.O. is like, how do we. How do I reduce human suffering? How do I keep people from dying?

[Craig]

He. What is. There's a phrase. I think I didn't write it down, but it's when they talk about the Trojans burning the ships and it's like, this is the. The ships are the only thing preventing us from, like, we came as invaders, but then we would be refugees.

[Andrew]

Yeah. This is the difference between being in being an army and being refugees.

[Craig]

Yeah. And so he puts on the armor and then he starts merkin dudes. And it's like he is throwing spears off the chariot even though Achilles told him not to.

[Andrew]

And he's doing a great job, even though he has never been good at this. And it's like some kind of. Perhaps between the armor inspiring him and like him being like divinely inspired because he's in the. In the process of fulfilling prophecy.

[Craig]

You know, perhaps it was the armor molding me, perhaps it was the years of watching him, but the position my shoulder found was not the old wobbling awkwardness. It was higher, stronger, a perfect balance. Yeah. He is one shotting dudes left And. Right.

[Andrew]

And this, like, inflated sense of. Of how great he's doing is what drives him to, like, break his promise to Achilles to try and scale the walls of. Literally climb the walls, even though Apollo is like, hey, Patroclus, I'm just gonna pluck you off of that and just drop you over here because you're not supposed to be doing this. Like, this also happens in the. In the Iliad, the part where Apollo.

[Craig]

Takes off the armor always gets me. It's so, like, simple and it's. It's like, there. Go. Go all the way back to Homer. There's a totally different way that you could tell the story that Patroclus did overreach, but the fact that Apollo. Apollo just wanders up and it's like. And then a dude just kind of wanders up and stabs him. This is so sad. Gets me every time.

[Andrew]

Yeah. And then. So we're still.

[Craig]

The book takes a turn.

[Andrew]

We're still with Patroclus for the rest of the book, like, fifth of the book or whatever. But we are with Patroclus's, like, spirit. Yes. His. His unburied ghost, essentially, because as. As in. As in the Iliad for a while, like, Achilles just keeps his body in the camp because he's so sad and he can't, like, bear to. To let it go. And then even after Patroclus is given, like, a. You know, he's burned on a funeral pyre, like, his ashes have not been buried and the last rites have not been read.

[Craig]

Yep. And that gets to my. My, like, take on some of the. The Greek, like Patroclus serving as an interesting translator to me whenever the bit where he is like. Let me tell you what the Greek meant to me is he knows he's speaking to us now directly like, that is the only. You don't need to do that. If you're telling this story 800, you know, 2800 years ago, or however many thousands of years ago it was like, that, I think, is Miller's little invention of, like, the novel exists because Patroclus winds up telling this whole story to Thedas, and that is the story that we are hearing in the year of our Lord 2011 and on. Because I don't think that you need to do that translation if he's. If it's contemporary to the events of the. Of the thing. But yeah, I mean, then we get the rest of the. The poem. Like, Achilles goes bananas, he kills Hector, he does the Hector stuff, he defiles him prime comes.

[Andrew]

They have their little meeting.

[Craig]

Yep. The thing that is not in the poem is then Achilles knowing that Hector has died is like, hey, anybody want to kill me? Anybody wanna. Anybody wanna, like, fight me and, like, beat me? And nobody can for a while.

[Andrew]

You don't get, like, death wish. Achilles, who is just like. Who just really wants somebody to. To come and end it all for him, but he's too good at fighting for people to do it.

[Craig]

He finally gets got by an arrow from Paris.

[Andrew]

And that's the interesting thing about the Achilles heel stuff is that's not in here either.

[Craig]

Not at all.

[Andrew]

At some point, someone is just like, yeah, that's just a myth. Like, he's just a guy. Just shoot him.

[Craig]

Yeah. She said she deliberately, like, tossed that stuff because it wasn't talked about in either the Odyssey or the Iliad. Yeah, but. And it's the way it's written is like a little bit like, he's like, oh, you got me, huh? I'm not going to move. Like, yeah, that's a good shot. Good work. And then, as we talked about, Neoptolemus arrives. He's a dirtbag. He kills Briseis. He doesn't. He does lead to the fall of Troy, but he doesn't want to honor Patroclus. Odysseus makes one last plea to maybe do that.

[Andrew]

And he says, like, at this point, somebody honored like Achilles wish that his ashes be mixed with Patroclus ashes. So they are. They are together in, like, urn, but.

[Craig]

They'Re gonna build, like, a little monument to Achilles and Neoptolemus will not let Patroclus be part of it.

[Andrew]

Yeah. So at this point, he. Yeah, he just erects a monument that is only to Achilles. And so Achilles has moved on and Patroclus is still hanging around narrating the story for us.

[Craig]

Yeah. And Thedas shows up and she is sad about Achilles and maybe like, a little rueful of what she's created here with Neoptolemus. It's kind of unclear a little bit.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Like, we skipped over the Odysseus thing. I just want to. Oh, yeah, I really. You get a lot of. What if Odysseus sucks in this book? Because he's just like, nobody, nobody ever really knows what his true intentions are. But he, in his, like, perfect, clever Odysseus way, gives it truly his best shot.

[Craig]

He does. He does.

[Andrew]

To get Pyrrhus, Neoptolemus to, like, honor Patroclus and honor Achilles wish, which he.

[Craig]

Did not have to do. There's like, nothing, which he didn't have to do any.

[Andrew]

Any. And because Patroclus kind of came to Odysseus in a dream, basically. And Odysseus says to. To nobody, but basically to the spirit of Patroclus, who he knows is still hanging around, like, let, let it be known that I. That I tried. And Patroclus is like, yes, you absolutely did try. So that's kind of there tension between them because Odysseus is the reason that Achilles kind of went to war in the first place. But yeah, there's peace between them in the end, I think.

[Craig]

And then Thedas kind of accepts Patroclus and is like, hey, Procus, like, I would like to tell you all the part about how I loved your son. And like, could you just like, listen.

[Andrew]

Not just I loved your son, but also like, here is who your son was. Here's. Here's who he was beyond, beyond the.

[Craig]

Anger and beyond the prophecy.

[Andrew]

Yeah. I conjure the boy I knew, Achilles, grinning as the figs blur in his hands, his green eyes laughing into mine. Catch, he says. Achilles outlined against the sky, hanging from a branch over the river. The thick warmth of his sleepy breath against my ear. If you have to go, I will go with you. My fears forgotten in the golden harbor of his arms and skipping ahead a little bit. The sun is setting over the sea, spilling its colors on the water surface. She is beside me, silent in the blurry creeping dusk. Her face is as unmarked as the first day I saw her. Her arms are crossed over her chest, as if to hold some thought to herself. I have told her all. I have spared nothing of any of us. We watch the light sink into the grave of the western sky. I could not make him a God, she says, her jagged voice rich with grief. But you made him. She does not answer me for a long time. Only sits, eyes shining with the last of the dying light. I have done it, she says. At first I do not understand, but then I see the tomb and the mark she has made on the stone. Achilles, it reads. And beside it, Patroclus. Go, she says. He waits for you in the darkness. Two shadows reaching through the hopeless heavy dusk. Their hands meet and light spills in a flood like a hundred golden urns pouring out of the sun. And that's the end. And they get to be back together.

[Craig]

That's very nice, you know, you read the. The full ending of Cersei also, right?

[Andrew]

Well, I read more of that and people complain about it, so I Didn't as much. Yes. Somebody complained about it, so I didn't.

[Craig]

Read as much of this, but Interesting.

[Andrew]

Man, she knows how to end a book.

[Craig]

I know. I remember you reading it. I was like, I hope Andrew wants to read the end of this book again, because it was a good end of the book.

[Andrew]

Yeah. But, yeah, no, try to keep it a little tighter. I read a few paragraphs. Everybody calm down.

[Craig]

Yeah, I dug it. I think it's. I think it's pretty good.

[Andrew]

It's really lovely, I thought.

[Craig]

I don't know. I mean, I think the, like, all of the run up to the war stuff is, like, interesting. Like, it is, like, academically interesting. It is a unique perspective on some of that stuff that I haven't seen portrayed elsewhere before. But also as a book about, like, two characters who care about each other, it is very compelling and, you know, good character sketches that I was happy to spend time with, even though I know where it was going.

[Andrew]

Mm.

[Craig]

I do think she did a clever job with the. Have you mentioned the. The Percy Jackson books, which are always, like, there's, like, a weird prophecy, and we got to figure out where it goes. I did think that was a. She did a good job juggling that stuff in a way that felt very specific and that the characters would carry them at the front of their minds at all times and, like, try to negotiate their way in and out of them a little bit.

[Andrew]

Yeah, it's interesting to find through lines and Percy Jackson. Because, like, the Percy Jackson books do that, but also, like, the gods all wear sunglasses and drink Surge, and.

[Craig]

Yeah, they cool.

[Andrew]

They're just, like, cool, irreverent dudes. And I. I like that. Mostly about the Percy Jackson books, but a little of it does go a long way for me.

[Craig]

Well, and it's interesting to find another author play with some of the same tools and not add as much surge, you know, and still have it be compelling and interesting, you know, lest everyone at home working on their novels think that their novels need more. Serge, maybe you have just the right.

[Andrew]

Amount already, or maybe you're gonna get that sponsorship and you should just lean into it and you should keep going.

[Craig]

Does Serge have an imprint now?

[Andrew]

Maybe you could bring it back.

[Craig]

Uh.

[Andrew]

Oh, Four Loko came back.

[Craig]

Serge's literary imprint. Flood, it's called. Anyway, that's the Song of Achilles. And that. I think we might not visit Troy anytime soon for a little while. Andrew.

[Andrew]

I'm feeling a need to leave those. Those walls behind for a bit.

[Craig]

Skyen Gates.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

Like, close.

[Andrew]

I am not going to like go out of my way to not read anything about classical myth in 2025. But it has, you know, it's been a myth heavy year for us for the show.

[Craig]

Does make me think I might want to watch Troy, though.

[Andrew]

Well, you'll be doing that yourself, I think.

[Craig]

Probably.

[Andrew]

I don't think I'll enjoy it now. This is in Greek, but we could watch Gladiator 2.

[Craig]

We could watch Gladiator 2. I would pay, I will always pay money to watch Denzel laugh. Like the way he laughs. Anyway, if you, the listener, have thoughts on the Trojan War, could it have gone a different way? Let us know. Send us an email. Overdue pot gmail.com?

[Andrew]

How do you think it should have gone?

[Craig]

How do you think, you know, should they have call in like a radio show? Like should they have changed their quarterback in the fourth quarter? You know, that sort of thing?

[Andrew]

Yeah. Like, do you want to write a book from like two sir's perspective or something? Like who's who? Do you want to tell us the Trojan War?

[Craig]

Are you a secret Sarpedon? Stan? Send us an email overdupodmail.com hit us up on social media at Overdue Pot on Bluesky and Instagram. Those are the hot places to hang out these days.

[Andrew]

Blue sky is a hot place.

[Craig]

Everybody's there.

[Andrew]

Everybody.

[Craig]

Come on in. The sky's blue.

[Andrew]

Sky is blue.

[Craig]

Thanks to Nick Lauren, just who composed our theme music. Andrew. If folks want to know more about the show, where do they go?

[Andrew]

Overduepodcast.com is our Internet website. We have up there the books that we have read and the ones we are going to read. I don't think our December schedule is.

[Craig]

Ready yet, so check our social media pages.

[Andrew]

Stay tuned site. We also have a Patreon page, patreon.com overduepod Support the show financially. Buy us books and equipment. Get access to these long read projects like Stop Omertime or our current project, Sit Me Baby One More Time, which is a, in a, in a, in a bit of a change of speed, you might say, which is about the Babysitters Club.

[Craig]

It's good though.

[Andrew]

Not about epic poetry.

[Craig]

I don't know. We just recorded episode three and things got pretty epic.

[Andrew]

Things got pretty epic. There's a lot of like subterfuge and espionage.

[Craig]

Traitors.

[Andrew]

Traitors, yes. Not traitors.

[Craig]

No. Traitors.

[Andrew]

Traitors. Patreon.com overdue pod Also, get access to our Discord community and come hang out with us. What else? Anything else? That's it for now.

[Craig]

That's it. We'll see you in the month of December.

[Andrew]

All right, O Muse, until you'd sing in me next time, please try to be happy. That was a Headgum podcast.