rock and a hard place by andrea bramhall

Yes, Achilles is initially regarded by Briseis (the book’s chief narrator) as a monster – a man who has slaughtered her brothers and husband and who regards her as mere spoils of war. If I were being flippant, I’d suggest a good subtitle for Barker’s novel might be “…or how toxic masculinity has always f*cked things up for women.” But that would be doing a massive disservice to this very complex book. The unsung, repressed or forgotten – those elements of minor narrative obscured by the major narrative – suddenly take centre stage. And so this is how Barker, like Miller, approaches the issue of myth. Reading the Iliad, one can’t fail to wonder about all those characters who don’t get a voice – who only come alive in order to fall victim to Achilles’ sword, or to be enslaved by the Greeks. But it does become apparent, having read that first great instalment in the history of European literature, that every narrative breeds new stories. Obviously, it’s not necessary to do this as The Silence of the Girls is very much its own story. But I felt that I perhaps wouldn’t understand where Barker was coming from if I hadn’t first taken a look at The Iliad. It’s not generally the case that I feel the need to read one book in order to prepare for reading the next. As my last post on here concerned Madeleine Miller’s beautiful Odyssey rewrite Circe, I thought I’d pick up where I left off by examining another mythic rewrite – Pat Barker’s The Silence of the Girls. So expect preview material from that soon.

However, I can say that it would take sudden death/apocalypse/loss of limb/act of God to stop me from publishing it this year. On that front, I’ve been struggling with the final chapter of my latest novel – The Fresco and the Fountain – for what seems like months. So all in all, while 2019 was a productive year it wasn’t all that successful so far as reviewing was concerned – not to mention my own creative writing. And to be honest much of my reading has also been work related – I think the ship’s probably sailed for reviews of Paradise Lost. I kind of underestimated how much time certain changes in my working life might consume. Well, it’s been a while! Over six months since my last post, in fact.

Rock and a hard place by andrea bramhall