The Song of Achilles

by Madeline Miller

Other authors: See the other authors section.

Members	Reviews	Popularity	Average rating	Conversations / Mentions
15,024	536	398	(4.22)	5 / 1037
"At once a scholar's homage to The Iliad and startlingly original work of art by an incredibly talented new novelist....A book I could not put down." --Ann Patchett "Mary Renault lives again!" declares Emma Donoghue, author of Room, referring to The Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller's thrilling, profoundly moving, and utterly unique retelling of the legend of Achilles and the Trojan War. A tale of gods, kings, immortal fame, and the human heart, The Song of Achilles is a dazzling literary feat that brilliantly reimagines Homer's enduring masterwork, The Iliad. An action-packed adventure, an epic love story, a marvelously conceived and executed page-turner, Miller's monumental debut novel has already earned resounding acclaim from some of contemporary fiction's brightest lights--and fans of Mary Renault, Bernard Cornwell, Steven Pressfield, and Colleen McCullough's Masters of Rome series will delight in this unforgettable journey back to ancient Greece in the Age of Heroes.… (more)

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161
The Penelopiad: The Myth of Penelope and Odysseus by Margaret Atwood (1morechapter)
100
The Iliad by Homer (alalba)
100
The King Must Die by Mary Renault (wrmjr66)
60
Circe by Madeline Miller (sturlington)
50
The Mask of Apollo by Mary Renault (shaunie)
40
The Persian Boy by Mary Renault (emanate28)
emanate28: Maybe they are too similar... But both The Persian Boy and The Song of Achilles are heartbreaking and beautiful stories of legendary heroes told from the perspective of their devoted boy lovers. The ancient heroes come alive and one is transported back into those times.… (more)
51
The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker (konallis)
konallis: A very different view of Achilles, from the point of view of his captured prize, Briseis.
30
Ransom by David Malouf (jbvm)
52
Grendel by John Gardner (fugitive)
fugitive: Another brilliantly retold classic by a modern author.
10
An Arrow's Flight by Mark Merlis (marq)
marq: Mark Merlis also takes up the story of Pyrrhus (or Neoptolemus), Achilles’ son with Deidamia when he was in disguise as a woman on Scyros. A very different kind of novel, steampunk, wild anachronism, graphically homoerotic, brilliant.
10
Lavinia by Ursula K. Le Guin (knhaydon)
knhaydon: Modern retelling of a classical myth, narrated by a character with a less central part in the original source text(s).
00
The Hostage by Kathryn Berck (quartzite)
quartzite: Set in Bronze Age Greece about descendants of Hercules seeking to reclaim their patrimony.
00
Fireborne by Rosaria Munda (Talia_Davidovsky)
Talia_Davidovsky: If you like Ancient Greece, fantasy, some romance, and some tragedy, you might also enjoy Fireborne by Rosaria Munda.
00
Alcestis by Katharine Beutner (rarm)
00
The Secret Chord by Geraldine Brooks (novelcommentary)
novelcommentary: Similar narrative idea
00
The Love Artist by Jane Alison (jbvm)
346
Twilight by Stephenie Meyer (TomWaitsTables)
TomWaitsTables: Because Song of Achilles is Homer's Illiad as a Twilight novel. Sorry.

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▾Will you like it?

▾Conversations (About links)

Group › Topic	Messages	Last Message
Book talk: More books similar to The Song of Achilles?	7 unread / 7	librorumamans, August 2022
Le Salon Littéraire du Peuple pour le Peuple: Le Salon reads the Iliad	80 unread / 80	LolaWalser, April 2020
2013 Category Challenge: GROUP READ - The Song of Achilles	43 unread / 43	Gretebuck, June 2013
World Reading Circle: The Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller	2 unread / 2	mirrani, February 2013
Orange January/July: The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller	13 unread / 13	TinaV95, July 2012

» See also 1037 mentions

▾Member reviews

English (510) Dutch (6) Italian (3) Spanish (3) French (3) Portuguese (Portugal) (2) Swedish (1) All languages (528)

date ▼ | votes

Showing 1-5 of 510 (next | show all)

4.5 (

)

Leyre1209 | Jan 10, 2025 |

A wonderful retelling of this story. I think it is slightly better than her Circe, which I liked. This is very much the story of Achilles and Patroclus, with a little of Agamemnon, Briseis, Odysseus, et al. thrown in. It's not the Trojan War; we don't even get to the part about the Trojan Horse.

It's about love and hubris and assholes and some genuinely good people. It's about what, these days, would be called toxic masculinity. It's about fate and free will and predestination. Put all that together with some very good writing and you have a story that is far more immersing than the usual dry re-tellings of Greek myth.

It's not a happy story. But then, we all know the words "Greek" and "tragedy" go together. (

)

TadAD | Jan 9, 2025 |

Madeline Miller heeft de klassieker Ilias opnieuw vormgegeven in een eigentijdse, spannende roman.

Vrouwenbibliotheek | Dec 30, 2024 |

i'm so glad they got reunited in the end because if not i would've turned into achilles

also my girl briseis deserved better (

)

yerdua421 | Dec 2, 2024 |

Beautifully retold

Loved the ending. Loved the writing. Well done retelling. Such an old story made new for our times. Highly recommend. (

)

Suzanness | Nov 26, 2024 |

date ▼ | votes

Showing 1-5 of 510 (next | show all)

▾Published reviews

2 reviews

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thingScore 63

That The Song of Achilles offers a different take on the epic story of Achilles and the Trojan War is not, in itself, anything particularly out of the ordinary. People have been putting their own spins on The Iliad from the instant Homer finished reciting it. What's startling about this sharply written, cleverly re-imagined, enormously promising debut novel from Madeline Miller is how fresh and moving her take on the tale is — how she has managed to bring Achilles and his companion Patroclus to life in our time without removing them from their own.

added by Shortride | editUSA Today, Robert Bianco (Mar 12, 2012)

But in the case of Miller, who earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in classics at Brown, the epic reach exceeds her technical grasp. The result is a book that has the head of a young adult novel, the body of the “Iliad” and the hindquarters of Barbara Cartland.

added by 1morechapter | editThe New York Times

▾Other authors

» Add other authors (18 possible)

Author name	Role	Type of author	Work?	Status
Miller, Madeline	—	primary author	all editions	confirmed
Auché, Christine	Translator	secondary author	some editions	confirmed
Curtoni, Matteo	Translator	secondary author	some editions	confirmed
Douglas, Frazer	Narrator	secondary author	some editions	confirmed
Parolini, Maura	Translator	secondary author	some editions	confirmed
Saltzman, Allison	Cover designer	secondary author	some editions	confirmed
Thorpe, David	Narrator	secondary author	some editions	confirmed
Windgassen, Michael	Translator	secondary author	some editions	confirmed

▾Series and work relationships

Belongs to Publisher Series

Bloomsbury Modern Classics

Is contained in

Circe | The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

Madeline Miller 3 Books Collection by Madeline Miller

Is a retelling of

The Iliad by Homer

▾Awards and Honors

Awards

Distinctions

Historical Novel Society Editors' Choice (Literary Epic Adventure)

Library Journal Top Ten Book (2012)

Notable Lists

ALA Outstanding Books for the College Bound (Literature and Language Arts)

ALA Over the Rainbow Book List (Selection – Fiction – 2013)

Blackwell's 1879-2019: 140 Years 140 Books

Mid-Continent Public Library Best Books (Pre-2022 Adult Titles – 2022)

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▾Common Knowledge

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Canonical title

The Song of Achilles

Original title

Alternative titles

Original publication date

People/Characters

Important places

Mount Pelion, Thessaly, Greece

Scyros

Important events

Trojan War

Related movies

Epigraph

Dedication

To my mother Madeline, and Nathaniel

First words

My father was a king and the son of kings.

Quotations

I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world.

We were like gods at the dawning of the world, and our joy was so bright we could see nothing else but the other.

"That is — your friend?"

"Philtatos," Achilles replied, sharply. Most beloved.

Last words

(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)

Disambiguation notice

Publisher's editors

Blurbers

Original language

Canonical DDC/MDS

Canonical LCC

▾References

References to this work on external resources.

Wikipedia in English

None

▾Book descriptions

"At once a scholar's homage to The Iliad and startlingly original work of art by an incredibly talented new novelist....A book I could not put down." --Ann Patchett "Mary Renault lives again!" declares Emma Donoghue, author of Room, referring to The Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller's thrilling, profoundly moving, and utterly unique retelling of the legend of Achilles and the Trojan War. A tale of gods, kings, immortal fame, and the human heart, The Song of Achilles is a dazzling literary feat that brilliantly reimagines Homer's enduring masterwork, The Iliad. An action-packed adventure, an epic love story, a marvelously conceived and executed page-turner, Miller's monumental debut novel has already earned resounding acclaim from some of contemporary fiction's brightest lights--and fans of Mary Renault, Bernard Cornwell, Steven Pressfield, and Colleen McCullough's Masters of Rome series will delight in this unforgettable journey back to ancient Greece in the Age of Heroes.

▾Library descriptions

No library descriptions found.

▾LibraryThing members' description

Book description

Achilles, "the best of all the Greeks," son of the cruel sea goddess Thetis and the legendary king Peleus, is strong, swift, and beautiful, irresistible to all who meet him. Patroclus is an awkward young prince, exiled from his homeland after an act of shocking violence. Brought together by chance, they forge an inseparable bond, despite risking the gods' wrath.

They are trained by the centaur Chiron in the arts of war and medicine, but when word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped, all the heroes of Greece are called upon to lay siege to Troy in her name. Seduced by the promise of a glorious destiny, Achilles joins their cause, and torn between love and fear for his friend, Patroclus follows. Little do they know that the cruel Fates will test them both as never before and demand a terrible sacrifice.

Haiku summary

Short introduction

To the classic Iliad

With misplaced passion.

(legallypuzzled)