The Catch Newsletter

July 2021

Welcome to Talon Review’s July edition of The Catch newsletter! This month includes an update on The Talon Review, two respective book reviews on Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles and Scott Russel Sander’s The Paradise of Bombs, a poem entitled “The Romantics Graveyard", and an original art piece. We hope you enjoy!

Talon Update

In July, The Talon Review has been getting ready for some big changes! This month will be the last one where I, and Giancarlo Laboy, will serve as Editor-in-Chiefs for The Talon Review. This has been one of the most wonderful experiences, and I am so happy to have served on a staff filled with positivity and trust. Publishing other artists’ works has been an honor, and I hope to be in a position where I can always see people’s artistry succeed. I am excited to welcome Kaitlyn Anderson as the new, incoming Editor-in-Chief, alongside all the new members joining Talon. Fittingly, this issue is filled with a little bit of old, with work from Giancarlo and I, and a little bit of new, with Kaitlyn’s work. For the last time (on my part, at least), I hope you enjoy this month of The Catch newsletter!

— Sarah Dumitrascu,

Co-Editor in Chief

In Love and War – A Book Review on Madeleine Miller’s The Song of Achillies

Book Review by Sarah Dumitrascu

Love blossoms during sun-kissed days by the sea, and it battles on the blood-soaked fields of the Trojan War. In Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles, ancient myths and Greek heroes are unraveled to leave behind two boys, simple and known by one another.

            Miller’s The Song of Achilles reimagines Homer’s classic, The Illiad, as told through the perspective of disgraced prince Patroclus. Patroclus must flee his homeland in exile and seek asylum in the kingdom of Pthia. Here, he meets Prince Achilles, “Greatest of the Greeks” and hero of his generation. A demi-god, birthed by the cruel goddess Thetis, Achilles is everything the Greeks need him to be—radiant, strong, and a virtuoso on the lyre. He is a beautiful machine oiled for war and glory, but Patroclus is not. The two have no business crossing paths, but still, fate twines their two stories together.

            That story is told through Miller’s careful, expert hand. When Achilles is summoned to follow his fate, Patroclus chases from close behind. The youth they spend atop Mt. Pelion, training in shaded forests, exchanging whispers in the dark, Miller writes with a quiet intensity. Patroclus and Achilles’ relationship is never forced, nor is it some tired cliché. Instead, Miller manages to craft something between the two of them that feels timeless, fresh, and electric.

            Just as quickly as Miller crafts their innocence, she shreds it apart. When Agamemnon summons the Greeks to save Helen of Sparta in the Trojan War, Achilles chooses his fate, and Patroclus’s own fate is to follow. On this 10 year-long battlefield, boys are hardened into men, and Patroclus realizes that destiny lays more of a claim to Achilles than he ever will. Where the first half of Miller’s story tastes of sweet figs and sea salt, the tone of the novel’s latter half fills the reader’s mouth with tragedy and steel.

The Song of Achilles, for me, is quite simple: it’s a love story. It’s a love story pulled apart by gods and war, but one that, ultimately, cannot be undone. Narrating the story from Patroclus’s point of view, Miller shows us what it truly takes to love a hero, the courage needed to sing his song. Achilles and Patroclus find each other in their youth and their bond is spun tight, then too taut, then it’s loosened too early.

In Miller’s book, Achilles is not a perfect hero. He is a haughty boy reared by a prideful, hungering mother. Patroclus isn’t the perfect partner. He cannot admit to Achilles how he feels and contends himself to live in this golden warrior’s shadow. But together, the two form something compelling, something mythical. Together, they traverse Miller’s vivid Greek world, from Pthia’s seashore, to Pelion's Mountaintops, to the Trojan War’s grisly battlefields. Each place, each chapter, is a memory of Achilles and Patroclus’ lives, and The Song of Achilles is like flipping through a story that’s long been foretold. From left to right, above and below, this 360-degree story transports readers through beautiful things, broken things, fate, and tragic choices. And at the end of it, a light is waiting, one that will answer a question Achilles receives early on: is it “the greater grief, after all, to be left on earth when another is gone?” Compulsory and triumphant, The Song of Achilles is a new Greek classic. 

A Review of Scott Russell Sanders’s The Paradise of Bombs

Book Review by Giancarlo Laboy

The personal essays of Sanders are rich in emotion and captivate the imagination in a way that lingers on in your head like a heartfelt memory. While Sanders claims to be a simple man, his work says otherwise. His ruminations on the lesser-known parts of the great outdoors, life growing up in the American countryside, and masculinity are sure to resonate with almost anyone.

The Paradise of Bombs is composed of 11 essays, many of which have appeared in other literary journals, most notably The North American Review. The titular piece, “At Play in the Paradise of Bombs”, serves as both an introduction to Sanders’s work and as a subtle yet scathing attack on the way that the wars of the mid to late 20th century took command of his life from childhood and even into young adulthood. No line states the totality of war and its reach in everyone’s lives in 20th century America than what Sanders said on page 2— “my birth sign was a mushroom cloud”.

The book continues on with the more light-hearted “Coming From the Country”, in which he compares the life he has lived in both rural and urban areas and why he prefers his roots. In this piece, Sanders takes pride in being a “hick” and argues in favor of the ingenuity that rural folk must engage with in order to survive out in the country. For him, growing up meant learning not how to buy things but how to do them. Scarcity leads to resourcefulness, and for that, Sanders is able to give the audience a reason to appreciate life on the periphery of American urban sprawl. It’s a hearty story about the goodness of country-living and being proud of where you come from.

“Listening to Owls”, “Cloud Crossing”, and “Feasting on Mountains” all focus on a central theme that Scott’s work is most well known for— nature. In these essays, Sanders shares with us his ability to weave together introspection thoughts and intimate encounters with the wild. His words leave you with the impression that you have clearly overlooked the beauty and wisdom of the wilderness.

“Digging Limestone” and “In Stone Country” deal with his explorations in the quarry country of Indiana while “The Inheritance of Tools”, “The Men We Carry in Our Minds”, and “Death Games” delve into the many facets of masculinity, whether it be the way that media primes young boys to be comfortable (and even celebrate) violence through toys and TV shows or how men struggle with the guilt of trying to find meaning in their lives without letting those around them down.

The final story, “Doing Time in the Thirteenth Chair”, takes Sanders’ astute observations and uses them to analyze the intense (and often boring) work of jury duty. It redefines the importance of an often overlooked part of the American legal system and how trials can often lead to both confusion and feelings and conflict.

Overall, my words could never do Scott Russell Sanders’s work justice. His essays are gateways to lessons that we never asked for but need. They serve as a guide to thinking further on the ideas that many of us seem to gloss over in our busy lives. If you have the chance, I highly recommend reading this collection of essays to best understand his work. It is well worth the time and mental energy.

Untitled

By Kate Andrews

The Romantics Graveyard

By Kate Andrews

is a compost bin

of poems never written

because their desire for love

embarrasses winter

In the raw way

that I want to write

every beautiful word I’ve ever known

to highlight some shape of you

find it sappy

when does the tree become too sticky

At what point do you feel stuck in my praise

Do I fear the decaying of my words

with all other living things

the very poetry of the perished

I would speak on the dead

but I would never speak on you

in phrases less than

the sonic universal birth

that spaced us together

in order for me

to be writing romantic elugies

I want you

to bury me a thousand times over

in whatever you grieve