The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller – Episode 17
The buddies enter the fictional (some say non-fictional) world of Greek mythology following the story of Patroclus and Achilles. The book inspired the buddies to make some movie connections as it followed closely to the movie Troy and also had obvious parallels to Austin Powers and Varsity Blues. Make a sacrifice to a god, grab a spear, jump on a centaur and join us on the ride.
Intro: (0:00-7:05)
Favorite Scene (7:06-12:36)
Stock Up/Down (12:37-30:45)
Love/Hate (30:46-43:48)
Listener Mail (43:49-45:20)
Conclusion (45:21-51:10)
Next Book: THE GRAY MAN by MARK GREANEY
Transcript for SEO purposes 🙂
All right welcome buddy book club. I’m Dylan here with the aristos, a kind of the podcast world. A prince in my eyes. Keith, welcome, buddy. Thank you. I don’t know what you just said. Well, I do remember the book, The aristos the guy and it was like the the best soldier in Greece or whatever. Oh, yeah, totally. I picked up on that. Because like I’m Arista Sakai and well, whatever. Let’s let’s actually tell people what book we’re reading first, I guess. Keith and I are here to break down some bestsellers. This week. We’re going to be discussing Madeline Miller’s first novel, and Orange Bowl award winner on Orange Bowl Orange Book Award winner it won some award look it up involved in orange Prize for Fiction. The book is Song of Achilles. If you’d like to recommend a book for us to read or reach out to us about any past episodes, you can visit our website buddy book club calm or slide into our DMS on Twitter or Instagram buddy book club podcast. You can listen to us on iTunes and Spotify. So please download and subscribe. And with that out of the way, Keith, this was an interesting book. I’ll gladly read it. Don’t I tell you don’t introduce yourself? I’m Dylan. Hi, I said it.
Dylan Yeah, yeah.
But Song of Achilles actually, I learned this from watching a video of Madeline Miller but so it’s obviously the story of Achilles in the Iliad. Which What’s your I guess we just start here what’s your knowledge of like Greek mythology slash like Iliad and Odyssey Where does like did you read those in high school? Were you actually participating? No, I think I Odessa or something? Thanks a mom or something. What’s that? What’s that? No, no, Oedipus is that same thing? No, no different that’s in a different, same same but different. So I knew nothing about I don’t know nothing. I honestly hand up. And this I got this out in front of this real quick. I know this wasn’t fiction. I thought it was all true stories. Alright, it’s true. What do you think? Is it that? I mean, I still don’t know. I’m pretty sure it’s fake. But I thought like Achilles was a real person. But you know, back in the day, people were like, divine if they were led like gods like he’s from God, even though this you mean? Oh, I’m not saying Jesus. People were like the emperor, the emperor of Greece was a god and yeah, people think like Alexander the Great was divine or something. So that’s what I assumed Achilles is like, just as badass fighter that actually happened. And then obviously, they like kind of made a story a little bit more extravagant than it really was, but whatever. So it’s not real.
is amazed that you had the same reaction to this and city of thieves and this is about Achilles and city these Yeah, like someone’s grandfather in World War Two. They both lied to me. I thought they’re a real
well, I can’t speak to the truth of their Achilles are really not but I don’t think so.
But the Iliad is real the story itself so I assume you did not pay attention when the Iliad the Odyssey was read in high school. And I’m not faulting you for that, because neither did I. It seemed very confusing. It was written in Latin and translated English. I didn’t really understand it. My knowledge is pretty much based on the movie Troy and Oh, Brother, Where Art Thou? Which is like a take on the Odyssey. That Oh, reload it. Yeah, I didn’t know that. Oh, interesting. Okay, so I appreciate that. We’re both coming at this from like a very basic understanding. And I apologize to listeners out there if you guys like these guys are complete idiots. But hey, we are whatever
the first time or the last time and we’re coming at it from fresh eyes, which is great, completely fresh eyes. It might be the longest book in the making, actually, because the Achillea ID was an epic poem of the life of Achilles. However, its author, studious, died during the writing of the second book late in the first century AD. So it feels like Madeline Miller just like picked it up from where he left off. But this is going to focus on Achilles and Patroclus. Yes, I said it right in my head, and I didn’t write down but and their journey together through the story of the Iliad, it’s kind of like looking at the same story from a different lens, which I like, except I’ve never read the first one. Normally, we’d like to get into a libation here. The Greeks are down with wine, which I’m also totally down with unless it’s being ruined, which they do at one part of this book. So I’m, I might have a little bit of that, or maybe some honey wine, aka some Mead, which is what they give as a gift to the gods. But if you’ve ever had that, it’s pretty gross. Actually, before going to the categories since you know the wine is flowing. I have a hypothetical for you. Go on, what do you do? Be Known throughout history as one of the finest fighters ever, you know, basically a superhero, but die at the end, or lose your powers completely and just live in normal person life. We put that in like today’s day and age and you said you become a billionaire.
Do you like live it up until you’re 60 and die? No, no, no. Okay. I don’t care. No, I just record a little regular life. I don’t really I don’t Well, maybe not fighting because today’s day and age doesn’t work but be epic. You know, Achilles is known. Yeah, we have these Achilles heels that are talked about. So yeah, you want to be like a Keith’s heel. Maybe a key piece. What would you be? What part of your body would you be?
Weak what’s my weakest link on my body? Yeah, I gotta keep.
There’s a there’s a long list of that. Yeah, I don’t think fame or glory once you’re dead is really that great. It’d be it’d be the same as like this podcast once we both die blows up. Would you care? No. I wouldn’t care at all. I’d be like, alright, well, I’m dead already. I’m in the ground. So yeah, I’d much rather live a normal life and just have a normal life, then be like, hey, once you you’re gonna die early, and then you become famous. Well, you’re not gonna see any of that. Sorry. Okay, that doesn’t matter. I’m with you. Hey, um, you know, I’m a boring person and be I have not so much pride and hubris that I would probably be just fine with living a pharma life and being not a superhero. I’d be that I’m happy being Clark Kent. I don’t need to be Superman. I’m chill. I’m chill with that.
Yeah. Wow, you’re Clark Kent. Geez, okay.
I’m just using that as an example. But, you know, I referenced that because there’s a lot of prophecies in this book. And that’s kind of the big thing like Achilles decides at the beginning, right? Is you know, as mom says, Do you want to just Achilles obviously, he’s gonna go for it. You know, he’s a gamer. We’re not gamers. We live in this simple people life. Well, like if I’m back in those days, I might do it. No, I because like, there’s nothing else going on. It’s either you fight or you just living on a farm and like, lucky to get a nice like crop is like your your best thing that can happen to you. You know, we can’t drink wine this summer, because we got like a nice like set of grapes. Like that’s the best thing that ever happened here. So I might as well be fighting or doing something back then. Yes, I’d go with what Achilles does now know, he would have been a king otherwise, though, so he would have been living pretty good. I don’t think he would be worried about like, you know, daily building rakes and like putting grass on his hut.
Let’s quickly get into our favorite scene from this book. I know we didn’t really give it a lot of love at the beginning in the summary, but that’s fine, because we’re gonna get into it here. So favorite scene from this book? I have a couple but I’m interested in what you have. Did you have anything for this part? Yeah, I had a couple of two I liked the first is the Centaur training, which I thought was classic, great montage moment. Yeah, exactly. That’d be perfect for a movie. It was a great hero’s journey, but kind of a different take on it. First off, right when a centaur is introduced I don’t like it I’m like yep down totally down something that was great about this book is anything that happened you’re just in for it. I’m like yeah, obviously there’s a fucking Centaur this training them like also just when you say Centaur got a shout out to my boyfriend’s. What’s up brother? How you don’t go? Do you know for certain car? Yeah, from Harry Potter Ferenc he was chill. Oh, right. Okay, okay, sorry. I which is funny, because I said they reminded me this the Hagrid cabin nature. Yeah, Nate. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. The other two Sorry, I’ll touch on them quick was the Agamemnon sacrificing his own daughter? I thought that was pretty pretty legit. This reminded me of Game of Thrones, which this whole book now or this whole Iliad series is just the original Game of Thrones, right? There’s like a million characters and families and things like that, that they somehow intertwined with all of them in the aspect of the intertwining characters and you know, having tons and tons of characters. Yes, but Original Game of Thrones is actually based off of War of the Roses, which is a thing that happened in like England in the 1500s or something like that. I’m not I’m not 100% on that one. But there is a movie where the roses of the Sean Connery I don’t even know if has anything to do with it. But that’s how my mind works. Oh, okay.
But my favorite was probably just the all that stuff was really great. All the beginning part is really great. Just for the ending of Petropoulos. Fight and death. Spoiler. Sorry, huh. You actually felt something? I’m not an emotional person. I can’t really. Yeah. And I you know, would you say it moved you? It may move me? Yes. Oh, because I was moved earlier in the book, but in a different way.
Something else is moving for you.
What did we used to have a segment? What was it? Yeah, I was actually gonna say that we used to have like a I got a boner segment. Yeah. Joe from super bad. You know, I got a boner. And I was thinking how funny it would be for this for this book the whole time. I was picturing Achilles as Brad Pitt. And this is like, alright, this makes sense. Like, everything made sense thinking about that and his bad bit. So yeah, for sure and agree. So the second one you had was when Patroclus decides to wear Don Achilles armor and go on his Yeah, just like, Yeah, cuz it wasn’t much action until then. And then all of a sudden, it was like, oh, let’s fucking go for sure. Like, I wouldn’t pick this book up if I thought it was gonna be like an action packed, but we didn’t really know much about it. So I’m glad because that was kind of, you know, Troy, the movies. Basically my point of reference. I was like, Oh, that movie was awesome. Tons of action. Right, which didn’t happen a lot.
In this but I agree actually one of my favorite scenes was Patroklos go super saying, and you just start spirit guys left and right. I mean, he has had practice with the shaft so I get it. But he even even kills a son of Zeus like, the guy doesn’t even fight he’s a healer. It’d be like at the beginning of a of one of those like RPG games and you pick healer and then all of a sudden your warrior strength, you pick up enough items, your warrior strength goes way up, boom, Rod spears of people call of Legends. What up? Yeah, and my question is, is should we just be putting soldiers in the ER, just so they get used to the blood and gore? Because patrolling this goes out there and he’s just like, Yeah, I don’t give a shit about stabbing this guy and like their artery because I’ve been, you know, healing people this whole time. This doesn’t do anything to me like this. I’m just so desensitized to the blood and gore. Like, yeah, I’ll rip this dude’s like, Achilles heel out and other tendons and all these other things, because he’s experienced it. So maybe we should be doing that with our soldiers. Am I right? Yeah, maybe I mean, petition it to the Department of Defense.
Yeah, another favorite scene for me was when Achilles gets first blood. And this was more of just like for cinematic purposes, I thought this would be beautiful, because they’re coming up with the ships on to Troy, showing up out of the mist. And on the beach, they see a bunch of Trojans. Holy smokes, these guys are ready for us. They’re about to like lose some arrows on us. And you really haven’t seen it kills fight at this point. Patroclus has talked about how like, Oh, he’s sinewy as fuck and can throw a spear far. And you know, he’s nimble, but you don’t see him actually fight. And then I’m just picturing him like on this boat, which looks like some Viking type ship. And he just grabs a spear and absolutely hums it and everyone’s like, Oh, that’s interesting, but there’s no way it’s gonna reach them. Like there’s just no way it’s gonna fall short. And it just stabs the guy like the cameras on this beer as it’s turning like an NFL films, movie, boom, spear lands in the guy’s chest eruption. So I really like that just to like, get the whole Trojan War really going even though it slows down after that and takes 10 years. But it’s like Randy Johnson walking out the mound. You’re like, wow, this dude’s 610 He’s a lefty. And so so those sidearm and you’re like, oh, he looks crazy. And I totally get 99 mile an hour fastball on you’re like, holy shit. Like this is the real deal. That’s what it always was. And then a bird blows up when he
throws a ball. Yeah, so when Achilles shows up on the scene, I dug it
let’s jump into some stock up stock down. Stock up. What do you got? I’ll go first one here. Varsity blues dad stock up.
Sure, I don’t want your laugh. But basically the varsity blues dad was like pressuring him to be better at football and commit to football and all these things. I Kelly’s dad kind of needed to get do some of this, right? You got the best son of all time at fighting, great at war. And he’s like, You know what, I’m gonna go off and hide and then dress up as like a woman and get secretly married and live this whole different life that you don’t even want to live just to avoid fighting and you’re the best at it. You need someone to motivate this dude. Like what do we what are we doing killers like you’re not fulfilling your prophecy. So someone needed to go in there and give a little bit more varsity blues type dad material to this guy and not not just let them kind of whimper off and just kind of cower, but he knew his son was gonna die. Everyone’s gonna die in this light, kid. I’m sure there’s some great quote we can all hear. Everyone dies, but not everyone lives. It’s not like boxes dad from varsity blues, which I’m so glad I remember that guy’s name marks. It’s like his dad knew. He was like, Okay, you’re gonna go to Texas and then you’re gonna die. You’re gonna, you’re gonna die. That’s pretty much dead on the football. That’s true. Yeah, it’s the same day. Jon Voight was a little crazy out there. Well, you talked about him. Kelly’s father dressing His son up in drag. And that’s one of my stops dressing and drag. Well, that was his mom that did that. Practically. Yes. But his dad was simpatico with it. I mean, his mom hides him in some dudes court so he doesn’t have to go to war. And like here in the United States, we just moved to Canada if the draft card happens, but instead, they go through this elaborate ruse. And they actually had to have an Austin Powers moment where someone had to go, that’s not a woman. That’s a man baby.
Thank you. Thank you. So last last episode, we didn’t mention awesome powers or Harry Potter. So I’m glad we’ve already checked off both those boxes already. I appreciate that. But it was funny because I was reading that and they actually said, you know, this is Achilles and kind of took off his head dress to let his golden curls go down. I was really like, that’s a woman that’s a man.
So RuPaul drag race is soaring up in the market share because Achilles crushed it dressing in drag. He was a beautiful woman and could dance like an absolute maniac. So
Good Anya. Well, she ever snuck up not being attractive or smart. Stock up, go on. Oh, I know a little bit about this dmn experience, however Petropoulos at the beginning, that book is like, yeah, my father hated me. I’m not attractive. I’m not smart. I’m not special. And then Achilles, then future wife, di dunia di Didyma, something like that. Yeah, whatever. Damn. Yeah, no, it’s too damn. Yeah, she she confronts them and just shits all over him. Why does Achilles even like you, you bring nothing to the table. You’re ugly as shit. Which is seemingly true. But you know, this seems like this is a nice little, you know, it doesn’t really matter. You can you can get the best looking dude. And then he bangs that girl to the media when she’s pregnant, which I didn’t make didn’t make any sense to me. I’ve no idea why that happened. Somebody has explained that to me, but it wasn’t addressed. So hey, you know what, this is a this is a real hero story. You know, not being charged not being smart. You can still you can still rise to prominence. I appreciate it. It stock up. And he’s the hero of the myrmidons. So we’re the best of the myrmidons. Okay, I agree with you stock up for sure. Being on attractive, beautiful or smart. Not attractive or smart. I think she was just being mean, because he’s definitely smart. He was a doctor pretty much but his dad isn’t gonna use like, you’re not clever. You’re not smart. And the reason he gets kicked out of the society, whatever is because he wasn’t clever enough to come up with a why Yeah, but that’s not being clever. That’s just him being honest. He’s just a good person. He’s just an honest good person, because he’s gonna kill you. Like, why didn’t you do this? Or why didn’t you do that? Why don’t you pretend like he attacked you first. He’s like, I don’t know. Man. I just tell the truth. Let me ask you this, though. From the DML I’m not gonna butcher the names though. It from her perspective. Do you think this Homewrecker is a good honest person? No, for sure not steals her husband. Ben takes her baby and is like, see you later. They don’t take the baby. Well, by proxy, they kick her out of her hometown. Like you got to go live somewhere else. Peace
demands. Yeah, that’s all perspective. You know, so each person’s perspective is gonna be different. So yeah, I totally I’m on I’m on her side, if I’m thinking about it, from her perspective, like she was about to have a kilise. That’s an awesome. And then this homeboy comes in and just ruins everything. Because he’s got a better deck than she does. Suppose that.
That’s, that’s fact that is fact. stuck out for me. Human sacrifice. I know we talked about that. Sacrificing your daughter, like not so cool. But they would have never made it to Troy. If there wasn’t a sacrifice of the girl, you know. So they would have never made it there. The whole thing would have never happened the gods wouldn’t have been a piece sometimes. Cut in a couple grow goats up isn’t going to do it. So human sacrifice it might actually change change things in life. Think about it, guys. Think about it snuck up in Game of Thrones spoilers when? I don’t know the king’s name, but the king burns his own daughter at the stake there. Yeah, for the same reason were you for against that? Red Woman and status Status? Status breath? Yeah, that sounds right. Yeah. Was I for it? No, I was not for the same. Same idea. Yeah, there’s seemed a little iffy. Like, the gods are very opaque. In Game of Thrones. It’s most likely not. But potential. There’s definitely some mythical stuff which would make you believe it. But in these situations, there’s literally Gods hanging out at the bonfire. So I’m pretty believe I’m pretty much believing that Gods are real considering like, Yeah, my dad just said to kill this bitch so that we can get on the road. It was like, oh, okay, cool. Like, it’s not a prayer that comes to you. It was like a real person. Although the read woman was doing some pretty legit stuff in the in Game of Thrones. Yes. It was like going killing people. I was like a cloud. She had that tar baby from Fern Gully, come out of her vagina and kill people. So that was crazy. I don’t know what was going on there. Yeah, but we’re not talking about Game of Thrones. We’re talking about Yeah, sorry. Kelly’s. Do you have any other stockout spite again from last week? This is again another purchase we do on Mad Money. With Kramer Yeah, I I’m 100% and Achilles side, by the way, so he goes in front of our owners like yo, this Agha madman. Dude is like stealing my honor. He’s not doing shit. I’m the one that’s leading this army. No one backs him not one person. I was complete bullshit. I was I was pissed. I was like, where’s everyone? Where are we not back in there. Like the guy that actually leaves the army here. No one backs him and then he’s like, Alright, I’ll see you later guys. kick rocks. I’m not helping anyone here. And then people were like whining that oh, why don’t you come save as Achilles? No, fuck that noise. I’m 100% I was actually pissed. I was I was like, no, okay, let’s go to the other army. I don’t let’s go into the army. Like, hey, I’m playing for you guys. Now. That’s how I was like, he’s the best dude in the game and you’re just being like, well, whatever. This This dude’s a king so I don’t care. It’s bullshit D man. I don’t know. I’m just saying you
You’re sitting there, you’re dying. You’re just a normal. So talk about perspectives under the normal fighter in the Greek army, you know, I’ve been here for than I would have stood up for Achilles. I’ve been here for years. And this guy who’s an actual game changer. It’s like Michael Jordan. You’re Michael Jordan’s on your team, and it’s the playoffs, and he’s refusing to play because he got into a fight with ownership. It’s, it’s like, boy, we’re dying out here. We are literally dying out here. We need you to step up and drain some three. Oh, it’s kind of like the Scottie Pippen. Yeah 100% Yeah, million percent. Pepin basically was like You disrespected my honor by not letting me have the last shot inside out, right? Yes. Oh, I see. You’re saying I see you’re saying yes, images they could like literally win without Pippin, which they did. They won the game without Pippin shooting that shot. But you can’t win without Achilles. Kili is the whole Exactly. So it’d be like disrespecting Michael Jordan, and then not being like, hey, about your HR leader. I apologize. Let’s get back into this. But they realize it’s Michael Jordan’s all by himself here and he’s not about the team. Because he’s about his own of his own reputation. His own legacy, setting his boys out to die though. He’s not sending his own guys out to die. Oh, the myrmidons don’t well, the murder. Kept them. Yeah. Okay. No, they chill. They’re like, Yeah, my boys die. So that’s fine. I’m fine with that. I guess so. But in the in the whole thing. You know, you’re still Greek at the end of the day. Yeah, that’s why I’d go join the Trojan Fine, fine, I’m cool. I think the stock is pretty flat. If you’re buying run stock on Spike, that’s fine. I continually put my 401k into despite side of things that’s it. I just keep on putting money in there. Um, my last one it was kind of touched upon in terms of stock up with stories stories by the fire. And at the two year mark, they’re basically moved into Troy. So they create kind of a camp lifestyle knightly chats around the dinner, fire wine, followed by smoke bars, and stores the gods. So they sit around and tell stories of the gods, which if we were camping, you know, been camping a couple times. You tell like ghost stories at his kid or something like that. And it would kind of spook you up. At the end of the day. You’re like, oh, there’s there’s no ghosts, like, I’m good. But here they’re telling stories, the gods and it’s like telling a ghost story, but there’s a ghost sitting at the fire with you because Achilles is sitting there he’s pretty much a god. So you know, it’s so crazy because you’re telling these gods right and it’s like they’re totally believable because Gods are definitely real we see this happening. Yeah, it’d be Casper sitting at your campfire and you tell me a ghost story. And he’s like, oh my god that’s so true. goes totally do that. You know, that’s totally a ghost thing. So it’s like a stand up comedy but Yeah, makes sense. So I’m downstairs by the fire just just got stuck up because they’re real Now interesting. Yeah, I mean the stocks already pretty high but hey, you know what we think could go up a little bit higher i i am selling smaller stock totally overrated scores are extremely overrated. Don’t ask me I mean, the problem is Moore’s is it’s such a it’s very, very hard to make a perfect some more. That’s the issue. That’s true. And it’s also interesting how you say some more Yeah, we’ve had this discussion literally. Next row fire for magic all right. We literally
God dammit. The one last one I wanted to touch quickly. I didn’t It’s more of an apology from from last week’s episode was ankles and neck lines being attractive. Oh, I was gonna say that. Hand up. Last book. I talked down about it. I was making jokes. And then we go to this book and it’s literally that’s all they talk about how fucking attractive ankles and neck Sorry, I’m like, shit. Like it’s on me. That’s I’m all right. I apologize. And for anyone out there that offended last week, I apologized to them as well. We all accept that. Thank you. Cuz I’m a big, big angle guy. And I like big ankles. But you know, I’m saying so let’s just talk down. What do you got? Yeah, sock down CDC regulation. Oh, knock down? Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, we have one anti Vaxxer on the line here with what I’m not. But we’ve already I don’t know, man, we can we prove that I was a breakthrough case. There’s a huge play going on in the campground and Achilles like all right, all right. Let’s get everyone together. Let’s get out of tight confined space with everyone. And let’s all chat it out. Let’s all talk it out. There was no social distancing. Although although he did say that they went to like a different he took the myrmidons to like a different watering hole than everyone else. So he did do some social distancing. He parked at the end of the parking lot is posted No, but this is when they come all together. I know discuss and then seemingly the plague just goes away. So CDC regulations and demons anti Vax theories stocked.
I’ll take the shot stuck out for me the United States education system. So the problem is a the United States is really bad in like math and sciences, which is how dare you sherald First off how dares measure good country, but people love that first newsroom episode. Oh my God, when he started cheating on the United States. People love that. But it is true. We’re not very good at teaching people when they’re with Chiron
We’re talking to Achilles and Patroclus. When they’re with Chiron, they’re not only learning math and sciences, but plant identification, tracking, carpentry, cheese, making medicine, fucking surgery, all by a horse. They’re being taught this by a horse. Oh, center. Hackers, how dare you. But again, so he’s not even fully human. So we have, you know, an education system run by full humans. Why aren’t we learning? You know, these important life skills people are like, Oh, I graduate college, knowing how to write a check. These guys can identify plants and build rocking chairs to eat the cheese they make on that’s live in. This is living US education system stock down. I’m selling it. I like how you use we’re so behind is that people don’t know how to balance a checkbook and write a check like that. Oh, shit. That’s the one thing we’ve been missing this whole time. Come on kid. A little bit antiquated financial knowledge. Whatever. Yes. Okay. Agreed. Agreed. You had me at cheesemaking so let’s let’s be honest. All great points. I agree. Any other stuck downs? Yeah. Start down last one here destroying boats, a lot of history behind this of commanders showing up with their army and burning their own boats as a way to motivate them. Oh, that’s true. That’s a good point. We’re not leaving here unless we win this shirt. So basically, they were motivating them
by attacking them to destroy destroy the boats. That was like the worst strategy. Like if you just throw the boats now it’s like, all right, all hands on deck. Now we got to win this. Otherwise, we’re not going back. So don’t make any sound. Terrible, terrible, poor strategy. Interesting, because I think I might have had this in, in hate, but you’re talking about the Trojan War strategy of destroying the Greeks boats. And associated with that when the Greeks initially arrive, they pretty much storm the beaches, without any issue because there’s no fortification on the beach. So the Trojans can’t do anything once the Greeks get like within range. So they basically allow the Greeks to establish a beachhead, setting the blueprint for Eisenhower and Montgomery for D Day, but what the fuck was the king doing not he’s had years prepared for this war. What was he doing not building pillboxes on the shore. So his archers can just take shots and put catapults out there. Take some ships down. I mean, artillery have we heard of it? Use it the you just let the ships get to shore? Number one rule and warfare don’t let them establish a beachhead number one, that’s where we’re at in what’s his name Primus Preus whatever the king’s name is, he just lets him he has no installments on the beach it makes zero military sense. I didn’t understand it. I was waiting for it to be like this huge battle for them to get the beach you know the launching of 1000 ships all that’s got to be crazy you know and world war two days like all this I haven’t seen anything like this since the antiquities as like now we just like got on the beach because like prime whatever didn’t put any installments in there. No big deal. Now we have a 10 year siege. Troy Get it together. Isn’t the strategy there that like their castle or Troy itself was impenetrable went on raise a ton of resources outside. Because the castle is impenetrable. You don’t have to like build internal defenses or stuff on the walls or whatnot. You just use the wood Yeah, from the land, and you build defenses on the beat. I mean, let’s not get into military tactics because I am by no means a professional. But basically it seems pretty simple. Do you want to be sitting on a naked beach or do you want to dig some fucking foxholes yeah that’s that’s what you’re right you’re right you’re right you’re right so our military overall strategy way down other stock down I had was a couple quick ones. So I’m gonna go through them animal sacrifice. We talked about human sacrifice stock up. I’m in animal sacrifice stock down. They wasted What 100 sheep that’s just wasting good food, especially when you’re in a siege situation. Like food’s not coming easy. They 100 sheep plus our sheep the same as lamb by the way, lambs a baby lambs, a baby sheep. Oh, really? Yeah. So when you’re eating, you’re eating tasty baby lamb
cheeses, so they wasted some food, wasted a bunch of good wine and some pomegranates. I didn’t like any of it. So animal sacrifice. I’m way down on unless you’re sacrificing it to then eat in which case stock way up. Also the idea of Achilles heel I was always told about this Achilles heel that’s why we have one you know I was informed that this Achilles heel meant something but in the book you just get shot with an arrow through the heart. I liked it I like the way they did it and Troy also I think she was trying to do a similar similar you remember Troy I just actually watched it rewatch don’t love that. No, I mean to I mean to rewatch it. I did own it at one point boilers but like in Troy, he gets shot in the heart like four or five times and one for the Achilles heel. But like he pulls the ones that have his heart out and then people come and just see the one arrow in his heel. So he got killed by them. Yeah, I like that was the best way to do it. Cool. He’s not an actual
God, but people also remember that that’s what it took. And once again, I know no knowledge of the original story. I don’t know if the Achilles heel was part of this thing I thought it was. So we got this trivia question. Like a week after I finished the book.
Well, the question was, what Lake did they dip Achilles in to make him impenetrable or whatever story is that he got dipped into him by the ankle, right? Yeah. And that’s the only place that he could like couldn’t get hurt. Yeah, so that’s the most liked name I have. No, I don’t remember. No, no idea. What am I? Someone else go it’s good for them. Dude, that’s why I made attractive that’s smart and attractive. The opposite of what you’re what you bought stock in. So yeah, we don’t want you don’t want that we’re shorting those.
Let’s get into some love. Hey, what do you love about this book? Song of Achilles? I feel there’s a lot to love. It just quick barometer check. Quick barometer check. You liked this book, right? Yeah, I again, this was probably like one of those books that I wouldn’t have read if you told me what it was about. And then you read it. I think the audiobook audiobook is
great. I don’t know if I could get through it without because I would have a really tough time reading the actual name. Yeah. And I would be, I wouldn’t be there. I would be struggling very hard to keep track. The guy’s voice was really good to just maybe a peek behind the curtain. You like to listen at one point to speed? Is that your thing? Yeah. Yeah. Is that book specific? Or at all times you listen to that? I did it for one book. And then I forgot to turn it off. And now all I do is 1.2. I don’t notice it at all. It’s usually people that are good at reading. Don’t talk fast. You already right there. Don’t tell they’re taught. They’re taught to talk very slow and pronounce it every word. So you don’t see them. Like that. Like they wouldn’t this be this how I taught I taught this past 1.2 is slower than this. Yeah. If you need to put your speed at like point seven, five.
That’s right, good. Yeah. I also would just drink a full copy. So I’m talking about
so good, good. Like Jerry Seinfeld, after you drink some caffeinated tea. I agree with you that the audiobook is really good. I do think 1.2 might be a little fast. 1.1 worked for me. So that’s what I went with. But I did appreciate that heads up because the guy does talk really slow. But I think it’s good. If you were ready to let’s do it, that it’s fine. 1.2 just seemed a little too fast for me to catch, but Okay, so what do you love about it very easy to get lost in the world from water gods to sentarse to dressing and drag. I thought the love story was a little long at first. And I was like, Alright, this is pretty interesting. But like I can get to the point. But that made the payoff way better. Because you actually felt like I said, I actually felt at the end. I’m like, Oh, shit, that actually meant something. And that was way it’s way harder when you had that whole big long story beforehand. Otherwise, it’s probably doesn’t hit as hard. So I actually really liked that. Yeah, I agree with you. That was That was great. And I and the thing you first said about the we don’t know a lot about Greek mythology. I personally, I mean, I can’t speak for you. But I know you like some of this stuff. But I like fantasy novels in general. I mean, Lord of the Rings is my go to, but even movies, Star Wars those kind of like deep, different characters lots I mean, Game of Thrones, same way. But the thing I loved about this book was just the inevitable YouTube black hole because I read that Chiron section I was like, Wait, this Chiron guy’s fucking coolest shit. And I Google it. So yeah, and I’m looking up. And I’m like, looking at the like, Chiron Wikipedia page, like holy smokes like This is In Depth, there was a segment of like, how he died in terms of this person did something to this person, which then did this to that. And these there’s YouTube’s and Wikipedia page for all these people. It’s such an in depth world that I just really had an experience and I probably didn’t underappreciated in high school when this was being discussed. It just seemed to like work. And I think the names being difficult is a big thing. Maybe we just make the name simpler. If we made the name simpler, I’d be down. But the way she the way she wove in the gods and it didn’t have to be so much detail about them. You know, it wasn’t a George RR Martin book where then you have to have a whole chapter on that person. It was like, oh, Apollo, then you look him up and you can do that. So the YouTube black hole I really liked about it because it helped me learn a lot about this Greek mythology stuff, which I didn’t really know about. And there’s like so much, it’s insane. It’s like 1000s of years of lore. It’s amazing. I love lore, just love lore the Lord God, what else you’ll I’m not a big quote guy, but I had a couple that I liked here. Oh, you’re gonna throw some quotes describing Achilles? Yeah, you can use a spear as a walking stick, but it won’t change its nature. That was a fucking badass line in my opinion. Yeah, you can dress him up. You can hide him but he’s still a fucking murder. You know, go fucking kill you. Achilles has a couple a couple of badass quotes for sure. There’s probably a lot more. I just didn’t write them down but it’s very well written. I think one he says what
and he’s like about to kill Hector Hector knows is gonna die. And he says like, will you return my body to my father? And Achilles looks at him he’s obviously like so pissed about Patro glisten sure like that and he’s like there’s no bargains between lions and then I will eat you raw is that oh shift fro Ah, that was bad he said. He says I wonder if that’s actually familiar because he says something similar in Troy. Like he’s I think he I don’t know if he says eat the raw part but in Troy he says exactly like no, I mean Troy. So I don’t know if I can credit her. But maybe we’ll talk about this later. But Troy kind of is this is this book, because it’s exactly the same. The only difference is Patro. Kelly’s is. One looks a lot like Brad Pitt, because like they needed to pay out his cousin, I think in the year and it’s just, yeah, yeah. So what else did you love about this book? No. And the only I gotta had people live by a waterfall cease to hear it. It’s like it’s fear for Achilles. He says. So yeah, I thought that was like that, dude, I really liked that too. And I actually wrote that one down. Because I don’t know, I’m a big believer in just things becoming normal, like humans are such good adapters, whether it be in times of good or times of bad, that they just like, go on and deal with it. And like, in some situations, you know, you think about like the Holocaust, and like that, like how the hell did these people survive in these horrible, horrible situations, and you just kind of this becomes your weird, new normal. And humans are so good at adapting to that, that to survive. But then the problem is in the really good times. We don’t have you know, we adapt to those in the same way and like, don’t realize how good we have it because we just accept accustomed to them. So we said the waterfall thing. I was just thinking, like, you know, people living in beautiful places, or whatever, you know, you just probably lose appreciation for that. I mean, I’m not even the most beautiful place, but even like, you know, on Cape Cod in the summer, you sit out there by the beach, like wow, this is amazing. I get to have this, you get to appreciate that. So I like that, too. I’m glad you brought it up. Other things I loved was a good prophecy. I’m always down for good prophecy. So the original prophecy, he will be the Greek army’s best warrior. Second, he will gain fame if he fights in the Trojan War. Third, he will die and Troy it’s like, oh, cool, cool. Not so cool. But
so you know the prophecies there and you’re just like, okay, cool, how they gonna deal with this. And then later, the fate say that the best Myrmidon will die soon, but that Achilles will be alive when it happens. So kills Oh, Bessemer is gonna die soon. I knew that. And then a kill is going to be alive. It’s like, oh, shit, am I not the best Myrmidon the only problem I had was that they didn’t really dig into that it was they just kind of like, pushed it off. It was just like, Oh, who’s there? But then in the book a couple times, this slave woman, they had camber her name, best year or something like that. She Petropoulos like goes to her and helps her out. And she goes, Oh, you’re the best of the myrmidons. And it’s like, not a dress, but I appreciate like the underlying. Oh shit. This means Patroklos is gonna get fucked up. But they don’t. I didn’t pick up on that. That’s a good. That’s a good callback. Yeah, but prophecies in general, whether it be HP Game of Thrones, stuff like that. And I just love me good prophecy. The last thing I had and something that you kind of touched on, was the thing I loved most about this book was the love. Specifically between Patroclus and Achilles. It was beautiful. It was really just like this super genuine love. No one cares for keeping secrets from one another or being offended by what the other person says. Because like, they know their love is infinite and unchanging. He’s up. He’s like, Oh, Achilles, like, oh, it’s actually her. He’s like, no, no problem. I totally get it. I mean, that makes sense. It’s like, oh, okay, cool. And then Petropoulos is like really scared or whatever about the war. And he just like straight up tells Achilles it’s not like, oh, kill, he’s gonna think I’m a pussy. You know, he’s just like, No, he’s gonna love me no matter what. So I find that to be really pure. And I also found that the writing was really good at it some points early on. I was like, holy smokes, I get why women in general love like romance. Love Romance Novels. Because, yeah, the writing of like the intimacy between petroglyphs and Achilles, was it braise the hair in the back of your neck? Yeah. So I get it now. I get it. Now. If you’ve ever read where the crawdads sang, it was very similar writing to that was like really, really good writing. I thought this was much better story though. Also, because it probably has more like, violence and stuff that I like, but in her explanation of just like what was going on, she’s really like, good metaphors and timely Yeah, she’s super, super good writer. Yeah. Okay. Well, now that we said such nice things, did you hate anything about this book? Yeah, we need to get some hate now, as someone that carries around a bag full of Catholic guilt. This is the most central book I’ve ever read. So there’s a lot of mean central central sexual, I would recommend this
to someone but I wouldn’t recommend to my parents because I’d be too nervous. They’d read it and judge me. What is the sex stuff you’re into? I mean, like, that’s where I’d be nervous. Have you ever like what do you do with those books? Do you recommend them to your like, friends and family? Or is that just like, Mom, do you want to like hang out and read 50 Shades of Grey together? Or?
