Pat Barker’s novel, The Voyage Home is the third volume in a trilogy called The Women of Troy, a retelling of the Trojan War that foregrounds the women’s experiences. When this book opens, the Trojan War is just over after ten long years; the Greeks have sacked Troy and reveled in their victory by murdering the population in horrific ways. (Greek literature is not for the faint of heart.) Now the proud conquerors, they’re sailing home.
Agamemnon, the commander-in-chief, sets sail for his kingdom, Mycenae. With him is the young Trojan priestess Cassandra and her slave Ritsa, part of Agamemnon’s spoils of war. Cassandra is a fascinating and tragic character in Greek myth: she was kissed by the god Apollo, who gave her the ability to tell the future. When she refused to sleep with him, he cursed her, saying that no one would ever believe her prophecies. She becomes an outcast, even in her own family, the weird sister, spouting madness. Agamemnon rapes her and carries her off. She is no longer Trojan royalty, she is in a strange limbo between concubine and slave.
We know the story of faithful Penelope, Odysseus’ wife, who waited twenty years for him to return home, meanwhile fending off dozens of suitors. This is not a repeat of that story. Agamemnon returns to Clytemnestra, a wife who despises him. Ten years earlier, he had sacrificed their daughter Iphigenia to the gods when the Greeks needed a favorable wind to sail for Troy. Clytemnestra has arranged a welcome that’s dark and bloody. For ten years, she’s been stoking the flames of her hatred. In Greek mythology and literature, Clytemnestra is the archetypal bad wife. Pat Barker has other ideas.
Cassandra and her slave Ritsa are thrown into the center of this minefield of a family reunion, and although Cassandra knows what will happen, there’s tension in the thought that she can change her fate. Ritsa, her slave, is the main narrator, although some chapters are written from the point of view of Cassandra or Clytemnestra. You may know the story of Agamemnon and his forebears from Aeschylus’ plays, or from reading Homer and Greek mythology; those accounts are written from the male point of view. In The Voyage Home, the story is told by the women and takes on an emotional weight missing from the classic accounts. Barker uses all the elements of the myth but transmutes them into something very different. I found it riveting.
I love retellings of Greek and Roman mythology, especially when the author uses the basic elements to flesh out the characters in a way that makes them walk off the page. Years ago, I read several of Mary Renault’s books about Theseus: The King Must Die and The Bull From the Sea. Those novels were so wonderful that I’ve read many more mythological and historical retellings. It’s pretty easy to find poorly written novels in this genre, so I’ve added a list of some of my favorites below.
The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker (the first novel in the trilogy Women of Troy)
The Women of Troy by Pat Barker (the second novel in the trilogy Women of Troy)
The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller (one of my all-time favorite books)
Circe by Madeline Miller
Imperium by Robert Harris (the first novel in the excellent trilogy about Cicero, the Roman statesman)
The Penelopiad: The Myth of Penelope and Odysseus by Margaret Atwood
Pandora’s Jar: Women in the Greek Myths by Natalie Haynes
A Reader's Place 