'The War That Killed Achilles,' 'Remarkable Creatures'

I love "The Iliad." I own a couple different editions as well as a shelf of books about it. There's only one problem: I've never been able to make it through the darn thing.

So thank you, Caroline Alexander, for "The War That Killed Achilles: The True Story of Homer's Iliad and the Trojan War" (Brilliance Audio, eight CDs, $29.99) - and thank you, Michael Page, for your wonderful narration, especially your rousing rendering of ancient Greek. (It sounded great to me.) Alexander, a classics scholar, writes for the curious layman, taking you book by book, and sometimes line by line, through Homer's timeless meditation on war, set during the last few weeks of the nine-year Trojan War.

The war in brief: An army of Achaeans (Greeks) has laid siege to Troy, in modern-day Turkey, because a Trojan prince, Paris, kidnapped the wife of King Menelaus, brother of the army's commander Agamemnon. Achilles, the Achaeans' greatest warrior, sits out the fight because he has been dishonored by Agamemnon and only deigns to fight when his closest friend, Patroclus, is slain by the Trojan prince, Hector. Whereas Paris is a bit of a dolt, his brother Hector is probably the epic's most sympathetic character.

Alexander provides all "The Iliad's" back story, not only historical but also literary and mythical: How much Bronze Age truth is there to the events it recounts? (Quite a lot, it turns out.) Who exactly was Homer and what kind of audience did he compose for? How did the epic make its way down to us?

Alexander makes clear that "The Iliad" is an anti-war epic: The justifications for the Trojan War are stupid and / or trumped up, the leaders are largely incompetent, the "enemy" is sympathetic and, although the soldiers are aware of all of this, they fight bravely nonetheless. Draw your own modern parallels.

"The Iliad" poses questions that remain not only relevant to our own time, but essential. In Alexander's words: "Is a warrior ever justified in challenging his commander? Must he sacrifice his life for someone else's cause? How is a catastrophic war ever allowed to start - and why, if all parties wish it over, can it not be ended?"

Tracy Chevalier's "Remarkable Creatures" (Penguin Audio, eight CDs, $39.95) is a pretty good novel about great ideas. It tells the true story of Mary Anning, an uneducated commoner living in an English seaside town, Lyme Regis, at the beginning of the 19th century. The beaches and cliffs there are partly a geological formation richly larded with Jurassic fossils, and Anning has a knack for finding them - though she has no idea what they are.

Enlightenment comes in the form of another historical character, Elizabeth Philpot, one of three well-born spinster sisters who moved from London to live more cheaply, since their marriage prospects are nil. ("Jane Austen meets Jurassic Park" is not really an accurate description of "Remarkable Creatures," but it was fun to type.)

Elizabeth, about 20 years older than Mary, has a thing for fossil fish. Mary is just a girl when the two meet, but over the years, Elizabeth becomes a protector and adviser to Mary and her family who, initially, do not understand either the significance or the value of the "crocodile" skeletons that Mary unearths.

All of this takes place against the backdrop of early geology, paleontology and zoology, and the novel perfectly illustrates the dilemma that educated 19th century people faced: If you read the Bible literally (as pretty much everyone did back then), how do you account for fossils? If they are remnants of animals that once existed and no longer do, then what does that say about the perfection of God's creation? Did he make some mistakes? If God created the earth first, and then animals, how did these bones get stuck in between layers of earth?

Neither woman is accorded much credit by the men who make use of their research to burnish their own reputations. Erudite Elizabeth rails against this, while accommodating Mary is more likely to flirt with the scholars who accompany her on her hunts. Chevalier uses this dichotomy to fashion some conflict for her plot, but it's not exactly a nail-biter. Still, it's a fascinating story, and I'm glad Chevalier has brought it to light. She is certainly helped by the spirited narration of Charlotte Parry and Susan Lyons, who lend the two heroines plenty of personality, pathos and pluck.