June Reviews

by Madeline Miller

28/06/2024

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller has been on my TBR for a while now. How could it not be? The 2012 Winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction, The Song of Achilles has forever been spoken about and recommended to me as a reader.

The retelling of an ancient story through a first hand narrative not only transports you back to the time of the Greeks, but it imbeds the reader into the mind of the characters. Hearing this from the perspective of Patroclus paints the telling of history through the eyes of a lover, rather than those of a scholar.

The Song of Achilles follows Patroclus through his young life as a prince of Greece, through his meeting and subsequent companionship with the ancient hero of legend, Achilles. As an exile from his own father’s home, he is sent to foster in Achilles’ home. The son of a goddess and a king, Achilles is charming and a natural draw to the eye, and Patroclus is not excused from the spell. Brought up as companion to the prophesied hero, Patroclus follows Achilles to his training and tragedy.

The legend culminates in the battle below the walls of Troy. A story prior to one of the most famous deceptions in warfare history, The Song of Achilles is one of the most famous love stories as it is told by Madeline Miller. A book 10 years in the making by the hand of a teacher of Latin and Greek with bachelors and masters in the Classics, The Song of Achilles makes figures of legend into ordinary men and women with pains and hopes which transcend time.

I had heard from others that The Song of Achilles was a tear-jerker: many people were touched by the love story, and the poetic verses that Miller created to illustrate the devotion that Achilles and Patroclus showed each other. I did not get to this point of emotion, despite desperately feeling the love that our characters shared for one another. I really appreciated the way in which Miller told their love story; the tension of their situation was never about whether or not there were any feelings between the pair, it was consistent through the novel that their love was reciprocated. The tensions of the novel were centred on characters or events external to the pair, transporting the reader’s feelings in reaction to the story away from the uncertainty or anxiousness of partnership and onto their survival together. This makes the relationship matter of fact, a comfortable settling into the reverberates of their undying love.

My most favourite part of this book was right at the end. I really enjoyed the story and had my own moments of distraught and delight, but the last chapter was the most touching to me. I thought the coming together of two otherwise oppositional characters over someone that they shared in grief was a really powerful decision to make. Their shared grief was greater than their living claim to that character, it was so overpowering that they needed to share it with someone who felt it as equally as themselves. This distribution of guilt between a mother and a lover as translated so emotively through this final chapter was what got me in the end.

Thanks Anna for the recommendation!

by Claudia Carroll

26/06/2024

I picked up The Love Algorithm audiobook because I was between a few titles, and it was going to be a headphones-on-all-day kind of day. I thought the premise was a good spin on a romance, and would be an entertaining read. The multi-generations and different types of characters also offered a great variety to the paths the narrative could follow through the book, and Carroll definitely had a good time exploring each of their potentials.

The Love Algorithm by Claudia Carroll follows three female main characters, Iris (mid 40s, married-to-the-job, no nonsense type with a standoffish first-impression), Kim (late 20s, party-every-night dating nightmare with whippet smart jokes and an as-quick wit) and Connie (in her 70s, widowed and living with her daughter, she is the best combination between sweetie and mischievous). Sick of her stumped efforts in traditional online dating, Iris develops a dating app like no other: based on an in depth questionnaire, suitors are matched by greater sustenance than hobbies and appearances. Instead, Analyzed takes into consideration their happiest moment, and what they think about death, or what peeves them off the most.

On a mission to iron out the kinks, Iris employs Kim and her mother Connie to join her in testing the success of the algorithm. Spanning the ages from late 20s to early 70s, the women will ensure their start up app is the best on the market by actually participating in the hype it generates. The Love Algorithm follows them in their endeavours to actually make a difference in people’s lives and follows the changes that take place for them through the process.

The kicker about this romance is that, while also delivering on its promise to create tension through date catastrophes and the stakes of launching a business, the relationships that the women enter at the end of the book do not come from the app they have developed. Instead, they are granted greater value in the unexpected connections they make with people both old and new in their lives. The attention is shifted from centering a romantic relationship to the relationship these women develop with themselves, their families, and their friends (as well as some romance).

One of my favourite elements of The Love Algorithm was the approach Carroll took to women of different ages and their different countenances. Iris is career driven and is intensely motivated by the success that she receives from employment, and takes pride in her tastes for arts and intelligence. While she experiences character development through the book - mostly driven through her exposure to Kim’s life - she never loses that edge of her personality: she remains intensely career driven and pridefully intelligent, but now has more acceptance and understanding of the way that others act around her and receive her differences.

Similarly, the exploration of love and ‘saving face’ by older women is very wholesome and heartwarming: Carroll explores a resurgence of love through our elderly Connie character, not only showcasing grief and the different way’s people express it, but also the opportunity and desire for romance and physical intimacy as an older woman. A second layer is peeled away from Connie and her friendships, and comradery is presented as stronger than rivalry.

The audiobook was absolutely incredible as well, with the Irish accent reader Zaffre really bringing the characters and setting to life.

by Laline Paull

21/06/2024

I picked up Pod because I love to read about the ocean, and I like to read from the perspective of a non-human character. I’m glad I finished the book, but there were times when I thought about putting it down because it didn’t live up to the expectations I had for it.

My disappointment may be because of the way that I read it: rather than dedicating hours at a time to reading this book, I read it in shorter stints grabbed from a busy week. I think this pulled me out of the immersive world to the point that each reentry into the text had the initial resistance of slowing down the mind and becoming engaged that is not present in longer reading sessions. Upon finishing it this morning, I had the opportunity to sit for a few hours and this greatly improved my experience with the book.

Pod by Laline Paull follows a series of marine life characters through a couple of months, the climax of the narrative taking place at the end of the novel with the new moon and mating rituals happening across the ocean. We follow a few different species of dolphins, a humpback whale and a Wrasse fish in seemingly separate stories, until their meeting at the end of the novel. There are feminist themes that run through this narrative, of personhood and difference, what it means to be a family and protect one another, as well as terrible hardship at the hand of others.

Humans - or anthrop demons - also play a terrible role in this story: as marine forces using and deserting trained dolphins in their combat strategies, pollution and overfishing of the ocean, and the closing conflict of shark-fin harvesting and trapping dolphins for easy pickings. This last moment really pushed across the terror of the humans above the surface: the sharks are a constant threat to the dolphins during this book, but even their threatening power becomes vulnerable against the human’s in their boats, putting into perspective the humans’ actions.

Something that dampened my enjoyment in this book was the amount of sexual violence directed to one of the main characters - something that I understand dolphins are renownedly known for in reality, but not what I needed repeated so many times in what I thought would be speculatively whimsical fiction. These scenes were when I was asking myself whether I really wanted to soldier through this book, or accept defeat and put it down. I did carry on, because I felt that was evil one could persevere through, although it definitely did lessen by enjoyment. I would also warn that dolphins do die, and some of the human-caused harm is uncomfortable to read as well.

If you enjoy the idea of a non-human character led book, I would also recommend Dogs of the Deadland by Anthony McGowan. I thoroughly enjoyed that book, although I will say some dogs do die.

by William Finnegan

15/06/2024

I picked up Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life because my dad surfs. From the stories he has told me, my dad had a similar experience with surfing as William Finnegan did: you get hooked as a young boy, where nothing matters but getting out at dawn and only coming in when you get hungry. I even realised that Mollie, Finnegan’s daughter to whom the book is dedicated, is only 6 months older than me. To me, this book could have been written by my own dad if not for different places, different paths and different people.

I really enjoyed Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life. It triggered a yearning for the past in me, admittedly a naive and rose-tinted view of 1960’s America that would not have been my experience if I had lived then. I think the feeling is valid though: it attacks something deeper than the surface level ‘I want to be a surfer’.

In his book, Finnegan talks about waves that no longer exist because of human and natural intervention; he spent an 18-month stint in Cape Town trying to make a difference in a Township school during Apartheid (something I realised I have a disgustingly poor understanding of as South African); he left home early and practically circumnavigated the globe, or at least had the real opportunity to, without a job and very little fear of violence or danger; he abashedly dabbled in psychedelics and fought other boys in the graveyard near his school; he wrote letters and kept journals and sent telegrams, how Romantic!

Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life, while forwarding the narrative through experiences of surfing and how it changed by growing popularity and an older man’s body, is not only a book about surfing. It unpacks mortality, and the intense feelings people have about the things that they love, experiencing the world through a perspective that no longer exists and only really happened once, when William Finnegan lived through it. Following friendships and passions, we see Finnegan take off from a very unique start in life - eldest boy of four, Hawaiian based in the 1960’s, with parents in the film industry - and cut a path for himself that has no shine of stardom, but the lived reality of someone with a passion.

I would recommend Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life to anyone with a tolerance of a 500 page novel. You do not need to understand surfing, but must have a willingness to let Finnegan explain it to you and then use run-on jargon for the rest of the book (a detail I found very charming). Finnegan is incredibly well written, and the story flies by as if he were giving a lecture or speech. The characters - real people - are very interesting, and you harbour an affection for each and everyone of them. While Finnegan does not reference his parents very much during the bulk of his narrative, I nearly cried when he recounted his mothers last years.

There are also some absolutely stunning photographs throughout this novel. I would very much like to see my dad read it, and let me know if I simply projected my understanding of his boyhood onto Finnegan’s story or if there is a universality to the author’s experience.