The Women of Troy

by Pat Barker

3 out of 5

Synopsis

Troy has fallen. The Greeks have won their bitter war. They can return home as victors - all they need is a good wind to lift their sails. But the wind has vanished, the seas becalmed by vengeful gods, and so the warriors remain in limbo - camped in the shadow of the city they destroyed, kept company by the women they stole from it.

The women of Troy.

Helen - poor Helen. All that beauty, all that grace - and she was just a mouldy old bone for feral dogs to fight over.

Cassandra, who has learned not to be too attached to her own prophecies. They have only ever been believed when she can get a man to deliver them.

Stubborn Amina, with her gaze still fixed on the ruined towers of Troy, determined to avenge the slaughter of her king.

Hecuba, howling and clawing her cheeks on the silent shore, as if she could make her cries heard in the gloomy halls of Hades. As if she could wake the dead.

And Briseis, carrying her future in her womb: the unborn child of the dead hero Achilles. Once again caught up in the disputes of violent men. Once again faced with the chance to shape history.

Masterful and enduringly resonant, ambitious and intimate, The Women of Troy continues Pat Barker's extraordinary retelling of one of our greatest classical myths, following on from the critically acclaimed The Silence of the Girls.

Review

Troy has fallen, and the women now find themselves at the mercy of the Greeks.

I received a free copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I have not read the first book - The Silence of the Girls - I think The Women of Troy is very good at filling in the details of the world at hand; but I think I would have benefited from knowing the characters as they were in book 1.

The narrative is split between three characters.

Briseis is our main character. She is one of the lucky ones - or as lucky as you can be in a bad situation. She was Achilles favourite prize, and after his death, he decreed that she should marry Alcimus; thus sparing her from being burned on his pyre, or being thrown into the funeral games as a prize.

Alcimus is a pleasant fellow, as Greeks go; and Briseis' position is now that of a freewoman.

As she is visibly pregnant with Achilles' child, everyone starts to treat her with deference.

Pyrrhus is the son of Achilles. He led the final attack on Troy; breaching its walls and killing every man and boy in his path. But his achievements count as nothing, in the shadow of his father's legend.

Calchas is a Trojan priest, under pressure to read the god's intentions, and find out why the victorious Greeks are stuck beside the ruined Troy.

This goes into great detail of camp life, and you get the sense of despair - from both the surviving Trojan women who are being forced to degrade themselves and serve the men who killed their families; and from the greeks, who are stuck on a beach, their loyalties being tested, now that they no longer have a common enemy.

Briseis finds herself watching the women come in, just as she did, when she was captured by the greeks years before. She understands what they are going through, and helps them in what little ways she can.

Even though she is a freewoman, it is not true freedom. She has no power to stop anything, and can only try to make life more endurable for her fellow Trojan women.

The not-so-good.

Nothing happens.

Except for the attack on Troy in the beginning, nothing happens.

You're hit with the sense that the men are trapped on the beach, and the women are trapped in a never-ending nightmare. And it circles on and on.

Instead, we are treated to Briseis reflecting on this moment, or that moment. None of her internal monologue was very interesting. There was no variation in tone, and her intense description of wooden floors had as much feeling as any of her memories.

I also felt that Briseis had a complete lack of connection to the people around her. Despite being in a similar situation, she never emotionally connects to any of the women. She views them with the same cool logic as any inanimate thing.

I honestly wanted to slap her sometimes.

Overall, I thought that it was historically accurate, but lacked life.

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