rival those of the three stars in Orion's Belt: 1.7 (
Alnilam), 1.7
The three stars are called Alnitak,
Alnilam and Mintaka, names derived from the Arabic words for "the line", years time - it's something of a "live fast, die young" life for this trio.
You need to remember that the
Alnilam protagonist is not so much ahuman as superhuman, or perhaps ahuman and superhuman, without attempting to be so.
The theory states that the three Giza pyramids have been built to align with the three bright stars of Orion's belt: Alnitak,
Alnilam, and Mintaka.
They are Mintaka,
Alnilam, and Alnitak, and they point down to Sirius, the brightest star up there and part of the constellation Canis Major.
Made up of seven stars - Betelgeuse, Rigel, Bellatrix, Mintaka,
Alnilam, Alnitak and Saiph - Orion, often referred to as The Hunter in reference to Greek mythology, is the most visible star cluster in the night sky.
Orion looms above you in the east a few hours after dark; the three bright jewels of his belt are, from left to right, Alnitak,
Alnilam, and Mintaka.
Meyers alleged that I compared Proust's Marcel to Frank Cahill, the "rough hero" of Dickey's
Alnilam, but I did nothing of the sort.
Dickey's later work includes Sorties: Journal and New Essays (1971); Jericho: The South Beheld (with Hubert Shuptrine, 1974), a coffee-table book; The Central Motion: Poems 1968-1979 (1983), which comprises The Eye-Beaters, Blood, Victory, Madness, Buckhead and Mercy (1970), The Zodiac (1976), and The Strength of Fields (1979); Puella (1982) and The Eagle's Mile (1990), books of poems; and
Alnilam (1987), a novel.