papersky: Mary Renault spoiler thread

Jo Walton (

papersky) wrote,
@ 2008-06-17 18:36:00

Mary Renault spoiler thread
Hey

pameladean and

the_red_shoes, why don't we talk about The Mask of Apollo over here where we won't be treading on

mrissa's toes when she hasn't read it yet?

If only I'd known when I was fifteen what I know today -- which is that if you read a book over and over, you will eventually memorise it, and then you can't read it any more.

Comments are going to have spoilers.

(Post a new comment)

	rysmiel 2008-06-17 10:50 pm UTC (link)
	I think you mean the_red_shoes there. (Reply to this)

	bethzebra 2008-06-17 10:52 pm UTC (link)
	I can still read the ones I've memorized, just not quite as often. I guess I haven't literally memorized them in the sense that I couldn't produce the books verbatim if given scratch paper, but I do recognize every word as I read it, and it doesn't bother me. In fact those are sort of my comfort books. (Reply to this)

	faithhopetricks 2008-06-17 11:05 pm UTC (link)
	Oh, fantastic! Yes please! (also this gives me a great excuse to find my copy and reread it.) which is that if you read a book over and over, you will eventually memorise it, and then you can't read it any more. .....god yeah. That's sooo depressing, when I wear books out for myself. Fortunately after a number of years it seems to wear off at least a little.... (Reply to this) (Thread)

	tekalynn 2008-06-18 01:56 am UTC (link)
	That's a feature, not a bug. It means the story is always with you and you can't lose it. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	faithhopetricks 2008-06-18 03:32 am UTC (link)
	....aww, I knew I liked you. //smiles (Reply to this) (Parent)

	papersky 2008-06-18 11:23 am UTC (link)
	Yes, it does, but it also means you can't really sit down and read it. These days I try not to read anything more than once a year. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	jonquil 2008-06-18 03:46 pm UTC (link)
	I'm very sad. I've worn out Austen and haven't read her in years; ditto Bujold. (The non-Miles stuff has never rung my chimes.) I miss being able to read those for comfort. For awhile there it was The Steel Helmets; currently the Penguin Famous British Trials [got title wrong] series is it. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

marydell
2008-06-19 02:39 am UTC (link)

Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe books are an exception to this, because while the details are memorable, the mystery solutions are oddly forgettable. I've read them all countless times, but there are only a few where I can recall whodunnit.

The Patrick O'Brian books are so lovely that I'm reading them slowly (for the first time, I'm on the 13th, I think) and rereading them even more slowly (already have reread the first couple even though not done with the series yet...), because I'll be very sad when they're all behind me.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

	nmsunbear 2008-06-17 11:59 pm UTC (link)
	which is that if you read a book over and over, you will eventually memorise it, and then you can't read it any more. Ha! There ARE advantages to having a memory like a sieve! :) (Reply to this)

	pameladean 2008-06-18 12:30 am UTC (link)
	Oh, thank you! I thought of doing something like that, but just suddenly stopped answering comments instead. P. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	lcohen 2008-06-18 02:48 am UTC (link)
	drat you all, now i need to find time to reread it. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	jonquil 2008-06-18 03:49 pm UTC (link)
	^^ What She Said. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	faithhopetricks 2008-06-18 04:29 am UTC (link)
	And I found my copy! (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	pameladean 2008-06-18 05:46 am UTC (link)
	Hooray! P. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

faithhopetricks
2008-06-18 05:59 am UTC (link)

Dear God, it's so lovely. I had this passage by heart once:

Ask some poet to describe the awe of Delphi, and some philosopher to explain it. I work with the words of other men. I looked back down the valley, the olives winding and falling mile on mile to a rock-clipped blink of sea. Beyond a vast gulf of air were the highlands of Mount Korax, cloud-patched with sun and gloom; westward the iron cliffs of Kirphis; above us reared Parnassos, more felt than seen. Its head was hidden by its knees, the rock-towers of the Phaidriades, which themselves seemed to gore the sky. Truly, Apollo is the greatest of all chorus-masters. The town, with his temple in the midst, is tiny as a toy in all this vastness; yet all those titan heads stand around that and look towards it. They are the chorus round his altar; if he raised his arm they would sing a dithyramb. I don't know any other deity who could bring off such a show. At Delphi, you don't ask how they know it is the center of the earth.

It was so good to meet it again.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	papersky 2008-06-18 11:25 am UTC (link)
	By the way, it's still like that. When I got off the bus, the first thing I thought was "Ah, yes, you certainly don't need to ask how they know it is the centre of the earth." Also, the silence is still there, in between everything. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	faithhopetricks 2008-06-18 09:16 pm UTC (link)
	//swoons ....man, I'll make it to Greece someday. If I have to swim. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	browngirl 2008-06-18 02:12 pm UTC (link)
	My heart is in my throat, all over again. I already had The King Must Die on my reread pile for work-related reasons, but The Mask of Apollo has bumped it, I think. I want to be able to try to keep up with you all here. looks around OK, I want to be able to keep you all in sight as I run full-tilt after you. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	faithhopetricks 2008-06-18 06:03 am UTC (link)
	Also I had forgotten (altho how could I have!) how deftly she works in political concerns in the trope of actors being natural ambassadors -- diplomats really -- and spies. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	pameladean 2008-06-18 07:05 am UTC (link)
	Yes, it's very deft. And the lovely resonance because to be an actor is to be in the service of Dionysus -- my goodness, we haven't even MENTIONED the production of THE BACCHAE -- and so exempts one from military service. P. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

I leave you a city bound with chains of adamant

faithhopetricks
2008-06-18 08:14 am UTC (link)

omg omg the Bacchae! And the mask that comes late! (Like some WIGS in a book I know, now that I think on it!) I had to reread that part straight off, before diving into it from the beginning all over again. And omg, I had forgotten the mask talks to him, or rather, he sort of gets divinations from it....and poor Niko when he says, "But it's such fabulous theatre," when Plato is dissing Euripides, and how Dion defends him. And the first time Niko sees Dion he practically has little cartoon hearts whirling around his head (and is drunk on his wine), it's darling. -- Oh, and I love Niko so much for playing Priam, because that passage is one of my favourite parts of the Iliad. (Well of anything, really.) ἀλλ' αἰδει̂ο θεοὺς ̓Αχιλευ̂, αὐτόν* τ' ἐλέησον / μνησάμενος σου̂ πατρός: ἐγὼ δ' ἐλεεινότερός περ, / ἔτλην δ' οἱ̂' οὔ πώ τις ἐπιχθόνιος βροτὸς ἄλλος, / ἀνδρὸς παιδοφόνοιο ποτὶ στόμα χει̂ρ' ὀρέγεσθαι (I think I got the right passage there). Fear, O Achilles, the wrath of heaven; think on your own father and have compassion upon me, who am the more pitiable, for I have steeled myself as no man yet has ever steeled himself before me, and have raised to my lips the hand of him who slew my son.

-- Plato is drawn v deftly -- not exactly a....prig, but she almost pokes fun at him a little bit, -- no, not fun, quite, or maybe loving fun. Soooooo serious, and the way Niko keeps noticing he doesn't know how to project (I love, love little details like that). And Dion is also soooo serious. And omg I loved that little -- not sour, but -- slightly cynical? bit, when Niko listens to them talk about his near-death-by-falling and thinks, omg, you are a king and you are a philosopher and I'm just an actor, but I know crowds and you don't. Dion strikes me as being sort of like Germanicus in I, Claudius, always thinking of and bringing out the best in people, except that way he's blind to how they can be at their worst. ....I can't now remember if we read Dion in Plutarch at SJC, but it would surprise me if we hadn't, since Plato's in it.

And being exempt from military service, yes, when everyone else around has been in battle so long, and even the philosophers are all scarred up, and everyone keeps remembering back to the Great War. And when he first sights the quarry, where so many Athenians died, I remembered Thucydides and shivered, that was so awful. And this bit!:

....The one good thing was that those dour-faced bullies needing to ask our help proved they were down to third roles for good and would never play lead again. They had been thought invincible, only because they were in war training from the cradle to the grave; but the Great War went on so long that other Greeks too got this professional experience, though against their will. By the end of it a good many had borne arms since they were boys, and barely knew another calling. So, like actors short of work, they went on tour. There were still nearly as many wars going on as drama festivals, and all of them needed extras.

//swoons

And I always remembered Niko and Thettalos hamming it up for the soldiers, and that affecting the interpretation of Thersites -- that's one of my v favourite parts. (Well I'm not even really offering any analysis, just gushing and quoting, but OMG I do just love this book so much.)

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

But I loved you, O Dion.

papersky
2008-06-18 11:31 am UTC (link)

I think one of the things that makes it work so brilliantly is the angle Niko brings. It's partly a class angle -- Plato and Dion are blind to the way poor people really think and really live. Socrates wasn't, but they are. There are things Plato knows intellectually that Niko knows in his gut, and Niko knows things Plato doesn't know and can't see too. So we get that angle, and the creative angle ("but it's such great theatre") and that highlights the heroic -- Niko's always playing kings and heroes. Plato genuinely believes that the actor representing them is doing something scarily important.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

'Be quiet, you little bastard. You're dead.'

faithhopetricks
2008-06-18 09:43 pm UTC (link)

It's partly a class angle -- Plato and Dion are blind to the way poor people really think and really live. Socrates wasn't, but they are. There are things Plato knows intellectually that Niko knows in his gut, and Niko knows things Plato doesn't know and can't see too. So we get that angle, and the creative angle ("but it's such great theatre") and that highlights the heroic -- Niko's always playing kings and heroes. Plato genuinely believes that the actor representing them is doing something scarily important.

Yes! Yes, I loved that Niko was concerned about savings, and money, and jobs, and general living stuff like that (also v in-character for artists, esp actors, going job to job). And actors have that ability to move around in society, too, from rank to rank, altho a lot of the time their own ranking still stays pretty low (I love that Jean Rhys joke, "Actors and fish -- shove them on a siding"). And Niko gets asked several times at least if he's always been an actor -- and he doesn't ever tell Plato (or Dion) about the mask, I don't think, but that ties in his calling, his connection to the divine. The mask is like his own personal oracle, and at the same time it's the conscience of his art (maybe demonstrating part of the concept of arete?). And of course Niko plays Apollo himself, and Dionysos, v naturally in the plot.

Also I noticed this time round, Dion first wants to know Niko for his courage (and the much more dangerous flight-as-Apollo is foreshadowed by the half-comic one, where instead of fighting -- and someone grabbing his fake sword, which is echoed when he takes the soldier's real sword in the farce by the gates -- he recites, to spur on the mini-battle) and asks him if he had any special training (i.e. military) because he'd seen men in battle not be that cool in the face of death. And Niko's response is, no, not as an actor, but he didn't want to dishonor the god....That also ties in so much to his father -- we don't see much of him, even in Niko's memories, but he thinks 'my father would die of shame' his first time as the protagonist when he nearly dries up, and of shame again when he thinks of how it would look if the mask were "bleating" 'Get me down!' His profession is his way of having honor, and honoring the divine, just as much as Plato with philosophy and Dion with ruling.

(I wonder how much of the book is a specific answer -- or dialogue with, ha -- Plato's writing about the theatre, but it's been a looong while since I read any of that. Niko and Plato arguing about Euripides reminds me at least a bit of the dissing of Homer in the Republic.)

Also I have always, always wanted to see the Symposium as a stage play (it's my favourite dialogue, partly for that v theatrical quality).

Edited at 2008-06-18 09:54 pm UTC

(Reply to this) (Parent)

papersky
2008-06-18 11:52 am UTC (link)

That production of THE BACCHAE probably just edges out your production of HAMLET and ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD in my list of great imaginary productions of theatre I desperately want to have been at.

I've seen very little classical theatre. I saw Euripides ELECTRA in the original at Epidauros. And then I saw Menander's DISKOLOS there where they brought the costuming forward, starting classical with masks, then Shakesperean, then modern black-body-stockings as the performance went on. And I saw MEDEA in Japanese, English and Classical Greek in the Finge a few years ago. And I have seen ANTIGONE in English and French. And OEDIPUS REX a couple of years ago. And I once directed a production of WOMEN OF TROY. But that's all. I've never seen any production of THE BACCHAE. Do people even try it now?

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

faithhopetricks
2008-06-18 09:51 pm UTC (link)

But that's all

....wow, that's probably more than anyone else in the room, I'd bet.

-- St John's students used to do a Greek play every year, I think, and then a Shakespeare (they might not be so ambitious now, this was a while ago), and my first term as a freshman it was the Bacchae. No masks, v simple costumes, even simpler sound effects, natural outdoor staging area where there was a big open 'Placita' with a big goldfish pond and trees and rocks and an artificial waterfall over them as natural scenery. Seating was super-informal, mainly on the (concrete) ground of the Placita around the 'stage,' which wasn't really marked off at all. So this was right smack in the environment where we lived our daily lives, with people we knew playing the roles, and you were sort of right in the middle of it.

And you know, these were students, and not even -theatre- students, and in fact I don't think most of them had a lot of theatrical background at all -- and a lot of it was played just as broad farce. (They started v late in the afternoon, so the sunset and then chill of night naturally enhanced the darkening tone of the play, which was super-effective.) But man oh man, and I have been dining out on this story for far too long but it's absolutely true, by the horrible horrible Recognition Scene it was like you could feel the divine energy practically sizzling around everyone, actors, audience, whoever. (I honestly thought when Agave recognized the head I might be sick.) Talk about katharsis. It didn't matter this was a one-off v amateur production with a small v local audience, we were all hypnotized. People looked white and dazed afterwards.

-- Maybe that's why it's not done more often (if so)? One does not lightly call down the God.

(Let's see what else did I see....my sophomore year, I think, the students did the Clouds, of course, b/c of Socrates, which was v fun. In an Aristophanes class we saw several filmed productions, including a modern Frogs which had Euripides as a Vanilla Ice-style rapper, which was pretty freaking hysterical. Aaaand I think once I saw this PBS production of the Libation Bearers, it must have been, which was touted as being done 'with accurate costumes' and omg the HUGE heels and the big masks and they had, no lie, close-ups of the masks during speeches. A CLOSE-UP ON A MASK! wtf. I couldn't finish watching it.)

Edited at 2008-06-18 09:58 pm UTC

(Reply to this) (Parent)

	marydell 2008-06-18 01:37 am UTC (link)
	Ooo, I love that book. I've only read it 4 times though, so I haven't memorized it yet. (Reply to this)

mmegaera
2008-06-18 01:53 am UTC (link)

if you read a book over and over, you will eventually memorise it, and then you can't read it any more

Oh, no. The first half of your statement is definitely correct, but the second half -- I am currently listening to an audiobook that I've a) read at least fifteen or twenty times in print, and b) listened to at least three times, and while I often say favorite lines out loud right along with the narrator (nobody here to hear me but the cats [g]), it is in no way, shape, or form worn out for me. It's like visiting old friends, people I would miss terribly if I didn't get to hear from them once in a while.

That said, I really do wonder how they're doing these days, but their author hasn't written a book about them in a while [g].

(Reply to this)

The Last of the Wine

arkuat
2008-06-18 04:31 am UTC (link)

Well, over on the Mrissa's comments I noticed someone (I forget who now) who listed all my favorite Renault books on one hand, and The King Must Die and some of the other Renaults that I had trouble with on the other, but put The Last of the Wine on the other hand rather than on the one hand. I loved The Last of the Wine almost as much as Mask of Apollo and the Alexander books.

Perhaps it's just because I'm particularly fascinated by that particular period of Greek history, depressing though it be. I'm wondering whether the people who don't like Last of the Wine didn't like or haven't read Thucydides either.

And perhaps I like it so much because I first read it during the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq, when I couldn't stop drawing stupid parallels in my head between the worst excesses of Athenian imperialism and current American excesses. G. W. Bush as Cleon. Et cetera.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

	Re: The Last of the Wine faithhopetricks 2008-06-18 06:01 am UTC (link)
	If I am the person you're thinking of (and yes, I didn't like Last of the Wine) I prefer Thucydides to Herodotus, altho that's like comparing Sophokles to Menander. I think he is the greatest of historians. (Reply to this) (Parent)

Re: The Last of the Wine

papersky
2008-06-18 11:35 am UTC (link)

I love it too. But I also love The King Must Die.

tLotW was her first classical novel, and I think there are ways in which it's more straightforward and less complex than the later ones. It's closer to Thucydides too. But I think it does what it's doing really well, and it has that wonderful moment in the taverna in Samos.

And that is an interesting comparison.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

Re: The Last of the Wine

faithhopetricks
2008-06-18 09:27 pm UTC (link)

tLotW was her first classical novel, and I think there are ways in which it's more straightforward and less complex than the later ones. It's closer to Thucydides too

Hmm yeah, maybe that's my problem with it -- it feels less imagined than the others? I mean, in terms of her sort of putting herself back there in history....oh God I should probably reread it again. (Altho I looked at it a little last night, and erk, had trouble with the narrator. I think Renault usually does clueless-but-not-stupid v well -- and uses it with beauty and efficiency as a storytelling device -- but he seemed annoying, altho I was glancing and skimming.)

(Reply to this) (Parent)

Re: The Last of the Wine

marydell
2008-06-18 12:01 pm UTC (link)

I love the Last of the Wine too - it's my favorite book, actually, by anybody. Some people find it shockingly sad, though. And some of the sexual stuff is irritatingly coy.

I didn't like Funeral Games much - that's really, REALLY sad, and doesn't have a compelling narrator - and The Praise Singer is a bit light. So is The Persian Boy, really, although it's good through the first couple of readings. Fire From Heaven....eh, I just don't like her young Alexander that much, he seems like kind of a dick.

The King Must Die is another of my faves, but The Bull from the Sea not so much, though. But the myth itself turns pretty sour in its second half, so I guess that's to be expected.

I haven't read any of the source material...I get all of my ancient history from Renault and Graves! *shame*

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

Re: The Last of the Wine

jonquil
2008-06-18 03:44 pm UTC (link)

I read The King Must Die over and over and over again as a teenager, because the Amazon (forget her name; don't think it was Penthiselea) was one of the few, very few, female warriors, and because Theseus valued her for that. (Unless that's in The Bull from the Sea; I almost think of them as one.)

The Last of the Wine breaks my heart every time, especially the last line. Athens is just hammered by one blow after another, and watchng the lead character slide slowly from citizen to poverty while trying to maintain vividly illustrates the overall crash. And his defying his father and rescuing his sister, even though he knew it was wrong...

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	Re: The Last of the Wine papersky 2008-06-18 04:14 pm UTC (link)
	Hippolyta. And she's in The Bull From the Sea, which I do not like very much, and which consequently is the only Renault historical I can actually read. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	Re: The Last of the Wine marydell 2008-06-19 02:52 am UTC (link)
	I love that Hippolyta is called a King, not a Queen. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	Re: The Last of the Wine papersky 2008-06-19 12:11 pm UTC (link)
	Me too. This was a big influence on my making that same decision with the language in the Sulien books (Reply to this) (Parent)

'I was Alexander the Great's chief eunuch'

faithhopetricks
2008-06-18 09:25 pm UTC (link)

Some people find it shockingly sad, though.

That would be me! yeah, particularly the ending. ACK FORESHADOWING HEMLOCK NOOOO. Plus flashbacks to reading the Trilogy of Death dialogues at St John's and me totally being the guy (I forget who, ha) who at one point goes, "Socrates, all of this is truly, truly fascinating, and important, and wonderful, and I think we could go on discussing it somewhere very else."

I didn't like Funeral Games much - that's really, REALLY sad, and doesn't have a compelling narrator

YEAH, and misogynistic as all hell, too, or at least my memory of it is so. What was her first title for it -- 'Hot Ashes'? Much more appropriate.

- and The Praise Singer is a bit light.

Aww, yeah, so it is. (But Simonides! Simonides love.)

So is The Persian Boy, really, although it's good through the first couple of readings.

Yeah, I haven't reread that one in quite a while....I never found Bagoas as likeable as everyone else seems to. He strikes me as manipulative (I mean, you can't -blame- him, just....). That and Charioteer seemed to have been coming-out reading list staples for a lot of my friends in college, which is interesting.

Fire From Heaven....eh, I just don't like her young Alexander that much, he seems like kind of a dick.

And there's also that compelling-narrator problem again, isn't there? I do think I like her first-person books a lot better (except Charioteer, of course).

I get all of my ancient history from Renault and Graves! *shame*

Hee! I get most of my history from novels, too. Renault's pretty reliable I think -- FAR more so than Graves, at any rate, altho so is Herodotus (not a compliment).

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

Re: 'I was Alexander the Great's chief eunuch'

marydell
2008-06-19 02:51 am UTC (link)

I never read The Charioteer - the idea of a WWI romance just doesn't appeal to me. One of these days I suppose I'll read it.

For me, the trouble with The Persian Boy is that it's about the person who hangs around back at camp pining for his true love while the battle is underway. Bagoas just doesn't have anything all that interesting going on in his own life--he gets laid, he gets jealous, he dances, he gets diarrhea...meh. Not that this is his fault, of course, and it's beautifully written, but I just don't feel the need to return to it often. Particularly compared to all the things that happen to Theseus, Alexias, or Niko.

The sadness is what I love about The Last of the Wine, tempered by the relatively happy ending for Alexias (happiness being: marrying someone he cares about, having sons, dying at peace). The moment that kills me isn't Socrates with the cup, but the baby brother and the soup tureen. ARG! Cruel fate.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

The sons of dreams.

papersky
2008-06-19 12:36 pm UTC (link)

The Charioteer is set during WWII. And it's an amazing book.

I can't agree with you about The Persian Boy. Oh, it certainly isn't an adventure story. But it's a nation building story. It's a personal and internal story. Thinking about this has made me see it from quite an interesting angle -- it's a kind of story which is far more often about women, sitting back in camp waiting for their lover to come back from battle so they can be a helpmeet. It would be quite a different book if Bagoas were a woman.

One of the things about the male/male romances in Renault that appealed to me as a heterosexual female teenager was that they were equal relationships. I know that in reality gay men have the same sort of inequalities everyone does, this isn't about that. But there's a way that women historically aren't really considered people, and have only been considered people really recently, and still have to fight for it, and even now in a relationship there are expectations. (The other day a friend said, seeing my husband sweeping the floors "How nice that he helps you with that." He isn't helping me! He lives here too! Why is it my job that he's nicely helping with?) I think all of Renault's work from Purposes of Love onwards is an examination of power balances and expectations in relationships with people. From The Charioteer on, she's writing about relationships between men, because the power balance starts off with them as equivalent. It's as if in all her work she's examining whether one has to be the lover and one the beloved. (The Friendly Young Ladies is an interesting case in this context too. And Renault was a woman, and a lesbian as I understand it. But anyway.) I think The Persian Boy is particularly interesting seen in this light, because Bagoas isn't exactly male, and certainly isn't female either, and the power balance there is -- well, Alexander is Alexander, and Bagoas is quite explicitly his servant. But beyond that, it's also a poly relationship -- there is Hephaistion, and there's Roxane, and there's Alexander's expressed kink for receiving love.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

Re: The sons of dreams.

marydell
2008-06-19 04:47 pm UTC (link)

LOL, I don't hate The Persian Boy, I just find it a bit dreary compared to some of the others. I was thinking about whether it can be considered as a "woman's story," and I do think the parallel is there, but compare it to, ferinstance The Red Tent, and there's a lot missing in his life. Which is, perhaps, the point - as a eunuch, Bagoas doesn't have the life of a woman or of a man--no battles or power, but also no children, no household, etc--just love. "I am reduced to a thing that wants Virginia" (Vita Sackville-West).

Hm...thinking it over further...agency, for Bagoas, is bound up with his erotic power, which is probably a strength of the book. But I don't relate to that kind of power, (b/c I haz Issues). I relate pretty strongly to his helplessness and victimhood, while the ways in which he's triumphant mostly don't resonate with me. Certainly not the way that calling earthquakes down upon one's foes do.

I think many of Renault's male/male romance are between unequal partners (Alexander and Bagoas, certainly; Niko and Dion), but typically the less-powerful partner is about as powerful as a modern woman, and yeah, compared to women of the time, tons more powerful.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

Re: The sons of dreams.

browngirl
2008-06-20 02:17 pm UTC (link)

I can't agree with you about The Persian Boy. Oh, it certainly isn't an adventure story. But it's a nation building story. It's a personal and internal story. Thinking about this has made me see it from quite an interesting angle -- it's a kind of story which is far more often about women, sitting back in camp waiting for their lover to come back from battle so they can be a helpmeet. It would be quite a different book if Bagoas were a woman.

Yes, this. I think this is a lot of why I love that book, and also... I really identify with Bagoas' way of doing things; there are other routes to power than the sword. (Needless to say, to identify is not always to approve.)

One of the things about the male/male romances in Renault that appealed to me as a heterosexual female teenager was that they were equal relationships. I know that in reality gay men have the same sort of inequalities everyone does, this isn't about that. But there's a way that women historically aren't really considered people, and have only been considered people really recently, and still have to fight for it, and even now in a relationship there are expectations.

In quite a few discussions I've been in over the last few years, I've seen this said.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

Re: 'I was Alexander the Great's chief eunuch'

papersky
2008-06-19 12:15 pm UTC (link)

How can you say anything against Bagoas? He had a very traumatic childhood you know!

I love that he isn't perfect. I think he's another narrator like Niko, who sees things from an angle you wouldn't expect and consequently shines light into amazing places. If The Last of the Wine is too aristocratic and Athenian, The Persian Boy takes Renault's Hellenism in quite another direction.

I always cry at Alexander's death. I do it so reliably that

rysmiel seeing me reading it and crying could say "Alexander dead again?" and I had to say "It's been two and a half thousand years, and he's still dead."

(Reply to this) (Parent)

	Re: 'I was Alexander the Great's chief eunuch' papersky 2008-06-19 12:38 pm UTC (link)
	I don't think Funeral Games is misogynistic so much as history is. I don't think it's a very successful novel (but hey, I could read it, I've only read it half a dozen times) because it's trying to cover too much ground. It's also incredibly sad. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	The Mask of Apollo wolfinthewood 2008-06-18 08:50 am UTC (link)
	The first Mary Renault book I ever read. I was fifteen, and just starting classical Greek, and it was recommended by my terrific classics teacher. It was the first book I ever read in which a homosexual relationship was brought centre stage and treated straightforwardly. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	Re: The Mask of Apollo papersky 2008-06-18 11:38 am UTC (link)
	It probably was the first book with a straightforward homosexual relationship I read too. I first read it when I was very young -- less than ten. It, well, Renault generally, brought me when I was older to seek out Plato and Euripides and Xenophon. (Reply to this) (Parent)

ethelmay
2008-06-18 03:38 pm UTC (link)

One of Antonia Forest's books (_The Cricket Term_) has Nicola reading _The Mask of Apollo_ (she has to smuggle it back to boarding school with her because it's Limited: in the school library, but only for older students to read). Next time I read _The Cricket Term_ I must work out *why* Forest chose that book for Nicola to be obsessed with just at that point. I am sure there is a reason, just as there was for her to be reading _Persuasion_ in _The Ready-Made Family_.

I did know _The Last of the Wine_ almost by heart once, but re-reading it again after the passage of years, it seemed quite different. I've had books suddenly go chameleon on me after an incredible number of readings. I suppose that says more about the condition of my brain cells than anything else.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

	faithhopetricks 2008-06-18 09:18 pm UTC (link)
	One of Antonia Forest's books (_The Cricket Term_) has Nicola reading _The Mask of Apollo_ (she has to smuggle it back to boarding school with her because it's Limited: in the school library, but only for older students to read) //melts Ohh that's lovely! Now I shall have to read that. (Reply to this) (Parent)

muuranker
2008-06-19 09:06 pm UTC (link)

I am trying to remember which of the two I read first! I got to Renault early, and Forrest late....

Whichever ... yes, I think it is *significatnt* that Nicola reads "mask" at this point. My own take on this: Nick is a twin, and her relationship with Lawrie is particularly tested/testy during 'Cricket Term'. Reading about Niko (note name-alligence!) helps her to think about Lawrie, and understand 'the theatre'.

One of the things I loved as a child was the interlacing of 'The Player's Boy' with the main Marlows series, and it seemed to me that 'The Mask of Apollo' was being used in much the same way. I also recall (from the dizzying heights of 17-or-so-year-old-wisdom) agreeing with Nick's statement that 'it would be a bit *something*' if second-years read 'Mask'.

(Reply to this)

Username:		Create an Account Forgot your login? Login w/ OpenID
Password:
	Remember Me
	English • Español • Deutsch • Русский…

About

Help

Get Involved

Legal

Store

LJ Labs