A Rant Against a Review of Song of Achilles
Daniel Mendelsohn’s review of The Song of Achilles, a mythic fiction novel by Madeline Miller, is a fine reminder of why so many people despise book reviews.
I see the review as vicious, snide, pompous, prudish and generally wrong-headed.
The Song of Achilles is a first-person narrative novel told from the perspective of Patroclus, the lover of Achilles. Mendelsohn’s critique focuses on what he views as two key flaws of the novel. First, he believes the novel focuses on the wrong aspects of the tale. He writes, “There’s a lot of time and energy devoted to adolescent Sturm und Drang (Patroclus’ early years are a bit Judy Blume-ish), but as the action progresses into the territory of established myth — the abduction of Helen, the formation of the Greek armada, the landing at Troy, 10 years of warfare — you often feel as if this or that famous episode is being rapidly ticked off a list.”
Second, he feels that there’s a failure of tone: “The real Achilles’ heel of this book is tone — one made disastrously worse by the author’s decision to metamorphose an ancient story of heroes into a modern tale of hormones.”
His first point is silly. The last thing anyone needs is a modern novelist’s attempt to compete with Homer. No, Miller’s book is not a retelling of The Iliad but, rather, a love story that begins, as it should, well before the invasion of Troy.
It’s the story of two young men who want nothing to do the great war until it’s foist on them. It’s not that Miller is ticking certain episodes off a list. It’s that she’s putting those events into the perspective of two men who are reluctantly caught up in what is, essentially, a unnecessary war and political gambit made by glory-craving nobles.
Mendelsohn’s second point about tone has more merit, but only because it’s incredibly difficult to strike just the right tone when writing a novel that is both historic and mythic. For the most part, I think Miller pulls it off, striving to make her prose warm and elegant without too many archaic-sounding clunkers.
Mendelsohn refers to Miller’s “misguided attempt to give a contemporary smoothness to Homer’s antique tale,” but I think that its smoothness is a virtue. Mendelsohn prefers the prose of Mary Renault in The King Must Die, wherein the author opts for more antique phrases: for example, a sacrifice is held “four-yearly.”
And then there’s Mendelsohn’s reference to Miller’s “swoony soft-porn prose.” Yes, well, in a story about physical love, there’s going to be some swelling and cupping and, if we like, some ripening. It’s hard to do well. But ignoring the physical realities of sexual love is typically worse.
To defend his perspective, Mendelsohn quotes Renault: “If characters have come to life, one should know how they will make love; if not it doesn’t matter. Inch-by-inch physical descriptions are the ketchup of the literary cuisine, only required by the insipid dish or by the diner without a palate.”
Oh, please. Miller’s descriptions are nothing like an “inch-by-inch physical description.” It’s the height of arrogance for Mendelsohn to assert he knows how Renault would have viewed Miller’s work. And even if he did know, it would be irrelevant.
Every author is entitled take up the challenge of writing about sex. As in every other matter of writing, this is, above all else, an aesthetic challenge, not a moral one. Avoiding the challenge because it seems too difficult is legitimate, but avoiding it simply because some other author or critic believes it’s always in “bad taste” is an unwholesome combination of prudishness and cowardice.
Alright. Enough about the boorishness of Mendelsohn’s review.
In the end, I didn’t love the book with the same passion as its most ardent admirers. The writing is very good, but not always fully unleashed. The characters are finely drawn, yet often fail to communicate the surreal madness of humans beings in times of war. And, with the exception of the character of Odysseus, there is precious little humor in the book. Everyone seems strangely earnest despite a range of personal and political absurdities.
But these quibbles reflect my personal aesthetics.
Taken as a whole, The Song of Achilles succeeds in depicting the romance and motivations of Achilles and Patroclus, whose lives and deaths largely determine the outcome of the Trojan War. This tale is not intended to compete with Homer but, rather, deepen an important story line contained within it. It’s a fine and fully imagined book, and one well worth reading.
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