The World Beyond BetterMost > The Culture Tent
Hey, What Ya Reading??? A book???
Kerry:
--- Quote from: retropian on January 29, 2009, 10:37:47 pm --- "Captain Corelli's Mandolin" was recommended to me ages ago. I'll have to read it for sure now. I also love Mary Renault novels. "The Persian Boy" is great, and "The Last of the Wine" is stellar! IMHO. "The Last Charioteer" is also wonderful, set during WW2, so essentially contemporary for Mary Renault, which was different for her since she usually focused on historical fiction set in ancient or Classical Greece. She was a historian of that era.
--- End quote ---
I love the novels of Mary Renault, and she also wrote an excellent biography of Alexander the Great, titled "The Nature of Alexander." What I love most about this book is the way Ms Renault so thoroughly brings Alexander to life. He ceases to be a dry-as-dust personage from the far distant past and becomes real, contemporary, living, breathing. These are a few of my (many) favourite quotes from "The Nature of Alexander." Yep, I'd love Alexander to be a friend of mine!
"His liquid eyes were grey. Their expressiveness altered Greek artistic convention."
"The loosely waving, heavy mane of hair, springing from the peak, its individual cut sloping down to the base of the neck when in south Greece the short curly crop was in fashion. Arrian, both of whose main sources were men who saw him often, says that he was very handsome."
"In Aristoxenus' memoirs it is said that a very pleasant scent came from his skin, and that there was a fragrance in his breath and all his body which permeated the clothes he wore."
It's from Aristoxenus, I'm sure, that Ms Renault created these two beautiful evocations of Alexander from "The Persian Boy," as described by Bogoas:
"He was seemly in sleep, his mouth closed, his breathing silent, his body fresh and sweet. The room smelled of sex and cedarwood, with a tang of salt from the sea. Autumn drew on, the night wind blew from the north. I drew the blanket over him; without waking, he moved to me in the great bed, seeking warmth."
"I used to wonder at first what faint pleasant scent he used, and would look about for the phial; but there was none, it was the gift of nature."
retropian:
--- Quote from: Kerry on January 29, 2009, 11:44:09 pm ---If you're fond of Mary Renault, may I recommend this excellent biography by David Sweetman? It's very good.
--- End quote ---
Thanks! I'll have to check it out. I know very little of her life. I'd be interested on know why she love gay men so. She was gay herself I know, but what other Lesbian writers wrote, or write of the gay male experience? In Fanfiction there are many straight female writers who create male/male romances, which I can understand to a degree, but one doesn't find gay men writing a lot about the experience of women straight or gay, nor gay women writing about the experience of gay men. But maybe I'm just out of the loop in that regard and am unaware of an entire body of fiction.
retropian:
--- Quote from: Kerry on January 30, 2009, 12:29:58 am ---I love the novels of Mary Renault, and she also wrote an excellent biography of Alexander the Great, titled "The Nature of Alexander." What I love most about this book is the way Ms Renault so thoroughly brings Alexander to life. He ceases to be a dry-as-dust personage from the far distant past and becomes real, contemporary, living, breathing. These are a few of my (many) favourite quotes from "The Nature of Alexander." Yep, I'd love Alexander to be a friend of mine!
"His liquid eyes were grey. Their expressiveness altered Greek artistic convention."
"The loosely waving, heavy mane of hair, springing from the peak, its individual cut sloping down to the base of the neck when in south Greece the short curly crop was in fashion. Arrian, both of whose main sources were men who saw him often, says that he was very handsome."
"In Aristoxenus' memoirs it is said that a very pleasant scent came from his skin, and that there was a fragrance in his breath and all his body which permeated the clothes he wore."
It's from Aristoxenus, I'm sure, that Ms Renault created these two beautiful evocations of Alexander from "The Persian Boy," as described by Bogoas:
"He was seemly in sleep, his mouth closed, his breathing silent, his body fresh and sweet. The room smelled of sex and cedarwood, with a tang of salt from the sea. Autumn drew on, the night wind blew from the north. I drew the blanket over him; without waking, he moved to me in the great bed, seeking warmth."
"I used to wonder at first what faint pleasant scent he used, and would look about for the phial; but there was none, it was the gift of nature."
--- End quote ---
Oooh. I'll have to get this too! I love Mary Renault's Alexander novels and I have not read "The Nature of Alexander". I'm exited to read these!!!
Kerry:
--- Quote from: Kerry on January 30, 2009, 12:29:58 am ---It's from Aristoxenus, I'm sure, that Ms Renault created these two beautiful evocations of Alexander from "The Persian Boy," as described by Bogoas:
--- End quote ---
Oops, typo! Bagoas, not Bogoas. Mea culpa!
From Oliver Stone's movie, "Alexander" (OT - apologies):
[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaI_zkayAxM[/youtube]
delalluvia:
The Nature of Alexander was an excellent read. Very much recommend it.
Didn't like The Persian Boy so much - it was beautifully written, but I felt for Hephaestion's pain.
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