- My Rating: 4/5
- Goodreads Rating: 4.05/5
- Year Published: 2019
- Page Count: 368
“When a war was ended, the men lost their lives. But the women lost everything else.”
Synopsis
We all know the original story. Homer penned his Iliad, his Odyssey, and those words burrowed deep inside of the human experience. Haynes takes those myths and uplifts the women’s voices, the untold perspectives of age-old stories. Written in an anthological style, A Thousand Ships covers a vast number of perspectives across different times in the Trojan War. Haynes puts the spotlight on mortal women, on goddesses, and on female children who are crucial to the original myths but rarely focused on.
From Penelope, waiting 20 long years for her husband to return, to Cassandra, cursed by a vengeful god, to Oenone, a nymph turned cold by her husband’s years of absence, these narratives dig into your soul and settle there, after eagerly waiting to be listened to for centuries.
The Quick Review (Spoiler-free!)
This novel was beautiful. Each scene was so immersive and so visceral. I could see the flames burning down Troy, felt Cassandra’s terror, lived Andromache’s heartache. I’m not super well versed in Trojan war stories so I have little to compare it to, but this was amazing. Every chapter brought a new heartache and a new triumph, new pain and new healing. I do think this book would be even better with a stronger base knowledge of the Trojan War and the Iliad, but it can 100% be read as a standalone. I had a few moments of confusion simply due to the sheer number of stories covered in the novel, but these were easily overcome (and the book comes with a handy list of characters in anticipation of that exact issue).
My only issue was with the chapters from Calliope’s perspective–they felt like they were too overt. But other than that I LOVED this book and highly recommend it!
“Waiting is the cruellest thing I have ever endured. Like bereavement, but with no certainty.”
The Long Review (Spoiler-free!)
Likes
I loved the format of this book. Ignoring the chronological order and formatting it as an anthology allowed for every character to have their moment instead of using them as plot devices to keep a quick pace. The characters were so tangible to me. Their pleas peeled off the page and roared in my ears, their anger burned inside my chest, and their sadness filled my heart with a pool of tears. The sheer amount of history covered in these 368 pages was astounding, yet somehow the story didn’t feel crowded or rushed. I loved Penelope’s chapters–written in the form of letters to Odysseus, her wry voice provided much needed comic relief between chapters full of visceral female pain.
Cassandra’s story will always hold a special place in my heart, and I think it was told particularly well by Haynes. I also admire how Haynes amplified women’s voices without demonizing every man. Too often, literature attempting to be feminist or woman-focused does so by painting men as inherently villainous, which often defeats the purpose for me. Haynes makes every character fully three-dimensional and sympathetic, even the more antagonistic ones.
“They had conducted this conversation so many times in the past that it had come to seem to him like a song, in which he no longer had to remember his words, any more than a man had to remember his way home. It was simply a part of him.”
Dislikes
As I said above in the Quick Review, my main complaint was that the chapters from Calliope’s perspective felt like Haynes was forcing the point across. I got the sense that she wanted to make sure we didn’t forget that the novel was uplifting women’s stories and showing the damage women experience through war. However, it was impossible to forget this given that every story was a female perspective, so it felt unnecessary and took away a little bit of the magic for me. I do know Calliope was many people’s favorite perspective, so to each their own!
Another small complaint was that certain parts felt unnecessarily modern and lost the part of Greek mythology that I find magical: the way it sometimes feels like I can reach through the pages and touch the lifelines of people who lived thousands of years ago, experience the mythical journeys, or abide by the ancient laws. Of course, that’s an extremely tall order given that we do live in a modern world. I think Madeline Miller achieves it well in her novels, but this book wasn’t too far off.
“She left the warm dark sea and told her son what she had always known: that he must choose between a long life and brief renown, or a short life and eternal glory. Only half of him was a god, after all. He could not have both.”
Recommendation
I recommend this to any fans of Greek mythology! If you have a strong base in Homer, I think it could be an even stronger read, but it can also be read with limited knowledge. It is beautifully written and will stay with you for a long time after you put it down.
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