Elijah, the Persian Boy.

[layne67]

I 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.

Comments

[parisad.livejournal.com]

Well, I have to say that I don't love Renault's novels. I like History and I like to read historical fiction, but I want historical fictions to be historically believable. Now, at Alexander's time (and especially in greek world) slaves aren't human people: it's very sad for us, but it was a different world from our time. It's absurd to think that Alexander could fall in love with a slave, persian eunuch: tough he had some "modern" ideas (in a way), he was a man of his time: it wasn't a democratic man, he didn't want to free the people, he wanted to unify them under his absolute command. Mary Renault write very well but his books aren't historically believable: that's all. They are well written and enjoyable, but if you want to know Alexander's history and his time you have to read historical studies, not novels. When latin writers wrote that Alexander loves the eunuch Bagoas, you have to think that the latin word "amo" ("to love") had a phisical meaning, it's not comparable to "love" in modern meaning: to say that Alexander loved Bagoas only meant that he bedded him, not that he "loved" him, that's very obvious, because he was an eunuch from the royal harem. Read, for ex., the latin poems of Catullo to Lesbia: he said that thanks to her mood he "wants" her more, but he "loves" her less than before:"Ut iam nec BENE VELLE queat tibi, si optuma fias, nec desistere AMARE, omnia si facias"(Catullo, c. 75), so he uses "AMARE" in the physical meaning ("to want"), and "BENE VELLE" ("to love") in the modern meaning. I truly think that Hephaestion barely know Bagoas and never talked with him: Hephaestion was a macedonian nobleman, a general, nonsense to compare his relationship with Alexander (that was "platonic" in the ancient way, not in the modern way)with the relationship between Alexander and Bagoas and other slaves and concubines he surely "loved".
Anyway, I repeat, Mary Renault's novels are well well written, but it's fiction, nothing more. About Elijah...I agree with you: it would have been a good choice!
*kisses*
:)

[layne67.livejournal.com]

"platonic" in the ancient way, not in the modern way

meaning that they were not actual lovers in the modern way? maybe no penetrative sex?

i'm not very well versed in greek history but i love reading about them. they're very intriguing.

imo, alexander truly loved hephaestion, more then bagoas. if hephaestion had put his foot down and asked bagoas to choose, he would have chosen hephaestion, no doubt about it!

and Elijah IS bagoas *grins*

[parisad.livejournal.com]

Well, we have to think that we're talking about an ancient culture, so different from our culture: though feelings are always the same, the way to show them could be different. In ancient Greece anal sex, for ex., was not very common as we could think: sex between man was often "between tights". a petting: only slaves and boys, for ex., do oral sex. When we read: "Alexander was never defeated except by Hephaestion's tights" we have to think to this particular sex between greek men, "between tights"; anyway, the sexual meaning of this line is explicit, because we could also think to "tights" as an euphemism for "penis", widespread in classic languages(read, ex, the Bible, when Abraham asks to a servant to rest his hand on his "tight": is an ancient way to swear, putting an hand on the "penis",swearing upon the virility: but in the greek text we read "tight": Genesis 24,2).
Anyway...officially it can be like this, but we can't know what they do under the furs...:)
*kisses*
:))