The Girls of Troy by Pat Barker
A number of years in the past, I learn Barker’s The Silence of the Women, which re-centers the story of the autumn of Troy across the girls impacted by the decade-long conflict. Briseis is a Trojan girl taken as a spoil of conflict and given to Achilles, the famed hero of the Trojan Battle. In The Silence of the Women, we comply with Briseis by the tip of the conflict when Achilles gave her to be the spouse of one in every of his favourite warriors.
The Girls of Troy continues Breiseis’ story. Now as a spouse, as a substitute of an enslaved concubine, Briseis possesses a brand new layer of safety at camp. After the autumn of Troy, she watches as extra Trojan girls are enslaved, notably Hecuba, the Queen of Troy, and Andromache, Prince Hector’s widow. Helen, the face that launched a thousand ships, has additionally reentered camp, in addition to Cassandra, Hecuba’s daughter who’s cursed to see the long run however to have nobody imagine her.
Pat Barker’s ability lies in directing the reader’s gazes to the ladies within the epic of Troy and asking us to rethink the tales we inform in regards to the mighty Greek and Trojan warriors. The place are the ladies in these tales? What REALLY have been their fates? As an alternative of centering on males and their mighty deeds, Barker focuses on the ladies compelled to have a tendency their wounds, make their meals, and heat their beds. That is the true legacy of Troy, the enslavement of a whole lot of ladies compelled to wash up the aftermath of males at conflict.
The audiobook is carried out by Kristin Atherton, an unimaginable narrator who captures a lot of the complicated feelings Briseis experiences as she navigates her new life. Atherton’s efficiency attracts you in and makes you are feeling as in case you are proper there in Briseis’ little hut on the seashores exterior of a fallen Troy. I instantly began listening to the subsequent guide within the sequence, The Voyage House—additionally carried out by Kristin Atherton—so I’ll report again once I’ve completed it.