The Persian Boy

It's not very often that you come across a historical novel that portrays events from the vantage point of a eunuch. It's not the easiest perspective for an author to immerse themselves in, but Renault pulls it off with convincing surety.
The narrator of The Persian Boy is Bagoas (based on a real historical person), who was a favorite of Persian king Darius III and went on to become the erômenos or beloved of Alexander the Great. Not much is known about him beyond that but Renault makes him into a very real character, with his own passions and motivations.

The perspective on Alexander the Great is also very interesting. Not everyone may agree with Renault's interpretation, but never-the-less, this is quite possibly the most nuanced and show more thorough fictional rendering of a very mysterious and complex man.

The complicated emotional triangle between Alexander, Bagoas, and Hephaestion is adroitly imagined. There is some definite homosexuality, some sensuous scenes of such, but nothing particularly explicit.
It's not all psychological drama though, there's plenty of action and colorful battle scenes to keep the reader turning pages. As historical novels go, this one is well above average. show less

My introduction to Mary Renault was The King Must Die, the first of two novels about Theseus--it was actually assigned reading in high school. What impressed me so much there was how she took a figure out of myth and grounded him historically. After that I quickly gobbled up all of Renault's works of historical fiction set in Ancient Greece. The two novels about Theseus and the trilogy centered on Alexander the Great are undoubtedly her most famous of those eight novels.

The first book of that trilogy Fire from Heaven, is about the young Alexander of Macedon before his famous conquests. What we have in the second book is the conqueror of the Persian empire--as seen through the eyes of Bagoas, the "Persian boy" of the title--a eunuch--and show more one of Alexander's lovers. That was probably a shock to me as a sheltered young teen, pre-AIDS when homosexuality just wasn't very visible. What was amazing was the picture of a society where this was not just tolerated but completely accepted, and this novel (and her novel The Last of the Wine) also featuring a homosexual relationship) made an indelible impression on me--more than any kind of lecture on tolerance.

And this was one of those books that cemented my love of historical fiction and fascination with Ancient Greece. If I have any criticism, it's that Renault's Alexander is too much the paragon. You get the feeling Renault was more than in love with her Alexander. But it's certainly not a criticism that occurred to me while I was reading this--given how fully I was under Renault's spell. Nor am I the only one entranced by these books--you can definitely see the influence of the Alexander trilogy on such books as Jo Graham's Stealing Fire about the wake of Alexander's death and Madeline Miller's Song of Achilles. show less

Fire from heaven followed a young Alexander through multiple other people’s eyes, so I was surprised to have a single narrator here.
The narrator is still telling about Alexander as if he is a perfect mythical figure who can do no wrong, but I think that is reasonable given who the narrator is.
Bagoas was a slave and after a life of being abused, latches onto whoever is kind to him.

I really enjoyed following Alexander on his campaigns. After the end of book 1, I wanted to see what the young king would do, and this was it. Part of me would have liked to see it from the point of view of someone closer to Alexander so I could get inside his head a bit, but I also understand that Bagoas who is an important servant is more of an eyewitness. show more He doesn’t shape events, he follows them. That creates a helpless kind of suspense, because he watches events unfold with the reader, but it also makes him a bit boring. All he does is being endlessly devoted to Alexander?

Apparently this book is marketed as a love story, which I don’t really get. This is a great story, but I wouldn’t say it’s a romantic one.
It isn’t necessarily the feelings of love that I cannot get behind, Bagoas being in love with Alexander makes a lot of sense, but the way that this is presented as a deep romantic attachment.
I definitely believe that these two genuinely cared for each other, but Alexander has the whole world while Bagoas’s world is Alexander only. show less

I love Mary Renault and all her writings. I've probably read "Fire From Heaven" twenty times.

The Persian Boy is a lush read, sucking you into a different time and place where rules are completely different from our modern sensibilities. Everything in this book flows and you're captured and pulled into the past, into the lives of Bagoas and through him Alexander.

Even knowing how things were going to turn out, I was drawn into this story. And more than anything I wished that I could yell at them and change the way things happened so I could get my HEA.

Still, an incredibly beautiful book, highlighting the fact that Mary Renault was way ahead of her time.

"We shall have crossed the world to its furthest end"
By sally tarbox on 9 September 2017
Format: Audible Audio Edition
Narrated by the eponymous Persian youth, Bagoas, this is an account of the exploits of Alexander the Great - from Persia, across Central Asia and into India. Bagoas, son of a nobleman, is captured in his youth, castrated and sold as a eunuch slave. From his wretched first position, 'hired' out to local men by his master, he later enters the court of King Darius... and ultimately that of Alexander.
Bagoas is utterly smitten with his final master; self-effacing but watchful, silently agonizingly jealous of the King's other intimates. He relates the Macedonian's progress across Asia - the glorious life at court, the king's show more friendly, first-name terms rapport with his men, the boundless ambition and the affection the two share. But set against this are bloody campaigns, court intrigues and feuds, a desperate journey through an Indian desert..

It's quite a long read but totally brings to life an era in history that I knew little about. show less

This was one of the most difficult to read books I've dealt with in a long while- the prose was clunky, the story wasn't especially interesting (I'm an ancient civ major specializing in the Near East so...take that as you will), and the people and places were nearly impossible to differentiate. It took me five months to slog through this book for the simple fact that although I am a huge lover of Alexander the Great and love stories in general, this felt like a chore to read and was ultimately a disappointment.
All of that aside- I wept through the final ten pages. The foreshadowing in this book in the final chapters are some of the most artfully done I've ever come across (and truly, I envy any readers who don't have a significant show more background in the topic, as they must have felt them all the more strongly not knowing what would come).

Had this story been stripped down and presented less as a warped history of Al'skander's triumphs and follies and more as what it was- a great love story, it would have been much more successful. It's distressing to know that Mary Renault is passed because she could have been a prolific non-fiction scholar had she written more than two books in the genre in favor of the historical fiction she has left us with.

All in all I wouldn't recommend this book to many if only because it's fairly tedious and there's more grissle than meat but at its core, it's a beautiful story and I'm thankful it was told. show less

I found this book remarkable for the sympathetic portrail of a boy, forced in to a very bad situation, who comes to find meaning in life despite a world in which he is fundamentally devalued. His beauty is both his salvation, and his curse. Yet he comes to terms with his powerlessness as well as his ability to heal others, over the course of time. Renault does a wonderful job of showing the different timelines in her first person narrative, via the perceptions of a young boy, and also his improving grasp of Greek, and of politics, over time.

This is the second of Renault's greek novels I have read (after The Praise Singer), and I find(thus far) no evidence for the accusation I saw somewhere of her misogyny.

I loved the way she points show more up, much like Gore Vidal does in "Julian," the differences and similarities between Persian and Greek (and how Greek diff. from Macedonian) cultures, and showed the melting pot that was ancient Mespotamia.

In service to community,
ShiraDestinie
William-James-MEOW Date: 19 July, 12014 Holocene Era show less