The Silence of the Girls- Pat Barker Review (WITH SPOILERS)
- 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 of the Trojan war, their relationship is romanticized,
she is actually his war trophy, after her town falls to Greek power. In ‘Silence
of the Girls’, Barker does not shy away from the reality of the situation and
calls things as they are: Briseis is his sex slave and property. He barely sees
her as a human being, and she is essentially just someone to prove his power
through. In fact, the only time he shows any care about her is when Agamemnon,
the king he despises, wants to humiliate him by taking Briseis the same way he
would take a farm animal they are fond of.
The novel starts with Briseis describing
the position of women during the siege of her town and the fall that is
becoming more and more obvious. Her account is brutal, honest and feels very
realistic. I could imagine the fear and desperation that would make some women
kill themselves before falling into slavery. Similiar style is employed while
describing the Greek camp that women who were well respected not long ago and
now slaves are taken to. However, after the initial strong start, the story becomes
quite repetitive and even boring at times. While I do understand that Briseis’s
new life without any freedoms and in general war time life would not be the
most interesting, it did not translate too well into this narrative.
Briseis has potential to be
incredibly interesting character, with rich internal life and thoughts, but
here I did not see any of it. Yes, her strength and conviction to keep on
living despite harrowing conditions is admirable, but I did not find her story
too compelling. I expected a lot more from her than to shy away and allow Achilles
to take up so much of her story, yet again. The story is told from Briseis’s
first person narration and occasionally third person about Achilles. Just like in
‘Circe’, the retelling of Greek mythology from woman’s perspective ends up
being about men and their feelings and issues yet again. To a degree it makes
sense that these women would be preoccupied with men that enslaved them and
learn to recognize their moods and needs for survival, I expected that some
depth is given to them as characters. What kind of feminist retelling it is, if
you give more depth to the male characters performing the violence than its
victims? If you have read Iliad or at least know the summary of it, you will learn
nothing new in ‘The Silence of the Girls’.
Briseis does make some female
friends in the novel, most notably Iphis, Patroclus’s slave, who showed her
kindness and compassion. Other women in the novel, whether on purpose or not, were
there, but left no real impression on me. After a while, they all felt the same
and Briseis does not really pay much attention to them. When they do meet
occasionally, they again offer nothing much about themselves and their previous
lives but do offer each other advice on survival in such a place, which I did appreciate.
While the men do engage in petty fights once their ego and pride are hurt,
women are much more compassionate and helpful to each other.
When I realized what the novel is
about and what it was promising, I expected that it would be difficult to read,
in terms of its themes and focus. I did brace myself for impact of scenes of
sexual violence from the perspective of the victim, yet again, I was left quite
disappointed. The impact of these acts on the victims felt quite understated
and underwhelming. Almost all women seem to just accept it and not even being
to talk about the effects of it. Even in her private thoughts, Briseis does not
offer any musings or thoughts about it. Maybe the explanation is that she is so
under survival mode that she does not dare to think about it, but again, I expected
more depth here, more understanding of how something like continuous sexual violence
impacts those forced into it.
Similarly, while these are the men
that have killed her family, burned her city and are continuing to wreak havoc on
everyone she knew in her previous life, Briseis seems almost happy and content
to serve them. In fact, she presents an almost sympathetic image of Achilles, a
man who is widely known for being a borderline war criminal, even according to
the standards of the time. The whole time, she is presenting him as some almost
noble and honourable, especially through his relationship with Patroclus. Patroclus
is also presented as a ‘nice guy’ but is not much better or any different than
any other Greek, perhaps a little bit less savage. Briseis keeps reminding us
that she is doing all of this to survive and carry on, but it seems like through
her author is also trying to convince us that it is not that bad. I expected
quite a lot more difficulty and pain than what was presented here.
The explanation of why she didn’t run
away with Priam when she had the chance and the idea that Achilles knew and
would let her go, did not convince me. In the same token, the whole storyline
of how he can’t control himself when she swims on the beach because his mother
is a sea goddess did not make sense to me and honestly felt quite strange. If that was an attempt to make me sympathize
with him, it did not really work. It felt very much like Barker wanted to
include that he is a semi god, but it was quite clumsily done and felt out of
place.
At the end, I must admit I only finished
this because I don’t like not finishing books and I wanted to give it a fair review,
which I cannot do without completing it. As much as I tried to like it as I
believe we need to female led stories and retellings of traditionally male
focused narratives, this did not sit right with me for so many reasons. The pacing
was very slow and unbalanced, the characters fell flat (ironically more female
characters fell flat), and the horrors of the war and slavery were understated and
underwhelming.
I scored it 2/5. Did you read this book? What did you think? What do you think
of female retellings of Greek myths? Or of Greek myths in general? Is there any
female retelling of Greek myths you could recommend? I have only read ‘Circe’ by
Madeline Miller and would love to read more.
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