Linny and Nancy discuss their July 4 plans. Tennis and fireworks for Nancy. Pickleball and hamburgers for Linny. Our July book is a retelling of the Iliad by Homer: The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller. Miller focuses her novel on the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus. In the Iliad, they are described as close companions. Miller takes that description and creates an entire world and history for them. The Song of Achilles is Miller’s debut novel. It was number one on the New York Times Bestsellers list and winner of the Orange Women's Prize for Fiction. Miller holds an MA in Classics from Brown University. She studied dramaturgy at the Yale School of Drama, where she focused on the adaptation of classical tests to modern forms and taught Latin, Greek, and Shakespeare to high school students for over a decade. Nancy remembers a junior high class she took about Greek and Roman mythology. She admits she doesn’t remember much from those classes, except that the gods names change between Grecian and Roman times, and realizing the gods can't be trusted. They're vain, they're willful, they change their minds a lot. Nancy hasn’t read the Iliad but recently read the Odyssey because she’s been trying to backfill her knowledge, not just like a classical education, but also really ever since high school, to read the classics. Linny didn’t take any classes in mythology and wasn’t too familiar with the story except she remembers seeing a movie that had the Trojan horse in it. She felt people, like her, who didn't know this story would be able to read this book and have fun with the characters and the story that this author develops. Linda notes that Madline Miller has said she’s loved ancient Greece since she was five years old when her mother started reading the Greek myths to her. Linda said her classics education was from Dr. Seuss books. Linny likes this love story between Patroclus and Achilles because it grows from when they're kids through like their coming of age, through the teenage years, through manhood, through the death of the one. Nancy enjoyed reading this book because it is kind of a shortcut to reading the Iliad. She felt she learned a lot about the Iliad and the story. Nancy noted that in Miller’s book, Achilles wasn’t killed by a shot through his heel. She wondered why and found out the legend of Achilles’ heel is not in the Iliad but is a later version of the story written a millennium later by a Roman author. Miller says she wanted to stay as closely aligned to the original poems by Homer as she could rather than some of the later stories, and thus no Achilles heel in this retelling. Nancy liked that the book is through Patroclus point of view because the reader gets a loving portrait of Achilles. Linny things it is a more intimate view, too. Linny likes how Patroclus balances out Achilles a bit as they grow and develop into men. He is very loyal. He's a very loyal friend. He's very kind. He's very level headed in a lot of ways where Achilles can be reactionary at times. Linny also likes how Petroclus grows as a person during the Trojan War years. He becomes kind of a doctor’s apprentice and is no longer just living in Achille’s shadow. Nancy also loves this part of the book where Patroclus is actually known and loved by everyone throughout all the camps. And he knows those soldiers better than Achilles does even. And Achilles never quite even understands why people seem to love Patroclus so much. Nancy also likes Patroclus’ relationship with Briseis who he takes under his wing. And Nancy thought it was beautiful that one of the prophecies was that Achilles would not die until the best of all of the Greeks died. And Achilles was confused by that because he was the greatest warrior of his generation. But it's Briseis who calls Patroclus the best of his people. And that's how the prophecy is fulfilled that it's actually Patroclus who pre -deceases Achilles. Linda thinks Patroclus is like Sam from Lord of the Rings: humble, loyal, stayed in the background but stepped up when needed. Thetis, Patroclus’ mom and goddess, keeps hanging around and is constantly calling Achilles out to meet with her and having long conversations. She wants Achilles to come with her to her sea caves. And we know that humans who go to the sea caves never return the same person. Linny thinks one of the reasons Thetis hates Patroclus is because he brings out Achilles humanity, not this warrior god, that Thetis cares about. At the end of the book we meet Achilles’ son who Thetis has raised and even as a young teenager he is a very cold, heartless, morally compromised character. Linny says she really liked the book and the love story. Nancy says she loved the writing and read two beautifully written passages: “He was not outside either. In the trees, he and I had climbed or by the sea on the jutting rocks where he waited for his mother, nor on the practice fields where men sweated through drills clacking their wooden swords. I do not need to say that my panic swelled, that it became a live thing, slippery and deaf to reason." And, “The islands looked all the same to me, high cliffs, bleached white. Pebbled beaches that scratch the underside of our ships with their chalky fingernails.” Linny and Nancy agreed – beautifully written book.