Terence Hawkins

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)

The last book I read by author Terence Hawkins was The Rage of Achilles, a well-done novel but nothing too terribly groundbreaking (it's simply The Iliad rewritten with modern language and slang); so imagine my surprise after reading his latest, the haunting and flabbergasting American Neolithic, and realizing that it's quite literally one of the top three books I've read in the last several years, a shocker that came out of left field for me and which made it even more enjoyable. At its heart it's a speculative tale -- the story of the very last tribe of Neanderthals in existence, who through a convoluted series of events have ended up "hiding in plain sight" within a contemporary Manhattan, with one of the members being mistaken for a developmentally challenged human by a rap gang and sort of adopted as a beloved yet laughed-at member of their posse. But when a rival gang member is killed and the blame shifted onto our hapless "Blingbling," this is where the story suddenly starts getting even meatier; for it turns out we're not in contemporary Manhattan at all, but rather a near-future America that has effectively weathered a coup by the Tea Party, which among other things has made it illegal to talk about evolutionary theory in public, which suddenly makes it a national security problem when Blingbling turns out to have DNA that is utterly unlike modern human genetics. Then if this wasn't enough, the book is a hardboiled crime and courtroom procedural as well, as our hero lawyer Raleigh navigates the tricky waters of a "justice" system under a semi-fascist state, trying through black humor and shady dealings to keep his own hide afloat while not letting down this most curious new client of his.

Already an amazing novel just from the premise alone, what tips this into one of the best books of recent memory is that the entire thing is written in this beautifully poetic style, presenting a clan of cavemen in a startlingly original way that few would ever think of presenting themselves, a heartbreaking story of migration and loss that is fascinating, clever, and bleakly funny in equal measure. About as perfect as a novel gets, which is why it's receiving a rare 10 out of 10 from me, American Neolithic floored me at a moment when I was least expecting it, and it will undoubtedly be making CCLaP's best-of lists at the end of the year. If you're going to read only one contemporary speculative novel this year, make it this one.

Out of 10: 10… (plus d'informations)

Amazing book...a modern version of the Iliad written in very hard to put down, explicit prose. If you are in love with the classic version and hate to see anyone fooling around with the Western canon, you will hate this. The language is wonderful, and you get the author's strong sense of the interior lives of all the principal characters. Odysseus in particular is amazing...basically an atheist with a strong sense of irony, he pretends the goddess Athena is constantly speaking to him. Achilles becomes a mostly evil character, more so than in the original (as bad as he was there). You begin to understand what the relationship between the Greek gods and people must have felt like. Best book I have read in a long time.… (plus d'informations)

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)

Although Terence Hawkins' The Rage of Achilles is an excellent book, there's really not that much to say about it from a critical standpoint: it's essentially a faithful retelling of the ancient Homer poem The Iliad, only using the kind of graphic modern language you might hear on an HBO series, and also assuming that what Homer called "the gods talking" was likely half-delusional inner-voice wish fulfillment from these constantly drunken, injured, sick, superstitious people. As such, then, I found it great, a volume that really makes the story of the Trojan War come alive in this surprisingly contemporary way (although make no mistake, it's actually set in the ancient times of the original); but to critique the plot or characters is to critique The Iliad itself, and we already have thousands of years of opinions and analysis on that subject. An adaptation that purists are sure to find silly and troubling, but others just the thing they wished they'd had when having to take all those tests in high school on the subject, although I don't have a lot to say about the book itself, it still comes strongly recommended.

Out of 10: 8.9… (plus d'informations)

I saw this on LT and had such hopes for it.

Unfortunately, it is little more than a comic book caricature of how a TV-trained mind thinks the Battle of Troy was 'Really' fought. Yes, it was much more gritty and raw than most literary works present it, but there is a difference between injecting some reality and turning it into MTV history ala the Tudors or the movie Troy, albeit with more sex and violence.

But even those failures have some decent characters, this book has almost none. Everyone is pretty vile. Like a choir of egomaniacs trying to out do each other. The idea writ large that the people in the past were not very smart because they weren't as advanced as we are.

Besides robbing the reader of a decent story, it pops you out of the flow. They didn't just appear on the beach to fight (of course in this book they did), but in reality these characters had a life and relationships before Troy, something that would convince them to go to war together. That subtlety is entirely absent. Yes, there were factions within the Achaeans, but within each faction they are all slagging away at each other too. As though they couldn't get enough fighting with the Trojans.

Its the kind of book that you look at the page numbers and you want it to end. Its not bad enough to chuck, but you feel like you have been sucked into a bad parody.… (plus d'informations)