The World Beyond BetterMost > The Culture Tent
Mary Renault Book Discussion
injest:
no I haven't had a chance to get it...the biography..
I am interested at how this chapter depicts Alexias's father...as being a fair and just man but very distant and involved with his own affairs...he engaged a nurse and didn't seem to notice that his child was suffering...he held supper parties...I get the impression that his father is ambitious.
It is clear that Alexias views his father as a object of awe but not protection or solace...
Kerry:
--- Quote from: injest on January 08, 2007, 10:12:18 pm ---no I haven't had a chance to get it...the biography..
I am interested at how this chapter depicts Alexias's father...as being a fair and just man but very distant and involved with his own affairs...he engaged a nurse and didn't seem to notice that his child was suffering...he held supper parties...I get the impression that his father is ambitious.
It is clear that Alexias views his father as a object of awe but not protection or solace...
--- End quote ---
Ah, daddy dearest! Hubber-hubber! Be still my beating heart! I think I’m falling in love with this man! He is a very complex character - stunningly attractive, charming, gregarious, virile, ambitious and rich. A member of one of Athens’ founding families. A gentleman of rank – “Our family has been there, as they say, since the grasshoppers came.” He owns a beautiful, colonnaded house near the Dipylon Gate, as well as rural holdings. Alexias describes him as “beautiful,” likening him to a Pheidias Apollo – high praise, indeed! Alexias further comments that, “It pleased me . . . to see him.” I’ll join that queue! This man would have been a major catch for any woman – or man! Forgive my lechery tonight. This kinda guy does it to me every time! A brute with a soul! Sigh!
Like so many men of his, or any other generation, his commitments and responsibilities kept him away from the family home. And I’m not sure that I can blame him. There’s a manipulative, sadistic harpy of a “concubine” in residence, who he plans to ditch, and his son is behaving like a right little brat. He appears to be either unaware or disinterested about the torture being inflicted upon his son by the Rhodian (cite the incident re the kitten).
And yet he has high moral standards. I, too, love the lesson of the shield, where the father instructs Alexias to refrain from hubris, “which the Gods hate” (I’m sure he didn’t want the wrathful Nemesis descending upon his house!) and “behave yourself like a gentleman.” Alas, he then goes and negates all the good he’s taught by adding, “And if you forget this, I myself will beat you.”
I think this is an interesting use of words. Is the “myself” tautological here? Technically, yes. However, I think MR has deliberately used this device in order to imply that the father was aware his son was already being beaten by the mistress. Without “myself” it is simply a direct threat. With “myself” it implies there’s someone else already beating him. Your thoughts on this?
injest:
I think children at that time were considered little savages that had to be reined in...and the idea of the nurse beating him is not a shocking one to his father. It gives me the impression that corporal punishment was an accepted part of childhood....remember in the first chapter Alexias said "when I had been beaten at school"
a far different time. they had a great many things to be proud of...but more and more I get the impression that childhood was a hard thing then...
Kerry:
Historical point of reference:
Alexias says, “It is true that when I was born he (Pericles) was still alive, though already sick; which is no reason for foolish youths to ask me, as one did lately, whether I remember him.”
I understand from this that Alexias was a child when Pericles (“Perikles” in TLOTW) died in 429 BC.
* Pericles, 495-429 BC
* Alexander, 356-323 BC
MR is telling us here that Alexias lived in the time immediately following the Periclean Age and prior to the advent of Alexander.
Athens must have been a beautiful, exciting city to live in at that time. And what a wonderful word-picture MR paints of the place for us. In fact, I find it so beautiful, I’m compelled to quote it here:
“Our house stood in the Inner Kerameikos, not far from the Dipylon Gate. The courtyard had a little colonnade of painted columns, a fig-tree and a vine. At the back were the stables, where my father kept his two horses and a mule; it was easy to climb on the stable roof, and thence to the roof of the house.
The roof had a border of acanthus tiles, and was not very steep. If one straddled the ridge, one could see right over the City wall, past the gate-towers of the Dipylon to the Sacred Way, where it curves towards Eleusis between its garden and its tombs. In summer-time, I could pick out the funeral stele of my uncle Alexias and his friend, by the white oleander that grew there. Then I would turn south, to where the High City stands like a great stone altar against the sky, and search between the winged roofs of the temple for the point of gold, where tall Athene of the Vanguard lifts her spear to the ships at sea.”
Breathtaking! Brings a lump to my throat! One can almost feel the heat of the sun on one’s brow and hear the birds singing in the trees overhead. The grasshoppers chirping. The scent of the summer heat in the air.
I love the intimate, personal reference to the type of plant growing at the funeral stele of uncle Alexias and Philon – a white oleander. Oleanders grow throughout my home town of Sydney, in private gardens and public parks; their bright bursts of pink and white and red everywhere. So this hit a personal note for me. And it prompted me to make a mental note to plant a white oleander, when I retire to that country property I keep promising myself I’ll retire to – Cherry Cake Cottage!
Oops, I appear to have reverted to chapter 1! Apologies! ::)
injest:
she is putting forth a picture of a happy content city...in its prime and full of promise...and although she mentions the Spartans and the yearly forays they made across the border; she makes it sound like a minor inconvenience, rather than true war...they raided the farms (including Alexias's fathers) but it seems to have no affect on their standard of living...and they obeyed a certain etiquette...drawing a line at going too far "everything was burned that year, all but the house walls and the sacred orchard, which they piously spared."
These raids seemed almost a rote act; just a part of life "Being too young to understand serious things, I used to look forward, when they were gone, to seeing what they had been up to"
Interesting in today's world to see the way MR presents the conflict between the Athenians and Spartans...they kept to a reg schedule...the Athenians knew when they were coming...it was almost a cordial affair...
Just background noise....
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