BPS review of Silence of the Girls, Pat Barker ( read in Jan 2025)
A lively discussion on this surprisingly marmite read, and a breadth of responses and scores, so it’s hard to come up with an agreed conclusion. We had 12% giving the book only 2/5 and at the other end 24% gave it a full 4.5 or 5 marks. In the middle, 28% were on 3/5 and 36% on 4/5. So I suppose you could say the ‘ayes’ just have it with a combined 60% of scores being 4 or over. A special mention is made for the audiobook, as those who listened found it very engaging – perhaps very pertinent as the original was intended for oral storytelling.
So what were the points of contention, and the best bits? Many were in accordance with the general sentiment that Barker wanted to get across – how women don’t seem to have a voice, or a choice, in the midst of the horror and the futility of war. It draws comparisons with the contemporary cost of war ( and even of modern slavery).
Despite the story being a well-known path (Homer’s Iliad), Barker manages to create some dramatic tension from the get go, and conveys the sense of sisterhood behind the enslaved women, albeit with a caste system all too obvious. But by the end, why had she lost a few enthusiastic readers?
If the girls are supposed to be ‘given’ a voice here by the author, why did we feel were just reading a ‘bloke’s story’ again – full of Achilles, his war buddies and his friendship with Patroclus?! Ironically Helen seems a central figure in the original and yet seems downplayed here. We didn’t hear many other voices in any detail other than Briseis.
Barker makes occasional reference to the gods – we hear of Achilles’ longing for his mother, and Hector’s son’s corpse is viscerally imagined coming back to life repeatedly, but it has to be said that she focuses mostly on the mundane realities of life in a war situation. Perhaps all part of her view that hero-worshipping gods and warriors is not an admirable standpoint. Bringing the classic myths to a contemporary audience is a great thing, and adding a feminist viewpoint is particularly Pat Barker’s skill. The contemporary language had as many fans as it did detractors, so clearly divisive!
She has the trilogy now completed, Book 2 being The Women of Troy and Book 3 The Voyage Home is in paperback from May. Perhaps our expectations were too high, given her powerful insights from her war trilogy, but this felt ‘ a bit of a stretch’ for some readers.
Lots of great references were brought up so here they are for those who are interested:
Ceasefire, Michael Longley
Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller
Thousand Ships, Natalie Haynes
Penelopiad, Margaret Atwood
House of Names, Colm Toibin
Girl, Edna O’Brien ( set in Nigeria)
The Book Club Review Podcast #57
Last but not least, Emily Wilson’s new translations of The Iliad and The Odyssey, the first time a woman has translated the original.
