A Thousand Ships

I recently finished reading ‘A Thousand Ships’ by Natalie Haynes and I enjoyed it very much. It’s witty and fun and I recommend it to all of you!

I don’t know how many stories of the Trojan War I have read, but it’s a lot, starting in high school with the Iliad. This one is one of the very best…and most subversive. Haynes delivers a sparkling narrative and tells the story with a comic flourish starting from the very beginning. When Homer invokes the muse to tell the story of Achilles and Ajax and Agamemnon and the rest, Calliope tells him basically to buzz off; the poets should serve the muse and not vice-versa and she goes on to tell the story herself.

And what a story she tells! Haynes makes bronze-age problems seem like today’s and it’s not about the men, it’s about the women. Calliope’s narrative pays scant attention to the Trojan Horse and the celebrated beauty, Helen of Troy, and focuses more on war’s victims: “If [Homer] truly wants to understand the nature of the epic story I am letting him compose, he needs to accept that the casualties of war aren’t just the ones who die. And that a death off the battlefield can be more noble (more heroic, if he prefers it that way) than one in the midst of fighting.” She’s referring to the acute suffering of women as they mourn their dead husbands and sons and the raping of their daughters and themselves as they become spoils of war. “When a war was ended, the men lost their lives. But the women lost everything else.”

It tells in lively fashion gripping tales of bravery, treachery and revenge. There are the tantrum-throwing goddesses who plot to incite the Trojan War (they decided against a plague to kill the masses, choosing instead to use the Spartan Helen’s adultery to spark a war with a high body count); Penelope’s aggravation and struggles to protect her kingdom as she waits decades for Odysseus’s return from the war; the fearless Amazon princess Penthesilea who fights to the death against Achilles; and the bravery that the Greek princess Iphigenia shows before she’s murdered by her father, Agamemnon.

Haynes is a gifted writer and a former stand-up comedian and her gift of humor shows frequently in the narrative. I laughed out loud several times while reading this. You don’t really need to know anything about Greek mythology to enjoy this book. Put it on your list!!