title: The Women of Troy by: Barker, Pat published: 2021-08-24 read: 2023-02 preview

After reading Pat Barker, The Silence of the Girls, which a dear friend pointed out to me recently, I decided to go on with the fun ride and reread this book.

And it’s still beautiful. Even more so, since I could place the whole story and characters much, much better now.

So, this book follows after the Iliad ends, and of course starts with the trick of entering Troy with a wooden horse filled with Greek warriors. It’s all Odysseus’ idea, and it’s bloody and gross and successful and following the standard procedure: kill all males (including unborn children who may be male); rape all women over an uncertain age (of perhaps 12); then enslave all women, with the prominent ones going to the prominent men (e.g., to King Agamemnon, and Odysseus, the main warrior, and Pyrrhus, Achilles’ son (whom he never knew); Odysseus, by the way, is not so much into this part of the game).

And as in The Silence of the Girls, Briseis is one of them: Then–and now–people seem to take it for granted that I loved Achilles. Why wouldn’t I? I had the fastest, strongest, bravest, most beautiful man of his generation in my bed–how could I not love him? He killed my brothers. We women are peculiar creatures. We tend not to love those who murder our families.

Pyrrhus, who is generally seen as a weakling compared to his dad, gains a bit of fame by killing King Priam of Troy. And unjustly so, since Priam was old, feeble, and could hardly bear his weapons and shields. Still, dead is dead.

After their victory, the Greek party, drink, fuck… and the next day, a gale comes from the sea, barring their plans to leave for home immediately. A wind to stay.

Time goes on. Priam is not buried but left to rot, the wait takes forever. Tensions rise.

The whole story is told by Briseis, the who was married to the son of the king of Lyrnessus – the city which was sacked before the Greek decided to go for Troy (not the queen of Troy, as I said before). Briseis is 19, and carries Achilles’ child; she was his slave in the previous book, and then his, well, close to wife. But Achilles, knowing he would die in the fight against Troy, wed her to his closest ally Alcimus. Who, surprisingly, handles her with respect.

Story continues, the Greeks find a way to pacify the Gods, and all’s well that ends well.

The burial of Priam comes, and Briseis observes Achilles’/Pyrrhus’ fighters: Myrmidons: ant-men. I’d always thought what a stupid name that was for men who were so sturdily independent, so ready to question authority, whose respect always had to be earned; but seeing them like this, hearing–and, in the vibration of the cart, feeling–the power and precision of those marching feet, I understood–for the first time, I think–the terror they inspired on the battlefield.

I can see a third book coming. On how the Troy women, now slaves, including Briseis’ return to Greece. Troy, I looked it up for you, was in the north-west of current Turkey, some 300km south of Constantinople (Istanbul).

I just hope that Pat Barker sees that third book, too. (Spoiler: after writing this sentence I checked, and indeed! The Voyage Home, number 3 in the series, is expected in August 2024.)