(the committee) presents it not only as sane, but laudable. Also, I tried to remember that he, like all the combatants, had killed a lot of people at very close range, which doesn’t make for empathy. Yet, at the same time he was capable of equating Priam’s grief with his own father’s to such an extent that he returned the body of his lover’s killer. So there were moments when I thought of him as a psychopathic narcissistic killing machine and others when I thought he was briefly capable of human feeling. But he’s not a modern man—there’s only one in the book, but I won’t drop a spoiler here. 11) I am dead-bang in agreement in your portrayal of Paris' truly naive impulsiveness and Keatsian-pouty immaturity. Why did you choose to highlight that vein of his personality? What does it say about the current day's view of romance? Paris’ impulsivity and immaturity go farther than Achilles.’ He stole his host’s wife. In doing so he violated one of the most fundamental laws of the ancient world—hospitality. Only an offense against the gods of this magnitude could have triggered the formation of the Greek alliance against Troy. What kind of idiot would do this? Clearly a spoiled idiot—his family, far from setting the Golden Boy on fire as expiation and sending Helen back to Menelaus with as much money as they could find, instead fight a ten year war to hang onto her. I thought this was an extreme version of the maxim that the King can do no wrong, and so depicted the Royal Family as semi-divine—definitely not a Greek idea. As to the contrast between ancient and modern views of romance, it’s pretty clear that in the former case, because women were purely chattels, there was no question of having an emotional relationship that we could recognize. Speaking of Paris and Menelaus, I wanted to mention something I noticed when I was writing the book. The beef is between Menelaus and Paris, but the war is prosecuted by Agamemnon and Hector—their older brothers. Clearly this is no accident, but I haven’t yet figured out its significance. Perhaps your readers can weigh in!
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