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119 of 122 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Pure enchantment from "The Persian Boy", July 10, 2002
Robert Lipsyte, who wrote some wonderful novels himself, said in a column that his father gave him this book to read one weekend. After putting it off, he finally gave in and was hooked from the first sentence. Mary Renault casts a spell from the first in "The Persian Boy", the pivot of her Alexandriad. Bagoas is born into an aristocratic family; the turmoil following the death of King Ochos claims his father, mother and sisters, and he himself is castrated and sold at the age of 10. The twin horrors are followed in time by another; Bagoas is himself sold by his master to other men as a prostitute. Procured for King Darius, Bagoas's lot changes only slightly; instead of being sold to many men, he is kept by one man, a King he holds in awe for his station, and not out of personal admiration. Darius has made the mistake of underestimating the young Macedonian King Alexander, who at 20 undertakes the reconquest of Greek cities in Asia Minor. But Alexander closes in on the Persian Empire, and Darius suffers one defeat after another until his own warlords lose faith in him. When a coup sees Darius taken prisoner, Bagoas escapes with only his life. In time he is rescued by one of those warlords, who decides to beg Alexander for clemency. Who does he bring to sweeten the plea? Bagoas--as a gift. Alexander is presented by Renault as a man capable of more than mortal feats who is still reassuringly human--more than that, he needs love desperately, from the hero-worship of the soldiers who follow him to the intimate devotion of his lover Hephaistion. Bagoas has never known love at all, only use. When Macedonian King and Persian courtesan meet, the inevitable happens--and this is where the enchantment begins. Renault's mastery is impeccable. With a few well-chosen words, she conjures the images of the great Persian palaces--the ruins at Persepolis, Susa, Ekbatana, and Babylon; she recreates the travels of the Macedonian army so well that any reader who picks up her companion book "The Nature of Alexander" will look at the pictures and exclaim, "I know this! This is--" and name the very scene. But it is her characters that truly live. Bagoas is keenly intelligent, charming, courtly, sarcastic, prey to jealousy and possessiveness when it comes to his lover; his growing maturity merely adds to the pain he experiences as the affair and Alexander's conquests progress. And Alexander is much more accessible here than in "Fire From Heaven," which is a wonderful book but presents Alexander as all light and no fire. Here we get to see Alexander as preening boy, heroic warrior, pragmatic king, and devoted lover. It is a marvelous love story whether or not it actually happened. But the emotional payoffs of the affair are balanced by hideous tragedies, none more affecting than the death of Hephaistion. Bagoas' quiet desperation to keep Alexander with the sane and living is agonizing with the knowledge that Alexander did not survive his lover by more than three months. Renault foreshadows without laying it on too thick, but it's worth noting that the portents of Alexander's death were recorded by historians, and the ancients paid close attention to that sort of thing. The final quarter of the book is grim, with only a few moments of light, and the most poignant moment is when Bagoas, having kept watch over Alexander even after his death, finally gives way to the Egyptian priests who come to embalm the Macedonian. It isn't all romance and grief. Bagoas is, after all, only sixteen when the affair starts; he's prey to insecurity about his place in Alexander's heart, and his two antagonists are Hephaistion, Alexander's lifelong love, and Roxane, the legendary beauty who becomes Alexander's wife. With Hephaistion, Bagoas indulges in the sort of reverie that anyone who's ever had a romantic rival can identify with (stopping short of cutting him into little pieces and feeding him to the dogs). Roxane, on the other hand, earns Bagoas' hatred for good reason, and she is presented as everything Hephaistion isn't: clinging, vindictive, and devouring. Bagoas wryly notes that Alexander has, like most men, married a woman like his mother, and it's asides like this from him that make the story such an indulgent treat to read. Like other reviewers, I will say that if you despise homosexuality and homosexuals, don't pick up the book. But if you can put aside prejudices and read for the sheer pleasure of encountering excellence in writing and losing yourself in another place and time, "The Persian Boy" is still in print.
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64 of 66 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Renault's best historical novel, May 17, 2002
"The Persian Boy" is the second book in Mary Renault's Alexander trilogy and it's by far the best of the three, probably because Renault did a total shift in narrative and style and continued the story in the first person. When Renault writes in the first person, something magical happens; we're so totally caught up in the action that we're inside the book, not only watching but feeling it come alive.
Renault realizes that Alexander underwent a fundamental transformation on becoming Great King after defeating Darius at Gaugamela; he was no longer the king of Macedon but king of most of the known world, most of whose inhabitants were considered by Macedonians to be "barbarians", and she chose to tell her story through the eyes of one of them, the Persian eunuch Bagoas, an actual historical character of whom next to nothing is known except that he had been sold to Darius in childhood as a slave and after Darius's final defeat at Gaugamela was passed on to Alexander. He must have made the most of his position as the historian Aristobulos wrote about Bagoas six years afterwards, when he was evidently still in Alexander's good graces, and had probably seen and heard a great deal.
Renault had to fabricate almost all of Bagoas's own story; we see him as the beautiful child of a Persian nobleman who was betrayed and executed; sold into slavery and castrated to preserve his exquisite good looks, and then presented to Darius, standing by his king and seeing him betrayed and murdered by his own men after his defeat by Alexander, and then being passed on to this strange young Macedonian who looked more like a barbarian than the Persians looked to the Macedonians. Renault's choice of a Persian narrator was inspired; who else could have told from a sympathetic viewpoint about Alexander's growing identification with his conquered subjects, and his insistence in finding excellence in people of all races and nationalities, when most Macedonians considered Persians as little more than subhuman? Bagoas's love for Alexander doesn't blind him to Alexander's faults; he gives us Alexander warts and all; his overwhelming ego and conceit which must have driven his best friends up the wall; his hot temper and intemperance which led him to kill a trusted officer in a drunken rage, and the lack of moderation which made him a candle burning at both ends and ultimately burned him out. And although Bagoas must have hated Hephaistion in real life and the feeling was probably mutual, he can still realize that Hephaistion's death removed a vital prop in Alexander's life and left him not only bereft, but with a vital part of himself gone without which he could no longer live.
"The Persian Boy" brings us the ancient world from Asia Minor to India and makes it so incredibly alive that we hate to close the book and return, reluctantly, to the ho-hum present. It's a glowing, vivid work of art.
Judy Lind
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35 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A History Lesson and a Love Story, June 20, 2000
Mary Renault initially captured my attention with Fire From Heaven, the first of the Alexander novels, and gave new life to this revered warrior and hero. But with The Persian Boy, as told through the eyes of Bagoas, a slave boy who becomes confidant, advisor, and lover to Alexander, she humanizes this historical figure even further, and gives him attributes that the history books neglect, those of a man. She probes his mind, as witnessed by the eyes of adoring Bagoas, who first reveres Alexander as his master, and then dotes upon him as lover. Bagoas remains faithful to Alexander through months of separation during the conquest of Greece, and stands by his side despite treacherous efforts to discredit and dethrone his King, through Alexander's 'relationship' with his boyhood companion Hephaistion, and his 'marriage of convenience' to Roxane. This novel, while it appealed to me on a romantic level, also exemplifies the nature of love, be it between man and woman, or man and man, as a fevered, passionate longing for another, a sense of loyalty to them and to your relationship with them, during hard months of separation, and a desire to do anything to please and/or comfort them. However, the book also accurately recreates Alexander's journey of seige across Greece, and the hardships he and his followers endured. Readers would be hard pressed to find a more descriptive and honest look at Alexander the Great as a flesh and blood creature, and not just the conquering hero of many bloody battles which history books offer us.
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