The Rage of Achilles

The Rage of Achilles is a 2009 novel by Terence Hawkins, American author and founder of the Yale Writers' Conference and the Company of Writers. It is based on two premises: the historicity of the Homeric Trojan War and the accuracy of Julian Jaynes' theory of the bicameral mind. In it Hawkins imagines the battlefield and war councils peopled by real men to whom the gods appear merely as hallucinations and command voices at a time in which modern consciousness is suddenly and painfully emerging from prehistory. Thus, while Achilles appears as a killing machine driven by a fury he doesn't care to understand, Odysseus is a truly modern man, deeply aware of himself and his comrades. The language is modern and often graphic, but no more so than historic accuracy and literary craft require.

Critical Reception

"[Hawkins] provides much new insight on the tale . . . and turns something ancient into a new read, worthy of a second viewing. The Rage of Achilles is a fine spin on Homer's classical tale, a highly recommended read."—Midwest Book Review

"Hawkins' tale moves with the force of a cyclone. . . . It will be impossible not to be entertained and moved by this rendering of the age old story."—Historical Novels Review, February 2011

"This fascinating novel has a really simple concept at its core -- The Iliad as rewritten by Quentin Tarantino."—Chicago Center for Literature and Photography's Year's Best Experimental and Cutting-Edge Fiction.

"With prose at once elegant and terse, Hawkins helps us taste the bloody fields of Troy, the sea on which those one thousand Achaeans sailed, and the bitter tinge of what it is to be divine and human alike. The fresh breath of modernity used to propagate this account earns The Rage of Achilles a seat next to The Iliad as both companion and commentary."—Andrew Bowen, The Prick of the Spindle

The Rage of Achilles is that rare thing—a genuinely fresh take on a classic text. Terence Hawkins' modern retelling of "The Iliad" has the paradoxical, invigorating effect of making Homer's epic feel oddly familiar, and of highlighting its deep strangeness at the same time. --Tom Perrotta, author of "Little Children"