La historia de Alejandro Magno contada por Bagoas, su fiel criado.

Basada en una figura histórica, El muchacho persa cuenta los últimos años de vida de Alejandro Magno a través de los ojos del que fuera su amante, Bagoas.

Hijo de un noble ejecutado por traición, vendido como esclavo y castrado cuando era niño, pasó al servicio de Darío III Codomano y, tras el asesinato de este, fue regalado al joven macedonio. Su relación sostendrá a Alejandro mientras este tiene que hacer frente a varios complots de asesinato, a las demandas de dos esposas, a los motines periódicos de su ejército y a su formidable carácter. Bagoas será también testigo de los profundos lazos de amistad y de compromiso que el emperador tiene con sus soldados.

Renault nos enseña cómo este muchacho persa podría haber comprendido y apoyado los fervientes planes de Alejandro mejor que cualquiera de sus generales.

Reseña:
«Las novelas históricas de Renault están entre las mejores jamás escritas.»
The Washington Post

Typical Renault, her character development is as always superb and her telling of the story is written so as to keep you from putting the book down. ( )

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 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. ( )

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 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 ( )

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 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 ( )