A Thousand Ships - Natalie Haynes

[troisoiseaux]

A Thousand Ships, by Natalie Haynes, is a recent addition to the Female Character-Centric, Trojan War-Adjacent Myth Retelling Literary Universe (FCCTWAMRLU— think it will catch on?). The frame story is that of the muse Calliope trying to guide Homer ("if he tells me to sing one more time I'll bite him") towards women's stories, their experiences of the war and its aftershocks, as he writes the Iliad and Odyssey; the chapters cycle, short story-like, through the POVs and stories of some 20+ different characters - goddesses and nymphs and mortal women, Trojans and Greeks and Amazons - interspersed with two linear storylines, following Hecabe, queen of Troy, and her daughters and attendants as they wait to be split up as war prizes among the Greeks, and Penelope, writing increasingly frustrated unsent letters to Odysseus as she listens to bards recount his adventures and waits for him to come home.

My favorite chapter was the one about Chryseis, the Trojan priest's daughter whose capture by the Greeks sets off the chain of events that leads to Achilles' death. Haynes' Chryseis is a headstrong teenager who snuck out of the city to meet a boy and has a strained relationship with her father— when he comes to the Greeks' camp to demand her release, her first reaction is disbelief that he'd even bother— and just felt heart-achingly believable.

I was surprised that there was no chapter about the Ithacan maids. They got rather short shrift, in Penelope's telling— they betrayed her and Odysseus killed them, and it was very inconvenient ("where am I supposed to find new maids, given what happened to the last lot?")— so it was disappointing that Haynes left it at that. (I prefer Atwood's take.) Less surprising, but still rather disappointing, that there was nothing from Calypso's perspective, either.

Overall, it was solidly okay; it was an interesting enough read but I found more to quibble with than appreciate in retrospect. (In one of the more huh? moments, Haynes suggests that the Trojan War was masterminded by Zeus as population control; there's a chapter from Gaia's - the personification of earth, basically - perspective complaining about how many people there are, using so many resources, she can't carry them anymore, etc., which could only be unsubtle commentary on Us Moderns and has some, hm, icky implications?) I think it was almost too precisely what it said on the tin: a retelling of Trojan War-centric and -adjacent stories by female characters. Like, Penelope's chapters were just straight-up a narrative summary of the Odyssey, with some color commentary. I liked it best when focused on the less... popular?... stories— Chryseis; Laodameia, the widow of the first Greek to die at Troy; Creusa, the first wife of Aeneas; Eris, the goddess of discord.

Also - and this is not a criticism of Haynes specifically, but something I've seen pretty consistently across the board for the FCCTWAMRLU - I feel like there's... a backlash, maybe?... against history's obsession with Helen of Troy. "I'm sick of talking about Helen," Haynes' Calliope says at one point, to explain why there's no chapter from her perspective, but I feel like her perspective and characterization would be an interesting one to explore.

Comments

[sovay]

(In one of the more huh? moments, Haynes suggests that the Trojan War was masterminded by Zeus as population control; there's a chapter from Gaia's - the personification of earth, basically - perspective complaining about how many people there are, using so many resources, she can't carry them anymore, etc., which could only be unsubtle commentary on Us Moderns and has some, hm, icky implications?)

The idea of the Trojan War as a deliberate culling of the human herd is classical: I associate it with the Epic Cycle rather than the Iliad or Odyssey themselves, but if you give me a moment I'll try to run it down. [edit] It's quoted in scholia as if from the Cypria, but regardless of the accuracy of the attribution, the lines exist. For more context, see Martin L. West's Greek Epic Fragments from the Seventh to the Fifth Centuries BC (2003).

"I'm sick of talking about Helen," Haynes' Calliope says at one point, to explain why there's no chapter from her perspective, but I feel like her perspective and characterization would be an interesting one to explore.

I don't know your tolerance for Imagist poetry, but I strongly recommend H.D.'s Helen in Egypt (1961) and its companion piece "Winter Love," collected posthumously in Hermetic Definition (1972).

[troisoiseaux]

The idea of the Trojan War as a deliberate culling of the human herd is classical

Huh. The more you know!

I don't know your tolerance for Imagist poetry

I... do not know this, either, but I will check out your recommendations.

More recently, I know that Margaret Atwood has at least one short story about Helen - "It's Not Easy Being Half-Divine," in The Tent (2006) - although it's more reimagining than retelling. There are also Esther Friesner's middle-grade novels Nobody's Princess and Nobody's Prize (2007-08), which I'd read back in middle school— sort of a Greek mythology mash-up starring a young Helen of Sparta. (The second book has her disguised as a boy to join the quest for the Golden Fleece, iirc.) So, yeah, Helen's story definitely hasn't been neglected or anything; I just get the sense that some of the ones I've read recently have kind of... actively tried to keep her on the periphery of the story?

[sovay]

I... do not know this, either, but I will check out your recommendations.

Here's her poem "Helen," to give you an idea of both her style and her angle on the myth. The first thing I ever read of hers was "Oread," in my grandmother's student edition of Louis Untermeyer's Modern American and British Poetry (1942). "Stars Wheel in Purple" is one of my favorites.

So, yeah, Helen's story definitely hasn't been neglected or anything; I just get the sense that some of the ones I've read recently have kind of... actively tried to keep her on the periphery of the story?

When I am feeling uncharitable about it, I feel that Helen is often interpreted as the Other Girls whom our heroine is Not Like.

[troisoiseaux]

When I am feeling uncharitable about it, I feel that Helen is often interpreted as the Other Girls whom our heroine is Not Like.

Y e p. I wonder if there's also a sense of, like, oh, she's the most famous part of the myth, it wouldn't be really new to write about her? But at this point I feel like it might have actually looped back around to being ~a fresh take~ to be sympathetic to Helen...

[sovay]

But at this point I feel like it might have actually looped back around to being ~a fresh take~ to be sympathetic to Helen...

Definitely check out H.D.