2026-05-25 · Bonus｜The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller — A Review (English)

A special English-language bonus episode. A thorough review of Madeline Miller's 2011 debut novel The Song of Achilles — a retelling of the Iliad from Patroclus's point of view. We place the book in its historical and literary context (including the BookTok second life and the ancient roots of the Patroclus-Achilles love story in Aeschylus and Plato), walk through the poetic craft (sensory imagery, the gold/light motif for Achilles, the restrained handling of Homer, the structural decision to narrate from beyond death, the recurring lyre), and sit with six significant moments: the first sight, the cave on Mount Pelion, the choice at Skyros, the breach with Agamemnon over Briseis, the moment Patroclus puts on Achilles' armor, and the funeral with the mingled ashes. Closes on what Miller does to the Iliad's idea of kleos and why a novel from 2011 became a defining book for a generation that has never read Homer.