The Silence of the Girls
by Pat Barker
The ancient city of Troy has withstood a decade under siege of the powerful Greek army, which continues to wage bloody war over a stolen woman—Helen. In the Greek camp, another woman—Briseis—watches and waits for the war’s outcome. She was queen of one of Troy’s neighboring kingdoms, until Achilles, Greece’s greatest warrior, sacked her city and murdered her husband and brothers. Briseis becomes Achilles’s concubine, a prize of battle, and must adjust quickly in order to survive a radically different life, as one of the many conquered women who serve the Greek army.
When Agamemnon, the brutal political leader of the Greek forces, demands Briseis for himself, she finds herself caught between the two most powerful of the Greeks. Achilles refuses to fight in protest, and the Greeks begin to lose ground to their Trojan opponents. Keenly observant and coolly unflinching about the daily horrors of war, Briseis finds herself in an unprecedented position, able to observe the two men driving the Greek army in what will become their final confrontation, deciding the fate not only of Briseis’s people but also of the ancient world at large.
Briseis is just one among thousands of women living behind the scenes in this war—the slaves and prostitutes, the nurses, the women who lay out the dead—all of them erased by history. With breathtaking historical detail and luminous prose, Pat Barker brings the teeming world of the Greek camp to vivid life. She offers nuanced, complex portraits of characters and stories familiar from mythology, which, seen from Briseis’s perspective, are rife with newfound revelations. Barker’s latest builds on her decades-long study of war and its impact on individual lives—and it is nothing short of magnificent.
Within the steadily rising sea of Greek mythology retellings, the novels written from a female perspective that create space to explore the experiences of the women of mythology who are brushed over and even villainized in the classics are the ones that continually pique my interest. Here, in these modern novels, they have the chance to be made new; not perfect, but whole people who have voices and whose experiences are worth learning about and pondering realistically. In The Silence of the Girls, Pat Barker gives voice to Briseis during the Trojan War.
Briseis is a figure I’ve become familiar with through other novels. The woman who came between Achilles and Agamemnon and stood at the heart of the feud that shaped the end of the war, Briseis was the wife of the King of Lyrnessus before the city was toppled and Achilles took her for his war prize. Later, Agamemnon took Briseis from Achilles for his own, igniting Achilles’ rage. Pride injured, Achilles refused to fight, letting the Greeks die as the Trojans pushed toward victory. This story typically belongs to Achilles or Agamemnon or other familiar men—their greatness, their legend, their impact as warriors—and only features Briseis as a footnote, a status symbol to be blamed for the course of the war, a way to brush off the choices of prideful men as nothing but the result of a silly disagreement over a beautiful woman. The Silence of the Girls not only sets out to refocus the lens on Briseis’ experience, but to strip away the glory and golden sheen from the heroes of Greek mythology and reveal the impact of their brutality for what it was.
This novel begins at the moment Briseis’ city falls and she is taken, with all the other women, as a slave for the Greeks. Immediately, I was struck by how similar The Silence of the Girls feels to other Greek retellings I’ve read. The subject matter is, of course, the same, but I’m referring to the feeling of the language, the tone created, the way the characters are crafted and portrayed. Barker’s writing didn’t exactly stand out, and for the first portion of the novel, it failed to set itself apart from the others in my memory. I can’t fault this novel for that, though, because the writing was still great—similar to other retellings in ways I can only appreciate. There’s something aloof within the tone, something that keeps readers above it all no matter how intimately and intricately the details of this woman’s life are explored. The storytelling is engaging, the writing is immersive. The sense of being told a story by the person who already lived it, laced with wisdom and bitterness, creates the perfect edge within the tone. Though I can say Barker’s writing will almost certainly meld and blend into the rest in my memory, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of reading it.
I loved reading about the Trojan War from Briseis’ point of view. As someone who had read and loved Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles, I couldn’t help but feel like this book was an alternate version, the other side of the same coin. Grounded firmly within the realities of life as a slave woman in a war camp, this novel explored Briseis’ daily life and role within the fate of the Trojan War in a way that was both heartbreakingly honest and sharp. It’s intelligent and moving, staring down the reality of war and how the eternal glory of men was earned by brutality that spilled over from the battlefield into the lives of women. While giving a realistic portrayal of this life and the men who caused it, The Silence of the Girls also highlights the connection of women during this time, the strength and support they found in each other even at their worst moments, even when they disliked each other. As someone familiar with the course of the Trojan War and the ten years the Greeks spent camped at Troy, I still felt like I came away from this novel learning something. I couldn’t look away from Briseis’ life, the tragedy and horror of her experience. The Silence of the Girls is about so much more than just retelling the events of the Trojan War, it’s about telling the unknown stories of the Trojan War; the silent sufferings of women in captivity, their suffocating inability to change their fate, let alone that of the war. The story is steeped in the intelligence and perspective only the women seem capable of—the knowledge of the fruitlessness of the brutality of men and war, the shallow desires and shallower egos that drove them to war in the first place. It’s a compassionate portrayal of Briseis and other women, yet uncompromising in its honesty and ugliness.
Briseis was compelling and believable, expertly crafted along with the rest of the cast of familiar faces (Achilles, Patroclus, Agamemnon, Odysseus, and more). I especially enjoyed the incorporation of Achilles’ point of view; it was unexpected and added a perspective I enjoyed. It showcased further how humanity can seep through the cracks in the most unlikely circumstances, that human emotion is far from simple or one dimensional.
The Silence of the Girls is exactly why I enjoy Greek mythology retellings. It’s dramatic and powerful, compelling and immersive. While familiar in its overall approach, tone, and events, it was an absolutely gripping novel with a worthwhile perspective. I look forward to reading the sequel, The Women of Troy.