I’d never heard of Pat Barker, although I gather she’s won several awards for her novels. ‘The Silence of the Girls’ was shortlisted for a prize, but I doubt if I’d have come across it, but for our local reading group. It was assigned for this month’s meeting, so I duly acquired it.
I should have guessed from the cover that it’s set in Ancient Troy - modern-day Turkey. I knew some of the relevant history from the days when I studied Latin and Ancient Greek at secondary school, although I found Ancient History rather dull. All those battles, all those lengthy names…
And yet this is a surprisingly engaging book. The writing is excellent, the research meticulous, and the people much more three dimensional than any history book I’ve read on this topic. The narrator of most of the novel is Briseis, a young woman who has queenly status in Lyrnessus, a town not far from Troy. Not that she’s particularly attached to her husband; it was an arranged marriage when she was quite young.
Briseis and the other women take refuge in the citadel as the Greek army invades their town, and she has the horror of seeing not just her husband but her brothers slaughtered. When every man and boy is gone, the women are taken captive, and she is awarded as ‘prize’ to Achilles.
Apparently Briseis is a significant character in Homer’s ‘Iliad’; I don’t remember if I ever read it right through, but I certainly studied parts of it forty-plus years ago. However, although I recall Achilles, and some of the other characters who appear in the book, I didn’t remember Briseis at all. She comes across as a strong woman who thinks for herself, but realises that she has no choice in her fate. She becomes Achilles’ ‘bed-girl’, and is aware that she could have a far worse fate.
History, as recorded by Homer and others, intertwines in this novel with fictional events and conversations, and tells the story from the point of view of the women. And the author does this seamlessly, so that I found myself almost unable to put it down at times. One or two scenes were quite poignant, too, and I liked some of the developing friendships, although they weren't explored in depth as much as I'd have liked.
However, much of the book is horrific. There’s a plague that kills not just rats but people, and Briseis works in the medical tents so we see some quite unpleasant scenes through her eyes. Yet somehow although I recoiled from these descriptions, and those of the violent battles that inevitably take place, the detail stops just short of being gratuitous. The same is true for what Briseis has to put up with in Achilles’ bed (and others…) - I didn’t like the repeated use of an unpleasant four-letter word, but in context it wasn’t inappropriate. Love certainly didn’t come into it.
It’s not a book for children or young teenagers, and frankly I’m glad it wasn’t available when I was in my teens, as I would have found some of the scenes considerably more disturbing than I do now. But as a fill-in to Trojan history, I found it fascinating. I had never really thought about what the women, taken as slaves, actually had to do, or how the army treated them.
As a teenager, in debate with friends, I usually supported the Greek side against the Romans/Trojans; it was, after all, the Romans who precipitated the Trojan War by stealing Helen, one of the Greek women. But I realise now she was probably implicated in the decision to run away. Briseis, quite unintentionally, also becomes the crux of a clash between two personalities in the book (something referenced in the Iliad, I gather) and it intrigued me that women, seen as property with virtually no rights, could still be the trigger for so much aggression and horrendous conflict.
I doubt if I’ll read this again, but on the whole I did appreciate reading it, and would guardedly recommend it to adults wanting a different viewpoint about the Fall of Troy - and perhaps to older teens who aren’t idsturbed by scenes of carnage and strong language.
No comments:
Post a Comment