The Song of Achilles Book Club Questions
Welcome to the Buddy Book Club – we have a light-hearted comedic podcast that covers a variety of books. The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller follows the story of Patroclus and Achilles of Greek mythology fame. If you’re wondering, Achilles is a fictional character and definitely no one from our podcast thought he was a real figure in history. The Song of Achilles is unique in that it’s from the perspective of Patroclus and his relationship with the more famous Achilles. Most of the books the Buddies choose to read involve very little romance or relationship depth, so this one was a bit different.
We did a full breakdown of Madeline Miller roller coaster novel on our Song of Achilles podcast episode. 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.
Our book club questions try to be a little more outside the box/comedic than your typical book club questions – hopefully you enjoy them.
Book Club Questions – The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
-> Achilles chose glory and early death over a long, boring life as a king. Would you die young to be remembered forever, or live a normal life?
Boring life as king sounds pretty good to us…
-> Did Achilles’ dad need to be more overbearing/aggressive to motivate his son? Or does hiding your best-warrior son in drag warrant some tough love?
If I was the best of all time at something, I’d feel at least somewhat obligated to do it regardless of how much I hated it. This is Achilles to everyone else.
-> Achilles’ mom hides him in a royal court disguised as a woman to avoid the war draft. This is apparently superior to just fleeing to Canada like we do here in America. Genius or unnecessarily elaborate?
My biggest issue is I could not pull off an ancient Greek in drag. I’d be Austin Powers’d in a minute.
-> Patroclus gets told repeatedly he’s ugly and dumb, yet becomes the hero (and bags Achilles, pretty good pull). Is this book really just secretly a rags to riches underdog story?
I’m team Patroclus all day, although can we give him a name that’s a little easier to pronounce?
-> Does human sacrifice work? They needed it to get the winds blowing toward Troy. And lo and behold the wind started blowing.
As someone who has an advanced degree in Bird Law, I believe this is call if so fact so (or ipso facto for those Greeks out here).
-> Achilles refuses to fight after Agamemnon disrespects him, even as his fellow Greeks die by the hundreds. Are you on his spiteful side? Should Achilles have been the bigger person?
I’m always on team spite. You want to win you gotta come back groveling.
-> Chiron the centaur teaches Achilles and Patroclus math, science, plant identification, tracking, carpentry, cheesemaking, medicine, AND surgery. Meanwhile, American students can’t balance checkbooks. Should we replace the Department of Education with centaurs?
Yes. Firenze from Harry Potter proves this as well.
-> King Priam lets the Greeks establish a beachhead without any fortifications, pillboxes, or catapults on the shore. Could you have defended the beach better?
Seems like it should have been more like the Normandy Beach scene from Saving Private Ryan.
-> Is this one of the most sensual books you’ve ever read? Is Song of Achilles actually that steamy, or are we prudes?
We’ve since read Fifty Shades of Grey and Fourth Wing so, this is book is now prudish.
-> The prophecy says “the best of the Myrmidons will die” and everyone assumes it’s Achilles. Patroclus gets called “best of the Myrmidons” multiple times but nobody connects the dots. Did you catch this foreshadowing, or were you as oblivious as the characters?
Hand up, I completely missed it.
-> Who would you cast in a movie version of Song of Achilles?
We took at stab at it in our Make it a Movie blog.
