Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I don't know quite how to say this without sounding irreverent but the lyrical qualities of this novel read better to my ear than any translation of Homer's "Iliad" I have ever read. You might say that Madeline Miller has hit a Homer the first time up to bat. She spent ten years writing this novel and it shows. The language has a telling simplicity and vivid clarity and economy all of which speak of a literary novelist's supreme gifts. The luminous quality of the language must be read to be believed. This novel is the way that American literature and our best literary novels were meant to be written and read. She will surely establish herself as a cultural icon, given more time, and I am thrilled to have read a novel of this high quality: I give it the highest possible rating and most enthusiastic endorsement as I haven't read a novel this well done in a long time. She has remained true both to Homer's epic poetic masterpiece and to her own voice as a literary novelist. The narrative unfolds through Homer's beloved Patroclus and because we see Achilles through his eyes the perspective of the hero of Troy changes: he becomes immensely human. His tragic song is no longer cold, militaristic and objective, as if it were written as a piece of war journalism or non-fiction. Miller has breathed life into fully rounded and unique characters. All the great heroes of the foray to Troy are here to sing their perfectly resonant arias and we see, for example, in her portrait of Odysseus the intelligence, craft, power and wit of Homer's King of Ithaca. Every character in this novel is an individual about whom we may care to love or hate. The book about the anger of the son of Peleus changes through the perspective of Patroclus as Achilles is not the wild, beast and killing machine that we find in Homer's epic. Instead, Miller gives us a powerful but loving, caring, humane, sensitive and intelligent warrior who just happens to be half-god and half-mortal by virtue of his birth to Thetis and Peleus, a Greek King. His warrior's strength comes by virtue of his demi-god status fortified by his goddess mother and here is a man driven to anger because he is neither wholly man nor god. So the god in him is held back by his human shortcoming and the man in him is pushed beyond his limits by ungodly expectations. Patroclus tells Achilles that he is so extraordinary as a soldier that everyone will come to him to fight their wars. And so they do. He is the tipping point for the Trojan War and everyone on both sides knows it. The book is beautifully bound by Ecco in hardcover and I purposely bought a first edition anticipating it will appreciate in value over the years because of the gifts of Miller who, like Achilles in his youth, stands a fair chance of creating an enduring legacy. I absolutely cannot wait for her next book and will buy it in a heartbeat. This novel is a victory for every literary novelist in America because it holds true to the highest literary standards that only time can brew with such power, beauty and resonance as "The Song of Achilles." Read this book next.