A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes

August 24, 2021

A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes

Most of us know the story of the Trojan War from the works of Homer (the Odyssey and the Iliad). But if you read Homer, you'd think there were only two women in all of Greece and Troy: Helen (who caused it all by running off with Paris, prince of Troy, instead of sitting her ass at home with her husband) and Penelope, Odysseus' long-suffering wife. 

This is the story of the Trojan War from the perspective of the women: the wives, the daughters, the queens, the goddesses. Their lives were altered forever by the long and tragic war. A Thousand Ships re-tells the war, what led up to it and the thoughtless acts of men that affected women forever.

An example: when Agamemnon, ruler of the Greeks, realizes that things aren't going so well, he sends a message to his wife, Clytemnestra, back home. He tells her that he has found a wonderful husband for their youngest daughter, Iphigenia, and that Mom should send the girl with her handmaids and her wedding finery, and that the couple will be married before they land at Troy. He has Iphigenia's women dress her for her wedding. He leads her to an altar where all his men are gathered, and proceeds to slit his sweet, young daughter's throat as a human sacrifice so that the war goes his way. When Agamemnon comes home victorious, his wife or possibly her lover kills him. I would have, too.

Now, when Homer tells this story, he glosses over the human sacrifice of an innocent girl by her asshole father. He focuses on the part where Agamemnon comes home and is relaxing in his bath, and his wife murders him for revenge (and also because he deserves it).

Is it any wonder that women read and write romance novels? Men are so disappointing in real life, that we have to create better men in fantasy and fiction.

Okay, I'm done ranting. This was one of the best books that I read in 2021. My friend Bonnie recommended it. Loved it.

Depiction of Troy and the horse that most people think of