The Boy Who Loved a God
Review of Madeline Miller's "The Song of Achilles" (2011)
Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles (2011) takes the blood-soaked, bronze-clad world of The Iliad and transforms it into an intimate, lyrical love story.
Achilles, the golden warrior fated for glory, and Patroclus, the exiled prince who becomes his shadow, are at the heart of this retelling.
Miller, a Latin and Greek teacher, spent ten years crafting this debut novel, and it shows. It won the 2012 Orange Prize for Fiction and has developed an almost cult-like following.
Love, War, and the Wrath of Destiny
The novel follows Patroclus from his childhood exile to his fateful years alongside Achilles. He is not a warrior, not a hero—just a quiet boy who finds himself tethered to a living legend.
“I saw then how I had changed. I did not mind anymore that I lost when we raced and I lost when we swam out to the rocks and I lost when we tossed spears or skipped stones. For who can be ashamed to lose to such beauty? It was enough to watch him win, to see the soles of his feet flashing as they kicked up sand, or the rise and fall of his shoulders as he pulled through the salt. It was enough.”
As they grow up, their bond deepens into something more than friendship. Says Patroclus:
“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.”
By the time they arrive in Troy, their love is the worst-kept secret of the ancient world, and their fate is already sealed.
Miller strips away the cold grandeur of myth and gives you something far more human: two boys on a beach, laughing in the sunlight, unaware that they are running straight toward disaster.
“We were like gods at the dawning of the world, and our joy was so bright we could see nothing else but the other.”
Even if you know how the story ends—and of course, you do—it doesn’t lessen the ache when it finally comes crashing down.
“This is what Achilles will feel like when he is old. And then I remembered: he will never be old.”
Where Miller Shines
Miller's prose is a masterwork of restraint and sensuality. She captures the intensity of first love with devastating precision:
"I found myself watching his hands, the way they moved and the bones beneath the skin."
She reimagines Homer’s world with sensory richness: the scent of olive oil on skin, the weight of bronze armour, the shimmer of Achilles's divine beauty.
She also makes bold narrative choices. By telling the story from Patroclus’s perspective, she shifts the focus away from Achilles’ rage and toward his tenderness.
You don’t see the wrathful demigod first—you see the boy who plays the lyre, the lover who flinches at the thought of fate.
Achilles asks:
“Name one hero who was happy."
I considered. Heracles went mad and killed his family; Theseus lost his bride and father; Jason's children and new wife were murdered by his old; Bellerophon killed the Chimera but was crippled by the fall from Pegasus' back.
"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 his. "Swear it."
"Why me?"
"Because you're the reason. Swear it."
"I swear it," I said, lost in the high color of his cheeks, the flame in his eyes.
"I swear it," he echoed.
We sat like that a moment, hands touching. He grinned.
"I feel like I could eat the world raw.”
It’s a deeply romantic lens, and it works.
What might disappoint you
If you’re looking for a war epic, you won’t find it here. The battles are there, but they take a backseat to longing glances and whispered promises.
Miller’s Achilles is not the merciless, godlike force of Homer—he is soft-edged, almost too gentle. When his inevitable fury arrives, it feels more like a plot requirement than a natural culmination of his character.
“You can use a spear as a walking stick, but that will not change its nature.”
Patroclus, too, is a divisive protagonist. He is passive, often fading into the background of his own story. His devotion to Achilles is absolute, but it sometimes comes at the expense of his own agency. If you prefer heroes with more steel, he may frustrate you.
The first third of the book, focused on Patroclus and Achilles's childhood, is just slow. Thankfully, it gets better once you are invested.
And Miller's decision to downplay the gods' direct intervention might disappoint those looking for more supernatural elements.
“There is no law that gods must be fair, Achilles,” Chiron said. “And perhaps it is the greater grief, after all, to be left on earth when another is gone. Do you think?”
The Verdict: A Tragedy Drenched in Sunlight
The Song of Achilles is not a war story. It’s a love story set in the shadow of war, and its power lies in its inevitability.
This isn't just fan fiction with sandals – it's a profound meditation on fate, glory, and the price of immortality.
“Odysseus inclines his head.
"True. But fame is a strange thing. Some men gain glory after they die, while others fade. What is admired in one generation is abhorred in another."
He spread his broad hands.
"We cannot say who will survive the holocaust of memory. Who knows?"
He smiles.
"Perhaps one day even I will be famous. Perhaps more famous than you.”
Read Next
If you want another mythic love story, Circe, Miller’s follow-up, gives the infamous sorceress a voice of her own.
Or try Pat Barker's The Silence of the Girls for a feminist perspective on the Trojan War.
For non-fiction, Caroline Alexander's The War That Killed Achilles offers fascinating context about the historical reality behind the myth.