A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes
This book treads ground covered by Pat Barker in The Silence of the Girls in that it tells the story of the women involved in the Trojan War. It covers the whole of the war from fatal decisions which precipitated it to the terrible aftermath. The story is told from the perspective of many of the women involved from queen to slave. There are short passages where some women appear on only one occasion and other women appear throughout the book. Each character is well drawn and I found Haynes writing very readable with imaginative ways of expressing her ideas.
“The women were waiting on the shore, gazing blank-eyed at the sea. The tang of dried green seaweed and bent brown reed stalks fought against the stench of smoke which filled their clothes and matted hair. After two days, the Greeks were finally completing their systematic looting of the blackened city, and as the women waited to find out who they now belonged to, they huddled around their queen as though her last embers might keep them warm.”
It is a book which manages to show the epic sweep of the war but also the personal tragedies of the women involved. It is a powerful feminist book but the characters are complex and not mere vehicles to carry the themes of the story. Many thanks to Net Galley and the Publishers for the opportunity to read this book in return for an honest review.

Amazingly engaging from the first page. A beautiful and engrossing retelling of Greek mythology in a way that feels modern and relevant and new all at once. Well worthy of its shortlisting for the Women’s Prize for Fiction.

Thank you to Netgalley and Pan Macmillan for this e-copy in return for my honest review. A fresh take on a tale as old as time. Beautifully written. A must read for fans of Pat Barker and Madeline Miller.

Haynes begins her novel with the explicit and noble mission to give voice to women from Greek mythology – many of whom were only ever portrayed as minor, unheroic and simplistic characters. This is a necessary and much-welcome endeavour because, aside from the feminist point of view this adds to these male-dominated tales written by men, telling the story from the women’s perspective gives a rich opportunity for retelling these classic stories and shows there is still so much more to say about them. The novel begins with the muse Calliope being asked to inspire an old male poet by singing to him. She bargains for a trinket, but also insists he relate the stories of the women involved. Thus we get tales of the fall of Troy, the journey of Odysseus, the battles of Achilles, the revenge dealt to Agamemnon and the deities who intervened (or interfered) with the struggles of the mortals. But all these are told from the perspectives of Clytemnestra, Helen, Penelope, Thetis, Hecabe, Polyxena, Calliope, Eris, Gaia and many other women.

In some ways this feels like a greatest hits from Greek mythology as many of the events portrayed are well known. There are notable exceptions such as the tale of Hector’s wife Andromache which I was less familiar with. But what’s so clever is that Haynes develops an overall narrative to the motivations which influence many of these events. The mortals may feel like they are steering events, but it’s the deities who play them against each other as they bicker and squabble amongst themselves. I found it quite funny how the author shows so much carnage and chaos coming out of a petty battle amongst a group of goddesses. So even though this novel’s aim is to give voice to women it doesn’t idealize them because, of course, many of the female characters involved are motivated as much by spite, selfishness or cruelty as they are motivated at other times by magnanimity or kindness. This made the novel really dynamic, fun and suspenseful.

The trouble is that there’s been several retellings of this mythology in the past few years including “Circe”, “The Silence of the Girls” and “House of Names”, many of which have covered the same events. Of course, Haynes gives a different perspective to the stories and differently portrays the characters involved. But there were moments while reading this when I felt I’d read it before because there’s certain architecture and details to the tales which naturally overlap. And it’s certainly no fault of the author that she happens to have been caught in this zeitgeist of retellings or that her novel is the one I happened to read after all these others but it did detract from my enjoyment of the novel. My other main issue with the book was that there were so many characters involved it got somewhat confusing keeping them straight - I’m grateful a list of characters with descriptions was included at the beginning of the novel so I could occasionally refer to it. Nevertheless, it was still a pleasure to read this book and I felt like I got a lot out of it.

I think Haynes is excellent at balancing humour and poignancy in the way she relates these tales. Great fun is made at the expense of the deities and the male heroes’ arrogance and pomposity. But there are also moments of heartbreak and insight such as when its observed how language is also a victim of war because “when a city was sacked everything within it was destroyed right down to its words”. This gives a new perspective on history as well as mythology. But the strongest message of all is that heroic acts aren’t just made by men who are turned into statues and immortalized in stories which get retold through the ages. Penelope remarks how “The bards all sing of the bravery of heroes and the greatness of deeds. It is one of the few elements of your story on which they all agree. But no one sings of the courage required by those of us who are left behind.” This novel cleverly proves how the heroes of war aren’t only those who are fighting on the front lines.

Another wonderful novel from Natalie Haynes. This will absolutely delight old fans and newcomers alike, as well as fans of Madeleine Miller and Pat Barker. A brilliant fresh take on an ancient story.

This is a rare novel. The subject matter was inspired and moving as these women were finally raised to the heroic status they deserve. The story was cleverly told and the writing was exquisite. Highly recommend.

"The Iliad, but make it feminist" could be the tag line for a number of books published over the past few years. So what, you may ask, does Haynes bring to the table that Madeline Miller or Pat Barker didn't? And the answer is that A Thousand Ships is probably the book that best follows the epic scale of Homer's original (including some narrative encompassing the events of The Odyssey too). Where Miller and Barker focused their work on one character, Haynes has a veritable Greek chorus of narrators: from Aphrodite to Brisies, Clytemnetsra to Hecabe, Iphigenia to Penelope. Some basic knowledge of the Greek myths is essential to understand the story and to appreciate where Haynes subverts and plays with the traditions.

Quality Rating: Four Stars
Enjoyment Rating: Three Stars
With a somewhat weighted heart, I have to admit that I didn't find anything particularly special about A Thousand Ships. It's plainly written, ticks all the boxes for a Greek myth retelling, but doesn't really put a twist on anything. Yes, it's giving voice to the women who are often glossed over in the canon, but there are other novels and short story collections that, in my opinion, do the same thing in a more interesting and creative way. That doesn't mean this book is without its strengths, however.

A Thousand Ships is like reading a book of Greek myths - direct, simple, self-contained but still connecting to the greater arc of the universe that was Ancient Greece and its surrounding kingdoms - which is probably the point. My problem was going into this expecting a novel, which made it feel fragmented at the start. When I noticed that it was trying to echo the old story collections, things started to take shape. But, honestly, I feel like this was a chance to flesh out the women's lives alongside their part in the poems, but all it really did was narrate the traditional tales in their voice. Which is fine, and obviously still necessary (and the fact that the women were painted in varying colours was very refreshing), but I was honestly expecting more.

I do wonder what it would be like to read this without knowing the original Greek myths in detail; I think you might be a bit lost. There's a lot of information and names and connections, and many different myths in this novel. It's not really a just retelling of the Trojan War, but more of a big chunk of Greek history since it also retells The Odyssey, (a bit of The Aeneid) and adapts multiple other miscellaneous tales through connections in family relations, time jumps and even parallels to the current events. That, I did like. Greek mythology is hard to appreciate without understanding the bigger picture because literally everything ties into something else - it's like Marvel on steroids, and actually motivated. But for a beginner, that's quite a deep pool to be thrown into at first.

That being said, I am going to, ironically, completely contradict what I just said and suggest that A Thousand Ships might also be a good introduction to 'feminist' Greek mythology. While there's a lot of references that aren't necessarily coherent unless you know the history, I think it's possible to accept you don't recognise the names or connections and keep reading. And what it does do is touch on just about anything you could possibly be interested in within Greek mythology, and from the viewpoints of the women. I actually think the fact that I already knew the stories and have read a fair heap of feminist retellings/essays on the myths mean that nothing felt especially new for me. But had I read this when I was studying classics in college, I probably would have been in love.

This was a fun read but felt clumsy with messages and pacing issues slowed it down

Overall ok 3 out of 5

Plot: In A Thousand Ships, broadcaster and classicist Natalie Haynes retells the story of the Trojan War from an all-female perspective.

This was never the story of one woman, or two. It was the story of all of them…

In the middle of the night, Creusa wakes to find her beloved Troy engulfed in flames. Ten seemingly endless years of brutal conflict between the Greeks and the Trojans are over, and the Greeks are victorious. Over the next few hours, the only life she has ever known will turn to ash . . .

The devastating consequences of the fall of Troy stretch from Mount Olympus to Mount Ida, from the citadel of Troy to the distant Greek islands, and across oceans and sky in between. These are the stories of the women embroiled in that legendary war and its terrible aftermath, as well as the feud and the fatal decisions that started it all…

Powerfully told from an all-female perspective, A Thousand Ships gives voices to the women, girls and goddesses who, for so long, have been silent.

Opinion: A few years ago an idea for a novel came to me. A novel that involved mythological creatures. Thanks to that crazy idea (that is at this point is on hold) I had the chance to read a lot Greek tales and historical pieces of work regarding those characters...and of course, I read ''The Illiad'. However, while I was reading the Illiad I was thinking...: 'The war setting is great but, where are the women?' I had to wait years until I found them, and with them, thank the goods I have found Haynes.

This is an exploration of the Trojan war through its women. As complex as that sounds, and believe me, it is, it was masterfully done.
Through its pages, Haynes lets all the women talk (human and gods alike) and I love how real they seem. It is true it is a compendium of sworn-enemy-like characters that seem to be very long to remember but, somehow, Haynes has managed to make them very distinctive one from another so you don't have to go to the list of characters and look for them. What is more, they are entities of their own right, so you can identify them and sympathize with them as if they were right there in front of you, despise which side of the war you have decided to support. I do personally love Caliope, Casandra, Hecabe and Laodamia,...who was my favorite and also the most unknown to me.

I think what I love the most it is the style. Haynes managed to maintain the classic metaphors and flowery, dark Greek style but mixed with the modern topics, feminism being the trasversal topic that comes across each and every time...understandbly, as Haynes has manage to show that women in Ancient times were as warriors as their male counterparts.

The Inked Path´s review: Coming soon.

It’s an beautifully written book. A great book that will suit fan of the Circle.
Thank you to both NetGalley and publishers for giving me the opportunity to read this book

The “Thousand Ships” are those of ancient Greek legend – a fleet of 1000 was launched in a military campaign to bring Helen – queen, wife of Menelaus and supposedly the most beautiful woman in the world – back from the city state of Troy where she was living with a new lover, Paris, one of the younger sons of the King Priam. Told in epic by Homer the Greek army was camped outside the City for ten years as the battle between the two forces raged back and forth, with Gods and Goddesses taking sides on behalf of their favourites. Finally a series of predicted happenings take place, key heroes are killed, and the Greeks get into the City by trickery and the place falls. Few escape and the women – including the royal and aristocratic families - are taken as prisoners by the Greeks. The “best” are prizes awarded to the leading Greek warriors. Natalie Haynes a classicist has chosen to present aspects of this tale in fictional form – and from the perspective of the women themselves.
The Homeric epic “the Iliad” was believed for many years to be largely myth until archaeologists in the 19th century started to find confirmatory physical evidence of the ancient City. The Iliad itself resounds with the tales of the warriors; the women are largely incidental to this, although some are occasionally named. The names of some of them – Clytemnestra, her daughter Iphigenia and sister Helen are heard of through other later tales and plays. But they are primarily known for certain characteristics – “womanly” or the reverse, rather than as real people. Haynes will be one of a cluster of recent women writers who will try to recover them (and the many others) from virtual obscurity. Those of you have read more widely this year and encountered “The Mutual Admiration Society” and “Square Haunting “ will no doubt be aware that this is not the first time that woman academics have tried to “recover” the women of these times – and present them as real people rather than as incidentals to male activities.
Unlike Pat Barker and Madeline Miller, Haynes has decided to let the fuller range of woman give their own “testimonies”, another way of making them come alive as real people. One, Cassandra, has the burden of having visions of the future (that nobody believes); she will carry her own pains and those of others. Yes, they are mostly from the families of the powerful, many the royal family of Troy, but that doesn’t protect them from the vicissitudes of personal life in a world where men take prestige from being warriors (and needing enemies to conquer). It gives a view of the double standards where men who cherish and try and protect the people they love, take an active part in a wider destructive attitude. It shows women of privilege living in a city peopled with slaves (possibly previous captives of war), but vulnerable when the balance of military power turns. It shows large families where there are favourites, where rivalries can abound and disagreements flow even to the point of death.
A war that runs for ten years is a prodigious amount of time in personal lives for women – their children grow, they age and can lose their beauty or childbearing years. Haynes selects both the older and those who have grown from childhood during the war mostly from the Trojan side, but a few of the Greeks too. The men in their life walk away with seeming disregard and leave them to manage homes, estates and families themselves. They are then expected to welcome them back – older, hardened, damaged (and with newer prisoner women). We have the more extreme tale of Penelope too (otherwise mentioned in the Homerian epic “The Odyssey”) whose husband Odysseus, supposedly reluctant to leave in the first place, takes a further ten years to return – playing out his character flaws to eternity. She will need to manoeuvre to keep other men at bay and her growing son safe.
The layering of tale on tale, albeit mostly covering the last few months before the City falls, shows the scale of the damage to the women already and their latest personal disasters that will come from military failure. The seeming inexorability of it all makes the story resonate deeper and deeper and highlights the women’s lack of power to change the larger things. But the tales are personal and feel viscerally real. In the epic the story ends with the capture of the city, but as Haynes subtly makes clear in reality lives (damaged, painful and often unwanted) would have continued.
Haynes creates real women and subverts the idea that the Trojan War was ever heroic or worthy of admiration or praise. Instead it comes out of a skewed sense of behaviours and values that cut across quieter family loyalties. But behind that is a tale by an extremely strong and graphic storyteller, one that brings the incidents and pains of the women very visually to life. That makes an “ancient” tale still so relevant to all now.

Such a wonderful read, so incredibly well-written. I didn't want it to end. Reminded me of the wonderful Circe. I loved it.

I tried on several occasions (and persevered until halfway through) but I just could not get into this at all. Sorry, just wasn't for me.

This was a very difficult read. It's told from the women's perspective of Trojan War. Of course, there's nothing good about it. Rape, slavery, murder, there's all the tragedies.
It's well written, and also good to have the women's perspective.

This novel is somewhat easier to digest than Pat Barker's The Silence of the Girls, which describes the rape of captive women in excruciating detail. The Gods of Ancient Greece are present in every chapter, endlessly fickle and always foreboding. While I would have liked to learn more about the different cultures within Ancient Greece (how is a Myrmidon different to a Spartan?) the cast of characters covers a wide range of ages, classes and opinions on the purpose and outcome of war. I would recommend this novel to anyone who misses female voices in classic literature.

A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes

A retelling of the Trojan War from the perspective of the women. In much the same vein as Circe or The Silence of the Girls.

If you love Greek mythology or fascinated by the Trojan War then chances are you’ll love this.

The story is told from the perspective of many women, including goddesses. Interesting but I just couldn’t keep up with the different points of view. It was confusing and there was no flow to the storytelling. I did like Penelope’s first letter to Odysseus and thought it was amusing.
The women’s story wasn’t strong enough in the majority of the book. It felt as though they had been used as a clever device through which to tell the men’s story of war rather than their own stories.

For me this book felt like a battle between endurance and enjoyment. I’m not sure which one won!

Reading this made me doubt myself. I felt like perhaps I’m not clever enough, or feminist enough, or sufficiently well read.... 😏

Review

In recent years there has been a surge in the number of books in which there is a re-telling of history, or myth, from the perspectives of the women who lived through it.

A Thousand Ships, by Natalie Haynes, is one such novel and focuses on the Trojan War and the women affected by its decade long devastation. It traces the conflict from inception through to initial conclusion and beyond, and is told by a myriad cast of mortal, nymph, and god.

It opens strongly and I was impressed with the character of Calliope. In my experience the muses are often portrayed as the emotional and creative playthings of men, while not servile particularly I have always had the impression that they were, for want of a better word, obliging.

Not Calliope. She reads as both independent and self-assured, rolling her eyes at the clumsy fumbling of Homer, and I loved it.

- ‘I wait for him to open his eyes, but I have already made up my mind. If he wants my help, he will make an offering for it. That is what mortals do: first they ask, then they beg, finally they bargain. So I will give him his words when he gives me that brooch’

The engaging opening continues with the viewpoint of Creusa who is awoken in the night to discover that Troy has fallen and is in the midst of a vicious sacking.

Creusa’s chapters were some of my favourite as I think they were some of the best written. Descriptively these chapters are sublime and give a harrowing account of the fall of a city from a female perspective, which is exceptionally rare in literature.

- ‘The pitter-patter of rain was growing louder. It must be early morning, because she could see across the room. But the light was peculiar: a fat yellow colour which caught the dark red walls and painted them an ugly, bloody shade.

Classical Greece has its own aesthetic and I feel that Natalie Haynes captures this perfectly throughout the book. Whether it be dress surroundings, sensibilities or the closeness of the gods I did feel a part of the world at all times.

Also conveyed to such an acute degree is the tension, fear, anxiety, and powerlessness that these women experienced. The core theme in this book is that ‘women fight a war which is no less glorious than the men’ and this statement is realised completely.

The men fought on the front with weapons and in a way had an element of control over their destinies, their life condensed to just that moment, just that fight.

Women, however, had the constant crushing weight of both present and future. Their lives on hold, corralled like cattle, tending and reassuring their men all the while dreading what could be.

A Thousand Ships is a clarion call for the disparity of war - they say there are never any winners but there are definite losers. And the losers are always women.

While I passionately believe in the message at the heart of A Thousand Ships, the book did unfortunately fall flat for me on some points.

There are just so many characters and we flit between them fairly frequently and each having different narrative mechanisms. As a consequence I found it a little disjointed and was unable to connect with the majority of them. Outside of Calliope, Creusa, Cassandra, and Oenone the other characters were all of a muchness.

Penelope particularly was very disappointing, her chapters written as letters to her missing husband Odysseus. She didn’t at all have a story of her own just condensed paraphrasing of the Odyssey.

- 'Where have you been, Odysseus? The stories I hear are not encouraging. If I tell you what the bards have been singing about you, you'll laugh. At least, I hope you will.'

While it was a massive factor with Penelope I couldn’t help but feel that a lot of the women’s stories were also focused too much on their husbands/sons. While I heard their voice I didn’t feel *their* story which left me frustrated.

The final negative would be the Zeus/Gaia ‘twist’ which was just… no. It felt very much like a modern square peg in a round classical hole.

Final thoughts

Overall while I don't think the narrative worked for me, A Thousand Ships' central theme is both strong and clear.
It's impossible to overstate how important these re-tellings are because as so many people are now asking - where are the women?
Despite my issues with the book itself, I am enormously thankful to authors such as Natalie Haynes who are now giving voice to the long-silenced half of our history.
Who would I recommend this to
Readers who enjoy classical mythology, particularly those who want to experience it from previously silenced voices will enjoy this one.
Though it's an easy comparison to make if you devoured Circe or Silence of the Girls, A Thousand Ships deserves your attention.

It's hard to get across how excited I was to read A Thousand Ships. I've written before about my mild obsession with Iliad/Odyssey spinoffs. I loved Children of Jocasta which I read in a day and which made me cry. I'm a bit of a (OK, total) Natalie Haynes fangirl. Her Stands up for the Classics is clear evidence that someone at Radio 4 can see inside my head and commissions programmes just for me. The recent Iliad episode is breathtaking.
So yes, I was very much predisposed to like this but also had very high expectations. I had a good feeling when even the notes to the cast of characters made me laugh (Athene: loves owls; she won’t part with her owl, you know). It is well known that the Iliad is all about the men; women hardly get a look-in, never mind any agency. Here, Natalie Haynes goes some way to exacting revenge on their behalf. It’s all about the women.
A Thousand Ships covers a lot of ground. We switch from events during the war in the Greek camp – Briseis’ kindness to Chryseis is beautiful – to the Trojan women captured after their city burns, to Greek women at home – notably Penelope whose letters show the leaching away of her patience. This is interspersed with Calliope’s disdainful interjections into Homer’s writing process: ‘Does he believe I have nothing else to do with my time than sit around being his muse?’ Each woman’s story is poignant, if not outright tragic. I had a sense of creeping dread as I read Iphigenia’s sole chapter.
This storytelling is beautiful and clever and funny and heartbreaking all at once. My only criticism is that it was over too soon. I want more. I don’t often re-read books but I doubt I’ll be able to resist this one.

A fantastic read. Threads of the Trojan war pulled together from a female viewpoint. The changing characters were interesting and full of life.