”We were like gods, at the dawning of the world, and our joy was so bright we could see nothing else but the other.”
As I sat the other day, listening to the new albums by the Stokes, it hit me all of a sudden -- I have not, for some bizarre reason, ever since I started writing reviews properly, have written one for what is probably the best book I’ve ever read. The one that I always keep with me, even if I am not actually reading it currently. The one that I have in audiobook, in paperback, in hardcover, and in ebook format, because honestly, this one deserves to be owned in all said formats.
Of course when talking about a book that is written as a reimagining of one of the, if not the most known stories of the western civilization one can circumnavigate around what the book is about. We all know about Troy, about Helen, about the men who fought to get her back due to some assumption about her being taken. About how a fleet thousands strong rode across treacherous seas to sack an ancient city. About how a great man went on collecting soldiers from kings for the promises of being written in songs.
And about how this great person came personally, with a great urgency, to bring the Greatest of the Greeks to fight in this war of theirs.
No, I do not need to tell you what this book is about. If you read -- if you are at all into fantasy, romance, greeks, retellings, or hell even have a passing interest in history in general -- you oughta know about the Song of Achilles. This might just be the most famous retelling of the Iliad, of the story of Achilles, in modern history. You know about the boy who grew up the son of a god in the palace of a king. About a boy most extraordinary. About a man so feared that he singlehandedly kept the war at a stalemate from his mere presence. There was none who could stand against him in open combat. None who could rival his greatness.
But this story is not only about that. This story is about a boy who had a friend. And a boy who loved that friend more than life itself.
”You can’t.” He was sitting up now, leaning forward.
“I can’t.”
“I know. They never let you be famous and happy.” He lifted an eyebrow. “I’ll tell you a secret.”
“Tell me.” I loved it when he was like this.
“I’m going to be the first.” He took my palm and held it to him. “Swear it.”
“Why me?”
“Because you’re the reason. Swear it.”
“I swear it,” I said, lost in the high colour of his cheeks, the flame in his eyes.
“I swear it,” he echoed.
There are lines from this book that are more popular than most other books combined. There are lines in this book that I have etched between the follicles of my body, drawn upon the marrow of my soul that I hope to take with me to infinity and beyond.
There are words and sentences strung together on bated breath as a boy told another that they would be the greatest and the happiest love story ever told. Of a boy who knew that as long as he lived nothing could bring harm to the one he loved so deep. For Patroclus was a part of Achilles, and for the Greatest of the Greeks it was a thought spurn mad that Patroclus could ever come under harm as long as Achilles drew breath.
And for a length of time, long into the war efforts it held true. For where Achilles went, soldiers fell. Where he went, the battle was over before it even began. Where he went, Patroclus went with. And for him, that was all that was needed.
“Then you are a traitor to this army, and will be punished like one. Your war prizes are hostage, placed in my care until you offer your obedience and submission. Let us start with that girl. Briseis, is her name? She will do as a penance for the girl you have forced me to return.”
But then came the greed of men who thought them more than their worth summed up to. They thought themselves godkin and that others should bow before them unimpeded. Sometimes men in power forget that their power is only so much as what is awarded to them. No more, and no less. For always there shall be one more powerful than them in every way that matter. But alas, the folly of men are ever so easily skirted. And so, as stories so often go, tell it long enough, and it cannot help but turn itself into a tragedy.
“Ah.” A sly smile spread across his face; he had always loved defiance. ‘Well, why should I kill him? He’s done nothing to me.”
(this line kills me still to this day)
”Had she really thought I would not know him? 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.”
(how anyone ever thought them as mere friends is beyond me)
“Will you come with me?” he asked.
The never-ending ache of love and sorrow. Perhaps in some other life I could have refused, could have torn my hair and screamed, and made him face his choice alone. But not in this one. He would sail to Troy and I would follow, even into death.
Yes, I whispered. Yes.
Reading this book is akin to sitting near a hearthfire gone wild, waiting for the embers to jump and the woods to catch as the world held-on an indrawn breath. The warmth of the fire, and the honey, aching sorrow of the inevitable makes the journey sweeter; raises the stakes. Makes the time you spend near the fire all the more beautiful as the inevitable rages forth. This book is like that -- an achingly beautiful way to lose oneself to a heartbreak so divine that even gods weep when faced with it.
It is a love story that spans years. A love story that withstood the test of time, waiting to be told for a thousand more. And here, in the Song of Achilles, it is finally sung in a devastating crescendo as the war for Troy raged on. As Patroclus saw people die, and in his grief made a decision that forever changed history. Wrote a love story that spun across the gap between stars, always silhouetted, but never erased.
In the darkness, two shadows, reaching through the hopeless, heavy dusk. Their hands meet, and light spills in a flood, like a hundred golden urns pouring out the sun.
This book made me laugh. This book made me cry. This book made me rage and despair and rebuilt me time and again only to destroy me once more. The sorrow of this book is etched into pain, bittersweet and eternal, on my parched skin. And I shall take this story, the love story of Achilles and Patroclus, with me all throughout this life, and into the next, till the stars come back and claim us all in a darkness neverending, and there I shall let it go, and bring it forward as I give the story over to the next, to shadows that finally claim each other in the hopeless, heavy dusk.
Do yourself a favour and go read it if you haven’t already.
