Pimp Your Paragraph #2

(Your comments are welcomed and highly encouraged. The author of this first paragraph submission is looking for all the constructive criticism they can receive to improve their opening hook.  Do you agree with us Hook'ers? Or were you hooked and would want to read more? Let this author know).

Original Paragraph: 

"Wrath, he asked of me. Waste your immortal voice singing of the destruction wrought by pitiless Achilles that cost Greek and Trojan lives alike. Glorify with a golden lyre fleet-footed Achilles whose insatiable blood-lust left mountains of corpses in his wake. Inspire bards in the years to come with praise for he who made a thousand widows mourn... Achilles’ wrath, he asked of me. Not piety nor wisdom should I honor. No, my father asked for wrath: celebrate the murderous rage of he that was doomed to die at the Skaian gate."

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"Wrath, he asked of me. Waste your immortal voice singing of the destruction wrought by pitiless Achilles that cost Greek and Trojan lives alike. Glorify with a golden lyre fleet-footed Achilles whose insatiable blood-lust left mountains of corpses in his wake. Inspire bards in the years to come with praise for he who made a thousand widows mourn...(reconsider ellipses) Achilles’ wrath, he asked of me(huh? repeater). Not piety nor wisdom should I honor. No, my father asked for wrath: celebrate the murderous rage of he that was doomed to die at the Skaian gate."  hmmm, I'm not sure how to comment on this. I had to read it a few times and still don't get it. I'm confused. Can you break it up with action or something? I have no context of what's going on or who's speaking. I'm sure I'll get that in the next graph but . . . ? 

~The Skeptical Hook'er

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Just bare with me here whist I take you on a tour through my dizzying intellect as I read this...
"Wrath, he asked of me. <Okay so we're talking to Wrath, right? okay. We're hitting the ground running. I like that>Waste your immortal voice singing of the destruction wrought by pitiless Achilles that cost Greek and Trojan lives alike. <Holy cow, long cumbersome sentence. It sounds more poetical than anything. Which could be a good thing if it's pulling us into the culture of Ancient Greece, but otherwise... For now let's go with the Grecian theory>Glorify with a golden lyre fleet-footed Achilles <Okay so we've got a new character in the mix. Great. I love a party, but why did we invite him if he's just going to stand around the punch bowl all night? Why is he here?>whose insatiable blood-lust left mountains of corpses in his wake. Inspire bards in the years to come with praise for he who made a thousand widows mourn... Achilles’ wrath, <Okay now you've officially lost me. Are we talking about Achilles? Or Wrath, Or Achilles' wrath? Now its like I'm stuck in a dark coat closet and I can't tell who's who or what's what.... and I'm missing the party>he asked of me. Not piety nor wisdom should I honor. No, my father<Oh crap! Party's over. Now dad's home! How did he get here so fast? And why is he here?> asked for wrath: celebrate the murderous rage of he that was doomed to die at the Skaian gate."

I hope that you will take my comments as nothing more than good natured. I don't mean any harm and I'm not really trying to mock your work. I'm trying to make the point here that we have no clear vision of time, place, character or setting. It could be in ancient Greece, or at a USU Toga party for all I know. Monologues are fine, but this one comes off difficult to understand and the story is still in the dark as far as I'm concerned.

~Rabbit in a Hat Hooker

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"Wrath, he asked of me. Waste your immortal voice singing of the destruction wrought by pitiless Achilles that cost Greek and Trojan lives alike. Glorify with a golden lyre fleet-footed Achilles whose insatiable blood-lust left mountains of corpses in his wake. Inspire bards in the years to come with praise for he who made a thousand widows mourn... Achilles’ wrath, he asked of me. Not piety nor wisdom should I honor. No, my father asked for wrath: celebrate the murderous rage of he that was doomed to die at the Skaian gate."

Okie, Dokie. Something is going on here. Something is being said, I get that by the use of quotation marks at the beginning and at the end of this passage. Quotation marks tend to indicate that--my deductive skills did help me figure that out.

Is this a a voodoo type curse to bring about the immortal destruction of Greece? A prayer? A student reading out of  text book? I don't know. I give up. I'm trying to understand what is taking place here and I ain't got a clue. 

I almost get the feeling that someone is reading this, quoting this. If so, we need something to indicate that. Starting off your novel in the manner, without the use of, "he said, while reading from his Greek Theology  book" or "he said, speaking to the heavens" leaves me very, very confused. I'm with The Rabbit in the Hat Hook'er on this one, I need a scene or a sense of time and place, something, anything to clarify this for me. This paragraph is cumbersome and really, tells me nothing. Perhaps the second paragraph would help or even the first chapter would better help me understand this passage, but since this is about the first paragraph only, I really haven't a clue what this story is about or where the author is planning to take me. 

~The Reluctant Hook'er