http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/books/review/war-music-by-christopher-logue.html?emc=edit_bk_20160226&nl=bookreview&nlid=22180501&ref=headline&_r=0
Review begins:
On Mount Olympus the gods are at it again. Bickering, back-stabbing. Thetis implores Zeus, on behalf of her son, the Greek hero Achilles. Hera, the wife and sister of Zeus (you know how families can be), demands that he back her favorites. Far below, on the plains stretching from Troy to the sea, mere mortals fight and suffer in a war that has gone on far too long and will be sung forever. But for now, all-powerful Zeus has had enough. And he lets Hera and the others know it with a threat that shuts them up and silences the world. Then, we read:
It was so quiet in Heaven that you could hear
The north wind pluck a chicken in Australia.
Wait. What? A chicken plucked by the north wind? In Australia? In the “Iliad”? Put the book down, as I did years ago when I first read those lines, laugh out loud, stop, look into the distance, and just imagine — here in your home, there on the battlefield, high in wherever you believe Heaven to be — that kind of silence.
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