I had mixed feelings about this book. It started off as easy reading which is always a bonus for me! It read rather like a succession of diary entries but was given poignancy as it was written in the first person by Briseis, a Queen of Troy. She was captured by the Greeks and given as a gift by Agamemnon to Achilles as a bed slave (a new term to me). The Trojan War was by this time nine years old and despite active battles and killings in the swampy fields of the siege of Troy, the war had settled into something of a stalemate.
Pat Barker’s celebrated Regeneration novels about the emotionally tortured combatants of the WW1 trenches and their rehabilitation in Craiglockhart Hospital had made a big impact on me. So out of respect for her previous work I persevered and was so glad I did. The storytelling was compelling and developed an edge, describing attitudes and acts of cruelty which made for some quite uncomfortable reading. Accounts of male bonding and rivalry from the besieging Greeks often led to fatal squabbles which were handled with no attempt to gloss over the brutal reality.
Nevertheless, there was relentless momentum to the book, as it moved to a conclusion where, like the Titanic, one knew the ending. As that conclusion approached, so did the horror of the circumstances of that war, described graphically and without sentiment.
There was almost no account of the Trojan side of things but then this was not a history book. One scene featuring King Priam shone out from the narrative for me – despite man’s inhumanity to man, there was nevertheless some semblance of a code of honour. But I will give no further spoilers as I hope you may be inspired to read this enjoyable novel, which I recommend.
[We have a copy of The Silence of the Girls in the Library.]
