The Silence of the Girls- Pat Barker Review (WITH SPOILERS)
Trigger warning Blood Genocide Gore Rape Slavery Victim blaming Violence War ‘The Silence of the Girls’ by Pat Barker was recommended to me on Goodreads by the website itself, because I have previously read ‘Circe’ by Madeline Miller. Although I have found some faults with ‘Circe’, the idea of retelling of parts of Greek mythology from a new, female perspective, intrigued me and I decided to give Barker’s novel a chance. While reading it, I could not shake the familiarity to Miller’s work and unfortunately, the faults with it. The biggest issue I had was the fact that although the narrative was presented as some kind of feminist retelling, but both novels end up centring the men in the women’s life one way or another. (You can read the review for Circe here https://pinkfictionclub.blogspot.com/2022/07/circe-madeline-miller.html ) ‘The Silence of the Girls’ is told by Briseis, a woman from the ‘Iliad’ know almost exclusively in her relations to Achilles. While in some depictions ...