Key takeaways
- Retellings justify themselves by changing the vantage point, not the plot.
- Immortality is written as a form of boredom, which makes every human choice matter more.
- Miller writes violence plainly and desire obliquely — an unusual and effective ratio.
I thought once that gods are the opposite of death, but I see now they are more dead than anything.
Madeline Miller
What works
The sentences are the reason to read it. Miller can do a decade in a paragraph without it feeling rushed.
What doesn’t
Episodic by design, which means the middle drifts. Odysseus arrives and briefly takes over a book that is not his.
Who it’s for
Readers who loved The Song of Achilles and anyone who found the Odyssey thin on women.
