Homer on the Range

This article discusses Harry Brown’s The Stars in Their Courses, a well-crafted novel that recasts Homer’s Iliad in the form of a Western. (For instance, the book’s climax is a gunfight between Arch Eastmere [= Achilles] and Hallock [= Hector].) The novel can be a useful supplement in teaching, not only because of its dozens of plot and character parallels to Homer (tabulated in the article), but also because of its attractive “multimedia” features, which include photography, poetry, and nature writing that sets up nature as a modern equivalent for the Olympian gods.