4.5 Conquered StarsI drew close and whispered, "I love you, Alexander," and kissed him. Never mind, I thought, from whom his heart accepts it. Let it be according to his wish. My hair had fallen on his breast. His eyes opened; his hand moved, and touched a strand, and ran it between his fingers.He knew me. To that I will take my oath before the gods. It was to me that he bade farewell."Despite enjoying Fire from Heaven, I was reluctant to continue with The Persian Boy. I assumed it was written in a traditional, stilted, third-person account; like the former which took me almost a month to complete it. Many months later, upon realising that TPB was actually written in a first-person account, i.e. Bagoas, I picked it up immediately. And I was truly enraptured by the brilliance of it. Writing from Bagoas' perspective has its pros and cons. While it makes reading this a lot easier, I felt disengaged from it. I had wanted to witness Alexander's great conquests; like the Battle of Issos, Battle of Arbela, his Indian campaign, and a great many other which I couldn't remember because it was only mentioned in passing. After reading David Gemmell's Troy series and realising I quite dig the military tactics and battle strategies, I was hoping for that in TPB. What makes Alexander so great is him unconquered in battles and being one of the most successful commanders. I was disappointed that this significant aspect of his life was not the main focus in TPB.The romantic aspect of TPB was not what I had expected either. Written from Bagoas' perspective, the romantic feeling felt one-sided. And perhaps, it was just that. While we witness Bagoas undying love, loyalty, and devotion towards Alexander, we only caught glimpses of his affection towards Bagoas; sweet whisperings of nothing. It was inferred that Alexander 'was in love with giving, almost to folly'. That Bagoas was explicitly mentioned in sources as Alexander's eromenos simply puts him above the rest of his common men. But Hephaistion is in a class of his own.At bedtime, he would talk to me of Hephaistion as if memory could give him life; what they did as boys, what he's said of this or that, how he trained his dogs. Yet I felt something unsaid; I felt his eyes when I turned away. I knew; he was thinking that his taking me had grieved Hephaistion; that he should make amends. Quietly he would put me aside, punishing himself not me, making his gift to the dead.It was Alexander and Hephaistion's relationship I was craving for. The third-person account in Fire from Heaven hid no secrets that Hephaistion loved Alexander. And even if the love is, perhaps, unrequited, one could bear witness that the former did take up a large portion of his heart.Alexander was lying flat on his back, staring upward. Suddenly he grasped Hephaistion in an embrace so fierce that it knocked the breath out of him, and said, "Without you I should go mad.""I too without you," said Hephaistion with loving ardor.Alexander did in fact went delirious shortly after Hephaistion's death; the exuberant funeral pyre, the public mourning, the attempt at raising Hephaistion to be a god. However, since this was in Bagoas' perspective, one could not witness the intense pain Alexander felt at the death of his beloved. Again, I was robbed off this. But Alexander, he had thought in Greek. He would ask the oracle for Hephaistion to be a god. They will mock him, I thought; they will mock him. Then I remembered; he is a deity himself already; Ammon acknowledged him. Without Hephaistion, he cannot bear even immortality.My chatting with Alicja led to a better understanding of Renault's purpose of writing TPB in Bagoas' pov. Renault did focus on his major conquest of the Persian Empire, just not the way one expects it to be. And Bagoas represented that. Through his point of view, we see the boy in Alexander; his innocence in discovering the marvels of the world. Before learning more about his life, I had thought that his conquests were merely to quench his thirst for power - to be the King above all Kings; the Great King. When we were up in the hills, he took me for an early ride, to taste, as he said, the clean air of Persia once again. I breathed it and said, “Al’skander, we are home.” “Truly. I too.” He looked towards the folded ranges, whose peaks had had the first snowfalls. “I’d say this only to you; shut it in your heart. Macedon was my father’s country. This is mine.His determination to establish a Persianate society among ALL his people; adopting the elements of the Persian dress, the prostration, the massive dowries for the mass marriage of his Macedonian senior officers to Persian noblewomen, one could infer that Alexander has a strong attachment to Persia. To promulgate his desperate attempts at marrying these two cultures together, it is imperative that this aspect of his life be told from Bagoas' perspective.Conclusion: This is the third time I'm mentally sobbing in public over the death of my favourite hero, while commuting to work. I was trying to pass off my sniffles for sinusitis. I know it was coming. But Renault's lyrical writing just destroyed me.
Bullet Review:Wow.That ending!! Where's the next book?! How can it just end like that?!Full Review:Alexander the Great (or, according to my personal historian, as his title should be known, in its native tongue, "o Megas Alexandros") is absolutely an awe-inspiring person. When you put into perspective the time period, the cultures, and then think about the things Alexander did, it's absolutely extraordinary.This is the story of Alexander's later life, as told through the eyes of his Persian "boy", Bagoas, who also (in this story and perhaps in real life) was his lover. Through Bagoas' eyes, we see Alexander's extraordinary feats, but we also see how human Alexander is - how he was flawed, how he tired, how he loved, how he raged.Last year, I started "Fire from Heaven", the first book in the Alexander trilogy, and my thoughts were all over the place. Mostly, I recall the writing being a challenge to get through (probably because of all the crap young adult I had been reading up to that time where subtlety and complexity are taboo). But I did not find this the case at all with "The Persian Boy". I personally loved the first person past tense used here - even more so because Renault executes it PERFECTLY!First person is very chic these days, and it can be used well. It's plopping right into the head of your narrator and seeing and feeling and experiencing everything he or she does. That can be awesome - but it can also be limiting, ESPECIALLY for historical novels, or novels where something important happens away from the narrator."Eclipse" combated that with a cheesy "Bella is asleep but in her dreams hears Edward and Jacob talk about her" scene. Other novels have characters butt themselves in where they don't belong, miraculously receive information that is just what the reader needs, a chain of messengers, have the narrator skip over that time period and summarize it, or the absolute worst, switch to third person past to relay the scene.Renault never does that; Bagoas is a pretty prominent character, part of Alexander's court, so it makes sense he would know some of what he does. In the beginning, Bagoas is a lesser eunuch in Darius' court and therefore knows almost nothing about what is going on, unless he is busy asking others questions. I'm not really doing a great job of saying it, but what I mean is: Renault doesn't feel the need to mangle her story so that Bagoas can relay everything to the audience.I would say most of the characters are very relatable and, most importantly, REAL. Bagoas had his moments where he annoyed me (I think part of him was just in love with being in love with someone), but overall, his story was interesting, compelling, heart-rending, and passionate. I loved how he didn't try to supersede Alexander - such as giving Alexander key advice how to win battles and crap - nor does he also do the other thing I hate in first person: make all the characters he doesn't like evil, wicked people.Bagoas doesn't like Hephaistion because he wants to be the only one to love Alexander. (By the way, this is the part that aggravated me most about Bagoas, because I LOVED the way Renault wrote Hephaistion and Alexander - if we are going to do that silly "team" thing that got popularized in "Twilight", I am Team Hephaistion.) But at no point does it mean that Hephaistion is an evil guy. Nope, it is clearly Bagoas' opinion. And most authors wouldn't do that. When I read Phillipa Gregory's "The Other Boleyn Girl", it was clear that not only did Mary think Anne was evil (or Jane a busybody), but the author thought that Anne was evil, and Anne was, therefore, written as an evil woman.There is a HUGE amount of STUFFS that happen in this book, making it a really long book. But unlike many really long books, it's not like there's a scene or a section where I can say, "The Author should have red-inked that". In fact, if anything, I think the author could have put MORE into it. For instance, Bagoas hints that he lives in Egypt with Ptolemy at the end - how does that happen? Did he create a relationship with Ptolemy? If so, I would have loved to see the conversations.This really is an incredible book looking at the life of Alexander. For a moment, I got to see how MUCH he accomplished, and yet how much more he wanted to do. Renault's Alexander comes alive on the pages through Bagoas' eyes, showing him to be a vivacious, intelligent, larger-than-life man - and yet just a man still.This is a pretty meaty book, and I found it better to enjoy in larger chunks than a page or two at a time. This, coupled with my occasional aggravation with Bagoas and my desire to leave that final star open for the final book in the series, is what causes this to be rated 4 stars instead of the full 5.
What do You think about The Persian Boy (1988)?
Part of me really disliked this book; part of me couldn't help but like it. The language gets a little flowery sometimes, esp when she starts talking about love and (always cleverly elided) sex. The close adherence to history made parts of it read less-than-exciting. (i.e. "Great, now Alexander is going to preside over more games.... when is he going to drop dead alreadygjkfgjkdfg?!") I like Alexander but clearly not as much as the deadly combination of Renault-through-Bagoas does. Alexander comes across as vaguely obnoxious through the Bagoas filter; his actions sometimes seem reprehensible to me, but the text itself never acknowledges that. I may simply be nursing a grudge for Hephaestion's sake. Most incomprehensible of all to me was the strange falling-apart and yet not-falling-apart of Alexander and Hephaestion's relationship. Maybe I am too naturally jealous a person to understand why this fictional Hephaestion did not initially object to Alexander's taking on another lover. Bagoas' POV is too narrow and too biased, maybe; too much is unseen. Or maybe it just doesn't make sense.
—xebec
After thinking about this book more I had to change the rating. The lack of my perfect Hephaistion ruined the book for me. He was the most important person in Alexander’s life, for goodness' sake! It doesn’t matter if they were actually lovers or not. He was the only person who loved Alexander as a person. And that’s why Alexander valued his opinion the most. Hephaistion never lied to Alexander, if he thought that the king was wrong, he said it. He was a very brave man, capable of doing amazing things. People envied and hated him because of Alexander’s love and trust for him. Even though the nature of their relationship has never been confirmed, I believe that the fact that they did truly visit the tomb of Patroclus and Achilles makes the matter quite clear. Mary Renault compared them to these two in this novel, which is another reason why I can’t understand why Hephaistion was so heartbreakingly (at least for me) absent in this book.And Bagoas… I HATED HIM. I hated him so much that even though the book was well written, I just wanted to finish it as quickly as possible. He was an annoying, whiny, useless, false, lying crybaby (I wish I could use Polish swear words to describe him, they’re so strong:P). He was just a pretty boy, nothing more. I didn’t believe in his “love” for Alexander. In my opinion he was just grateful for being treated so well by his master, whom he admired (who wouldn't?) but that would be all. I think I’m going to remove this book from my m/m shelf because I didn’t feel the romance at all. Bagoas’ POV was obviously very limited, so there were very few moments between the king and Hephaistion and they were the only ones that felt romantic to me. To be quite honest, Alexander (with Colin Farrell) was more romantic. Seriously, I was about 11-12 when I watched it and I knew that something was going on between the two. “All I know is I trust only you in this world. I’ve missed you. I need you. It is you I love, Hephaistion. No other.” - this line perfectly shows the truth – Hephaistion was Alexander’s beloved. Unfortunately, there weren’t many moments in The Persian Boy worth mentioning. And you have no idea how sad it makes me. This was the most disappointing book I have ever read. Not just because of the absence of Hephaistion, but also because I didn't learn anything I hadn't known before:/But I’m going to read Fire from Heaven (why didn’t I read it first? ugh) and I hope that I’ll like it more than The Persian Boy because if not, I’ll never read anything by Mary Renault again. (I didn’t say anything good about this book, did I? Oops! I’m just angry and so, so disappointed. Also, why does historical fiction always make me so depressed?;_;)
—Diana
The only historical romance the stole my heart and broke it at the end.....so sad. Bagoas was a young nobleman's son. Through treachery of his father's friend, his own family was killed and him sold into slavery, gelded and sold to a merchant. He was only 12 and he was raped and molested by his master and clients. Later he was sold to the King of Persia and became a dancer and a pleasure slave. When Alexander came, he escaped and was presented to Alexander as a gift. This here begins the romance of Bagoas the persian dancing boy and Alexander the Great. Note that this is not entirely history since historical reference of Bagoas was very scarce. BUT he was referred to as Alexander's "most Beloved" and Alexander did indeed kiss him in public after he won the dancing competition. Sadly I have a feeling his place was not as high as Alexander's best friend Hephaestion, who was involved with Alexander as well. This book can be read independent of any of it's sequel or prequel. I believe this is the best out of the three, not just as gay romance but also romance in general.
—Lola
