I do not need to read about how Helen of Troy was basically a nympho at the age of 12...no thank you.

I know the story of Troy. I have the Iliad in Greek and Dutch here on my shelf, my subject for the high school exam for Greek was the Iliad, so I've read it before, but I still really enjoyed this version of the story. The different POV's worked very well and made you really feel the story. I loved the few creative interpretations that made some of the events really fit with the characters of the story.

There are simple to mush to talk about, if you do not want to reed the longest review on goodread.

Yet another retelling of one of the most epic stories in human history. I must confess I was sceptical about reading this given my familiarity with the story and my lack of familiarity with McCullough's historical fiction. All I associated her with was the old TV mini-series of Thorn Birds, which wasn't likely to win me over. However, a combination of an offer on Amazon Kindle and moderately good reviews on Goodreads persuaded me to give it a go, and I'm glad I did. This is a richly textured, well researched retelling of this oft told tale, using a diverse cast of voices. Many have criticized the lack of difference in tone between each narrator, and to an extent I would concur with that, but McCullough does better than many using this technique. The story is shorn of the supernatural elements of Homer's poem, but with due attention given to the superstition of the time, and the tension between the old matriarchal religio-political system which was, at the time that the story is set, being supplanted by the patriarchal Olympian religion. McCullough also goes to some length to fill in the 9 year gap in the traditional tellings between the start of the campaign and the climactic events of the10th year, making sense of the subsequent Greek colonisation of Asia Minor. Some have also criticised her for smoothing out the flaws in some of the Greeks, for example the pride of Achilles and Agamemnon, making them more sympathetic, whilst making Hektor and Priam more arrogantly foolish and thus less worthy of our sympathy. But this is an authorial choice and makes sense of the storyline without making the characters simplistic ciphers. As for criticisms of the female characters, well, all I can say is that I have read much worse in this genre, and indeed the original tale doesn't offer much scope for stronger female characters without doing huge violence to the basic dynamic. But actually much of the secondary role of women in this retelling can be explained by the tension between the religious worldviews referred to earlier. No matter the criticisms or limitations this is a version of this story well worth a read.

Bien pero con matizaciones.

La autora sigue una estructura de capítulos narrados en primera persona por los distintos personajes. Esto le permite jugar y mostrarnos los distintos puntos de vista, no solo sobre las expectativas e intenciones de griegos y troyanos, sino también de las posibles afinidades y desavenencias que se pueda dar entre los integrantes de cada "bando".

Al principio me he sentido un poco perdida y saturada intentando retener y ubicar a cada uno de los personajes que van apareciendo: cada principe y cada rey en su territorio. Dados mis limitados conocimientos previos ¡Me ha tocado buscar hasta un mapa! Pero conforme avanza la trama, los vas conociendo y te vas familiarizando con ellos. Una vez superada esta fase, se vuelve más interesante, empieza el juego de tácticas, intrigas y como no, .... de los distintos enfrentamientos, sin olvidar la mitología, los oráculos, en un destino marcado por los dioses.

Dejando a un lado personajes como Príamo y sus hijos, Eneas, Helena, Agamenón y gran parte de sus príncipes/reyes, dos personajes son ensalzados y encumbrados por la autora: Aquiles, el gran héroe, líder por naturaleza, con ese aire fatídico marcado por el destino y Ulises, el gran estratagema, esa mente brillante que siempre iba tres pasos por delante.

Teniendo en cuenta que es ficción histórica y que un autor se puede tomar sus licencias, me parece que McCulllough ha presentado una visión muy partidista: grandes héroes griegos, solo ciertas desavenencias con Calcante, que a pesar de sus comienzos -Ulises se hizo el loco para eludir su compromiso y Aquiles se vio envuelto en la trama de Ifigenia- se centraron en luchar unidos con honor y con valor siguiendo las buenas practicas de guerra, solo quebradas cuando la otra parte las había interrumpido previamente.

Y sin embargo, a las mujeres que aparecen en estas páginas debió pillarles la resaca o el resentimiento de pasar de la antigua religión a la nueva. ¡Prácticamente no hay ninguna que quede bien parada!!. La adivina que está loca, la que aúlla como un perro, la que va de mano en mano -por decirlo finamente-, la bruja tatuada, la reina amazona que casi implora por su muerte, ... ¡¡qué triste!!. Por no mencionar las que aparecen como simples objetos.

Aún así, he disfrutado con esta lectura que me ha permitido acercarme y conocer mejor esta etapa.

Valoración: 7,5/10
Lectura: Junio 2019

5⭐️
La storia dell’Iliade raccontata in modo scorrevole, per nulla pesante, molto interessante!
Io già amavo questa storia, questo libro me l’ha fatta apprezzare di più! Inutile dire che i personaggi preferiti sono Achille e Ettore per il loro spirito, e anche Ulisse, una mente così brillante!
Se non avete mai letto nulla sull’Iliade o ritenete che possa essere una lettura pesante leggendo questo libro vi ricrederete.

I think I liked the idea of this book more than I liked the book itself. Getting inside the story of Troy? Sounds great! And in some ways it was. There were parts that were interesting.
The problem is, that the characters just didn't come alive to me. It's always annoying when you have your character do the explaining for you, because nobody does that naturally. I'm not sitting here wearing woollen socks thinking: "she knew that in some cultures woollen socks weren't as common as in Finland. Smiling to herself, she thought about her ancestors and how they had knit thick grey socks for the cold Finnish winters...etc." Perhaps Colleen McCullough constantly finds herself giving little lectures about everyday things, but I really doubt if the Trojans did that as well. If the narrator wants to reveal some backround, there are better ways of doing that.

Then there was the part that always makes me giggle, and I know it's not supposed to. Throughout the book, McCullough points out several times that homosexual relationships were very normal at the time. I knew this, we studied it in highschool history class (actually, my teacher was also enthusiastic about this topic). The first time this came up, I paid no special attention, but after that it got ridiculous. It was like she was saying: "Look! Homosexuality was VERY NORMAL! I'm such a modern person to include so many homosexual relationships in my book! Aren't I hip and awesome? LOL!"

Yes, I think she really secretly wanted to say LOL.

Good treatment of the Trojan war, but I was expecting more in terms of scope based on her Caesar series. Not epic...but a good read. Pretty down to earth in terms of the involvement of the gods.

I really really liked this books but there were some points which prevented me from giving it 5 stars.
1) Not everyone can pull off first person narrative. She had many characters telling the story but it seemed liked it was one person just every chapter he called himself different.
2) lack of development in relationships. It just states: a loves b, b is the father of c and so on.
3) Briseis, Achilles, Patroclos triangle. So clished, of cource on person had to be the jelous one, the other — noble one.
It is really a pitty because it could be one of my favorite books.

Honestly, this is a travesty.

Of course, I understand that The Iliad and its chorus of fascinating characters have inspired hundreds of authors and poets across the centuries and that they have all interpreted in their own way, but this wasn't an interpretation or an homage. This was, for me, a desecration of Homer's epic poem and I can't believe it got published.

What's more disturbing to me is that this wasn't written by an amateur who didn't know anything about the work or its time period. No clearly, she did her research and read all of the plays and stories that featured the heroes of the Siege of Troy. It's all there, from the beginning to end, every famous event or twist is present in her novel and that was also a major problem with me. I mean, it felt as though she was going to submit her book to the Iliad grand jury or something and had to prove she had the writing chops. It was bogged down with so many details with explanations about the backgrounds of each character and event that It felt contrived to no end. It was as though she wanted to make sure everyone was following and understood everything. It was so heavy handed.

Every character had the same exact voice. I'd sometimes have to check the top of the page to know who was narrating that part. From Diomedes to Helen, same droning, boring and shallow voice. My God, where is the passion, emotions and pathos? These characters inspired the best writers, poets and philosophers in the world! Give them life if you dare to join the ranks of authors who tackled this ancient story! These characters aren't just Joe and Jane going to the market to buy milk!

Then to really maddened me, she completely ursuped the plot, major plotline, to fit her image of Achilles, her Christlike figure. He was so christianized, it was pathetic. He even quotes Jesus on the Cross, I believe at his time of death. In the Iliad, the first lines are about Achilles's anger and the whole story revolves around it. He is enraged because Agamemnon took Brise from him, a woman he'd taken as war loot. It's that trivial. That immature and wrong. But that makes him imperfect and flawed and we come to understand him as Homer reveals things, awful things on Agamemnon. Through it all, Patroclus is at Achilles's side, a loyal and courageous warrior in his own right, but in this book, Patroclus is demeaned and Achilles treats him like shit. So all right, the author at least mentions that they are lovers but it's almost like an afterthought. When Patroclus dies, it's so anti climatic and Brise is such a nasty woman with pettiness and stupidity to spare.

That brings me to the woman in this farce. I can't even. Hecube is like a dog? Andromaque won't say goodbye to Hector? Helen is a nymphomaniac with nice boobs? Kassandra foams at the mouth?

Jesus. Homer wrote this almost three thousand years ago and he was less sexist!

This was awful.

That's all folks.

3.5

I agree largely with the reviews of Emily and Genia Lukin, about the treatment of Achilles and women characters. The story is well-researched and carefully told, but there are risks to telling it through several different characters, all of whose prose style is very similar. I have a theory as to why the author did this. The story, even at bits that are very dramatic, is largely told in stately paragraphs, and I think this is deliberate - she is trying to sum up a very different world of story: a world of the deliberate statement and not the exclamation mark. Sometimes this works well. Achilles' summing-up of his life before he dies is a long paragraph that is calm, utterly alien, and very powerful. The doom of Troy is moving. But largely the calm doesn't mesh (to my mind) with the idea of different voices, especially so many, and some quite obscure. She also courageously points out the terrible suffering inflicted on the cities along the coast from Troy... then she moves on emotionally, but I didn't. I was left with no reason to like the murdering ravaging enslaving self-righteous Greeks or to want them to win. Having said all that, it's a pretty good re-telling on the whole!