The Persian Boy: Amazon.co.uk: Mary Renault: Books

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About the Author

Mary Renault was educated at Clifton High School, Bristol and St Hugh's College, Oxford. Having completed nursing training in 1937 she wrote her first novel Promise of Love: her next three novels were written during off-time duty whilst serving in the war. In 1948 she went to live in South Africa but travelled widely. It was her trip to Greece and her visits to Corinth, Samos, Crete, Delos, Aeginia and other islands, as well as to Athens, Sounion and Marathon, that resulted in her brilliant historical reconstructions of Ancient Greece. Mary Renault died in 1983. (20030605) --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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Customer Reviews

12 Reviews

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4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
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Average Customer Review

4.6 out of 5 stars (12 customer reviews)

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31 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The most human look at Alexander ever, 4 Oct 2002

By

A. D. Gillingwater (Essex, United Kingdom) - See all my reviews

This is the most moving book I have ever read.

It tells the tale of the later parts of Alexander the Great's conquests. The whole book is written from the perspective of his eunuch Bagoas. Renault has ignored the historical debate regarding this individual's existence and has instead made him a window into the soul of a magnificant man. The story is an emotional roller coaster, we along with Bagoas fall in love with Alexander. We watch him achieve victory after victory and fall into the depths of despair at his failures.

Renault has made Alexander accessable to all. Those with no knowledge of ancient history will access Alexander as easily as scholars. The events of Alexnder's life are made vividly real to all. We mourn with Alexander when his life long companion Hephaestion dies. We cheer when he wins, worry when falters and mourn when he dies.

This is Mary Renault's best and most moving novel. The triliogy is fantastic but this is the most powerful and moving of the stories.

A must for everyone.

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42 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a living image, 8 Oct 2002

By

Mark P. Bryant-Quinn (Wales) - See all my reviews

The second volume in her Alexander trilogy, Mary Renault's historical novel *The Persian Boy* must surely be ranked as one of her finest books. Many of the reviews which greeted its original (delayed) publication, reflecting the mores of the time, were openly and unambiguously hostile. As may be expected, this disapproval by and large centred on what by any objective measure must be considered the very discreet treatment of a possible physical relationship between Alexander of Macedon and the young eunuch presumed in the sources to be his *eromenos*, the Persian Bagoas. Interestingly, given the gaps in the historical record concerning this individual, even recent students of Alexander's life and career have adopted a predominantly pejorative attitude towards Bagoas. Whatever the truth about him, it seems that Alexander's Persian boy continues to cause unease among those whom, as Mary Renault would put it, such thoughts disturb. The non-judgmental among us, however, may rightly view *The Persian Boy* as one of Renault's most accomplished works and, within the parameters of her own interest, surely also a statement of personal significance to the author. Its cyclical structure, thematic resonances, beautifully observed psychological tensions and human dilemmas, unfold in what Dylan Thomas called a `colour of saying' which is at times the match of anything she wrote.

As other reviewers have noted, the book is not without its flaws, both artistic and historical, and Mary Renault herself was fully aware of these. But because *The Persian Boy* is not simply an historical novel but a safe place of generous beauty created by an author of not inconsiderable courage-and this in the teeth of contemporary distaste for such themes-other critical standards should also be applied. It can be argued that *The Persian Boy* is as significant for an objective appreciation of a complex and important writer as it may be for a study of the development of the modern historical novel itself. A close reading of *The Persian Boy* reveals more than Mary Renault's own understanding of the nature of Alexander.

Although portrayed through the eyes of Bagoas himself, the story's creative power and tension as much concerns Hephaistion's relationship with Alexander as it does that of Bagoas. The infatuated (and, at times, potentially murderous) youth must learn to grow up, to surrender his selfishness if he is to retain what has been real. At the last, Bagoas is depicted as rising to the challenge his declared love has set him: to allow his beloved the freedom to love another more. The vengeful possessiveness of the mythical Achilles for Patroklos, juxtaposed with the unresolved ambiguities of Alexander's love for Hephaistion, find a counterpoint in Bagoas' selfless care of the dying Alexander. Even a final kiss is given as Hephaistion would have offered it, wanting Alexander to receive it from whomever his heart wishes, steady in the knowledge that the love which matters is that which is given unreservedly. All lovers come to this place; Bagoas' love has travelled far to become worthy of the name.

There will be many views of *The Persian Boy*, some more unfavourable than others. But there are also older readers who say of her books that they comforted them at a time when little comfort else was to be found. When the necessary critical analysis of Mary Renault's work is accomplished, perhaps this too should not be forgotten.

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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Romantic view of Alexander's last years, 25 May 2006

By

Roman Clodia (London) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)

This review is from: The Persian Boy (Paperback)

Renault's Alexander is one of the most complex and haunting fictional characters, and this book (the 2nd of the trilogy which began with Fire from Heaven and continues with Funeral Games)is probably the most accessible. It follows Alexander's last years of conquest in Persia and the East, and is told by Bagoas, the Persian eunuch who once served Darius, King of Kings, and so is won by Alexander along with the rest of Darius' kingdom and personal possessions.
The love that grows between Alexander and his 'Persian boy' is romaticised and stops just short of tipping over into Mills & Boon territory, but is effectively offset both by the parallel relationship with Hephaistion, and the military conquest of the East, the hardship and the conflicts that it engenders amongst the native Macedonians who have been away from home for over 10 years.
Renault does a fabulous job of integrating the ancient sources while never letting them inhibit her imagination in the slightest, and 'her' Alexander has been hugely influential in the way that he is received and understood today. Not that I'm claiming that this is great history - it's not and isn't supposed to be. But it is great fiction.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Superb
I got it after a friend recommendation and I think it's my duty to do the same, spread the word... it's a very sad, cruel but also marvelous story. Don't miss it... Read more

Published 2 months ago by B. Camila