BC ratchets up the stakes

Here's where things get a bit ugly:

Aside from confirming my premise, [you have] done nothing to answer my question. I suppose, however, that in confirming my premise he intends to deny the validity of the question itself. But citing Prof. Fagles' observation only serves to expand my basic premise, which I admit I had previously assumed applied chiefly to 20-somethings and comp-lit grad students (of whatever age; the latter's attachment to Hector is rooted, I'm quite sure, in the essentially collectivist nature of Troy as depicted by Homer).

I know already that [your] literary views are impervious to reconsideration, but I will say one word on Hector: He _is_ one-dimensional. His loyalty to family, tribe and country is absolute and absolutely defining for him. As [you yourself say], "[Hector] has no choice to make." which is to say, he is one-dimensional, Q.E.D.

[You are] wrong, however, in asserting that Achilles' choice is no choice. Achilles' choice, and not Hector's, forms pretty much the whole plot of the poem. The Iliad begins with Achilles' rage over Briseus, an affront which, although comparatively trifling in itself, leads Achilles ultimately to question the whole system of values upon which the war, and his participation in it, is premised. When he ultimately returns to battle, it is in the name of personal honor, rather than timé or immortality or some other more conventional Greek goal. That arc--from pursuer of glory for glory's sake to individual choice. Hector never makes it beyond the collective to the individual.

That, by the way, is my answer to my own question: Achilles represents a kind of radical individualism with which many (esp. those not "on the right") in our modern age are uncomfortable. They much prefer (as would, I suppose, a certain kind of conservative) the unreflective family-values conservatism of Hector. It disappoints me that Fagles falls into this category, but what can you do?

I should mention for ease of understanding that BC and I have argued in the past about Joyce's role in the canon, and he's in fact right that I'm not willing to budge on my view of Joyce as the single most important writer---in the world-historical, culture- transforming sense---of any language, at least since Shakespeare. In any case, since I never sought to antagonize him, you can see why this response pissed me off.