Elijah, the Persian Boy.
Sep. 16th, 2005 10:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
layne67I really enjoyed reading Mary Renault's The Persian Boy. So much so that it has revived my interest in the Alexander/Hephaestion fandom. I used to lurk there when the movie first came out.
Speaking of the movie, I wish that I've read the book before I saw the film. Elijah is simply PERFECT as the tragic eunuch. The way Renault described him - beautiful, big-eyes, small,slender.... A far cry from Oliver Stone's Bagoas. As it is, that Bagoas kept intruding into my mind, superimposed on my Elijah/Bagoas. Hmmm, I wonder whether he would have accepted the role of Bagoas if offered. He looks the part but can he dance the way Bagoas did, all sinuous and erotic, wearing nothing but a glittering loincloth perhaps? *shivers*
But as much as I love reading the book, I wish Renault was more explicit in her narratives, more NC-17 if you may. Bagoas's gelding for instance, if only she had expanded on that. And of course the sex scenes, I want MORE!!!
Renault had given a very interesting triangle in The Persian Boy. I used to dismiss Bagoas before, not quite liking him for coming in between Alexander and Hephastion. Oliver Stone's version of Bagoas didn't help much either. IMO he looked rather like a man in drags. But I can sympathize with Renault's Bagoas. His father murdered, the rest of his family dead in front of his eyes, castrated and sold as a slave/whore. It was his wondrous beauty that saved him when he became Darius's boy instead of just a common whore. And he was saved once again when he was given to Alexander as a gift. He fall in love with the kind and generous Alexander of course, who could blame him for that. It's just his bad luck that Alexander's love for Hephaestion was eternal. I've always wondered whether it was actually Bagoas who had poisoned Hephaestion. Renault's Bagoas thought about it, many times but couldn't bring himself to do it. But one wonders ... Though of course Hephaestion ( darn it's so hard to spell that name ) might actually have died of natural causes, tyhpoid for instance. But then, even if he had poisoned Hephaestion, it was all in vain because Alexander died not long after, Achilles following his Patroklus.
I'm definitely reading 'Fire From Heaven' after this.
Speaking of the movie, I wish that I've read the book before I saw the film. Elijah is simply PERFECT as the tragic eunuch. The way Renault described him - beautiful, big-eyes, small,slender.... A far cry from Oliver Stone's Bagoas. As it is, that Bagoas kept intruding into my mind, superimposed on my Elijah/Bagoas. Hmmm, I wonder whether he would have accepted the role of Bagoas if offered. He looks the part but can he dance the way Bagoas did, all sinuous and erotic, wearing nothing but a glittering loincloth perhaps? *shivers*
But as much as I love reading the book, I wish Renault was more explicit in her narratives, more NC-17 if you may. Bagoas's gelding for instance, if only she had expanded on that. And of course the sex scenes, I want MORE!!!
Renault had given a very interesting triangle in The Persian Boy. I used to dismiss Bagoas before, not quite liking him for coming in between Alexander and Hephastion. Oliver Stone's version of Bagoas didn't help much either. IMO he looked rather like a man in drags. But I can sympathize with Renault's Bagoas. His father murdered, the rest of his family dead in front of his eyes, castrated and sold as a slave/whore. It was his wondrous beauty that saved him when he became Darius's boy instead of just a common whore. And he was saved once again when he was given to Alexander as a gift. He fall in love with the kind and generous Alexander of course, who could blame him for that. It's just his bad luck that Alexander's love for Hephaestion was eternal. I've always wondered whether it was actually Bagoas who had poisoned Hephaestion. Renault's Bagoas thought about it, many times but couldn't bring himself to do it. But one wonders ... Though of course Hephaestion ( darn it's so hard to spell that name ) might actually have died of natural causes, tyhpoid for instance. But then, even if he had poisoned Hephaestion, it was all in vain because Alexander died not long after, Achilles following his Patroklus.
I'm definitely reading 'Fire From Heaven' after this.
