The Voyage Home

The Voyage Home is the third instalment in Pat Barker’s critically acclaimed Trojan war trilogy. It follows on from the events of previous books in the series, The Silence of the Girls and The Trojan Women, which cover the events of Homer’s The Iliad, however, I found it also works perfectly well as a standalone read.

It begins in the aftermath of the sacking of Troy, as the surviving heroes divvy up the plunder of the ransacked city, including the women. It recounts the story of Agamemnon’s homecoming from the perspective of Ritsa, a Trojan slave, who is forced to serve the apparently mad seer Cassandra, who Agamemnon takes home as a concubine. The novel then becomes part haunted-house narrative as the characters arrive in Mycenae and we’re introduced to the horrors of the House of Atreus. The novel also dips into the perspective of Cassandra and Agamemnon’s wife, Clytemnestra, who is less-than-eagerly awaiting his homecoming. I found Cassandra and Clytemnestra’s alternative perspectives particularly compelling, as they seemed to reveal the inner lives of these women in a way Ritsa seems unable to conceive.

The Voyage Home stands among recent Greek myth revisionist retellings in its focus on the mundane over the mythical. As in Barker’s first two instalments in the trilogy, The Voyage Home blends historical writing with modern language to craft a narrative that is smooth and effortless to read. The focus on the perspective of the women is commendable, however, I found the novel is a little shallow in this area, doing more to establish rigid gender roles than to meaningfully analyse them, with little interest in nuance or intersectionality. Nevertheless, Barker does well in shedding the glamour of myth to expose the cruel treatment of women in these stories. Overall, The Voyage Home is a compelling and exciting new read.