I sit here with my copy of “The Last of the Wine,” in eager anticipation of lively discussion to follow. What modus operandi should we adopt for our little book club? Should we discuss one chapter at a time? Though there are 28 chapters, they are each relatively short, yet jam-packed with lots of potentially exciting discussion-fodder. As I write this, you guys are fast asleep in bed. Should I start the ball rolling? OK then, here we go!
If I have read “The Last of the Wine” previously, it must have been many, many years ago, because as I read chapter 1 tonight, nothing sounded familiar to me. And as a result, I was not at all prepared for the jarring emotional reaction I experienced, just half-way through page 2. I literally found myself bawling like a baby. Crying out loud. I’ve not had a reaction like that since my first reading of Brokeback Mountain. Here are the two paragraphs that knocked me for six:
“On the day of my birth, my father’s younger brother, Alexias, died in his twenty-fourth year. He, hearing that a youth called Philon, with whom he was in love, had been taken sick (with the plague), went at once to him; meeting, I have been told, not only the slaves but the boy’s own sister, running the other way. His father and mother had already perished; Alexias found the lad alone, lying in the basin of the courtyard fountain, where he had crawled to cool his fever. He had not called out to anyone to fetch his friend, not wishing to endanger him; but some passers-by, who had not cared to go very near, reported that they had seen Alexias carrying him indoors.
This reached my father after some time, while my mother was in labour with me. He sent over a reliable servant who had had the plague already; who, however, found both the young men dead. From the way they were lying, it seems that in the hour of Philon’s death, Alexias had felt himself sicken; and, knowing the end, had taken hemlock, so that they should make the journey together. The cup was standing on the floor beside him; he had tipped out the dregs, and written PHILON with his finger, as one does after supper in the last of the wine.”
I am literally speechless . . .
“. . . so that they should make the journey together.”
This has such timely relevance for us; we, who are also living at a time when plague is at large in the land.
Emotional ramifications for Alexias, the narrator, with the weight of this tragic legacy to bear, from his very first day of life?
“. . . and written PHILON with his finger. . .”
Comments on chapter 1?