‘A Thousand Ships’ by Natalie Haynes (2021) – 345 pages
This tale of Troy and Greece and the Trojan War is a delight. Or I should say this collection of tales is a delight.
Natalie Haynes is so familiar with these stories surrounding the Trojan War, she makes them her own and the characters come alive. She has a light touch with these tales, these ancient myths.
Haynes avoids the stiffness in the telling that so many accounts of the siege of Troy have. Here these ancient Greek stories are humanized in simple down-to-earth language with some humorous and ironic twists. And Haynes gives a fair account of both the men and the women on both sides, both the Greeks and the Trojans.
I was quite familiar with some of the myths here, but some of the myths were new to me. At the end of each scene, Haynes provides a little meaningful twist that gives the scene its significance.
Here we have the entire Trojan war from the Judgment of Paris which caused the war in the first place until the day many, many years later when Odysseus finally returns home to Penelope and murders all 108 of her suitors. The main sources are the two epic poems by Homer, the ‘Iliad’ and the ‘Odyssey’, along with some of the early Greek plays.
“Who could love a coward, she had once heard a woman say. Laodamia knew the answer. Someone for whom the alternative is loving a corpse.”
Laodamia is speaking of her brave dead husband Protestilaus, the first Greek soldier to be killed in the war. The Greek King Agamemnon had already sacrificed his daughter Iphigenia on the day she was to marry Achilles in order to get a stiff wind for the Greek ships so they could leave Aulis for Troy.
Odysseus and Penelope
Later, after the Greeks have defeated Troy with their Trojan horse subterfuge, we have the long trek of Odysseus back home to Greece and his long-suffering wife Penelope. Time for some humor.
“Because really how many cannibalistic giants can one Greek plausibly meet as he sails the open seas? “
Penelope gets impatient waiting and waiting for Odysseus to return.
“The bards all sing of the bravery of heroes and the greatness of your 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 were left behind.”
Throughout ‘A Thousand Ships’ presents the women’s views of events as well as those of the men.
“When a war was ended, the men lost their lives. But the women lost everything else. And victory made the Greeks no kinder.”
Grade: A
Tony's Book World 
Posted by Janakay | YouMightAsWellRead on February 11, 2022 at 10:39 PM
Hi Tony! This sounds like a fun retelling, that, as you say, removes some of the stiffness that’s inclined to attach itself to these old stories.
Have you happened across Barry Unsworth in your travels through the book world? I’m not sure he’s much read now but back in the day I never missed one of his historical novels. Although it’s been a very long time since I last read it, I particularly liked Unsworth’s The Songs of the Kings, a retelling of Euripides’ Iphigenia at Aulis.
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Posted by Anokatony on February 12, 2022 at 2:13 AM
Hi Janakay,
Oh yes, Barry Unsworth was and is one of my very favorites, and ‘The Song of the Kings’ is one of several of his I really liked. I see I also gave Unsworth’s ‘The Quality of Mercy’ a strongly positive review here on this blog; it was not based on the Greek myths.
I’ve been trying to determine if the author Emma Jane Unsworth is related to Barry Unsworth. From what I have found, they are unrelated.
It’s funny how you and I seem to have traveled in many of the same literary circles.
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Posted by Lisa Hill on February 12, 2022 at 3:17 AM
Unsworth? I have one of his… I’ve never got round to reading it.
But now, from your mutual endorsements, I shall!
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Posted by Janakay | YouMightAsWellRead on February 12, 2022 at 4:32 AM
Tony: a fellow fan! very exciting, particularly as I haven’t seen many posts on Unsworth. I’ve actually thought about doing a reading project on him, as there are several Unsworth novels I haven’t read (including Quality of Mercy). My favorites are probably (in no order) Morality Play, Pascali’s Island and Sacred Hunger. I must admit I wasn’t able to get into Mooncranker’s Gift. One of the first things I did after my big move, which brought increased shelf space, was to resurrect my Unsworth books, many of which I’d shed over the years.
It is funny, isn’t it, how tastes sometimes coincide? That’s what makes book bloging so rewarding (I don’t think Barry Unsworth has than many admirers here in west coast Florida, although I could be wrong . . . )
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Posted by Anokatony on February 12, 2022 at 8:41 AM
Here’s a full list of the Barry Unsworth novels I have liked a lot:
Morality Play, Pascali’s Island, Sacred Hunger, Losing Nelson, The Song of the Kings, The Quality of Mercy, Stone Virgin
The others I haven’t read.
Those I’ve read, Barry Unsworth hasn’t disappointed me.
I’m wondering if you’ve read Patrick White, because he’s a writer I place even above Barry Unsworth.
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