Mary Renault Book Discussion

[injest]

I know that a lot of women see men as having all the power...maybe that is why...you know this is the first time I have noticed those little digs about women??

on to chapter 2??

[Kerry]

interesting too (to me) is the aside MR throws in about the source of the plague....the WOMEN blame (correctly) the contaminated water supply while the vastly 'superior' men assume it is a curse from the gods for some imagined sin....and laugh at the women...

I can't find a reference to the women blaming the contaminated water supply; rather, they blamed the country people for bringing a "curse":

"Some said the Spartans had called on Far-Shooting Apollo, some that they had contrived to poison the springs. Some of the women, I believe, blamed the country people for bringing in a curse; as if anyone could reasonably suppose that the gods would punish a state for treating its own citizens justly. But women, being ignorant of philosophy and logic, and fearing dream-diviners more than immortal Zeus, will always suppose that whatever causes them trouble must be wicked."

Fact is, we don't know what this "plague" was. Could be any one of a number of maladies. The only description we get from the text is that both Philon and the narrator's mother were feverish and the father was left with a "bloody flux." My dictionary defines a "flux" as a, "morbid discharge of blood, excrement, etc." Let's presume it was probably either cholera or bubonic plague.

Cholera is spread through contaminated water and is a bilious disorder with diarrhoea and vomiting. I imagine symptoms would include fever and a "bloody flux."

Symptoms of the septicemic form of bubonic plague  include bleeding into the skin and other organs. Could this be interpreted as a "bloody flux"? I guess so. It's probable that you'd have a fever too. Bubonic plague is largely spread via the fleas on rats.

Could have been either, but I'm putting my money on bubonic plague. It is stated that the country folk who flocked to the city for safety, "lived like beasts" in "stinking huts." Not exactly a hygienic environment. It's likely they brought flea infested rats with them.

I read this as MR saying the women were correct, in a back-handed kinda way, in that they did rightly blame the country people for the plague. However, they were wrong in presuming that it was as a result of a curse they brought in.

Your thoughts?

[injest]

OW!! MY bad!! Didn't go back and verify before I wrote...

you are right of course....the source of the plague is never clear in The Last of the Wine...

I do think MR was doing as you say...doing a back hand insinuation that the women knew the truth (even if for the wrong reason)

interesting to me that Alexias does not say that women didn't have enough sense to understand logic and philosophy but that they were ignorant of them..interesting choice of words..

[Kerry]

interesting to me that Alexias does not say that women didn't have enough sense to understand logic and philosophy but that they were ignorant of them..interesting choice of words..

From what I understand, "Immortal Zeus" is the equivalent of our "Lord Jesus" today. By that, I mean that He represents the formal state religion of the day and it was considered to be sacrilegious and heretical to speak against the Gods. 

To use our own time as an example, I think MR is saying that the women are more inclined to be into exciting New Age philosophy, rather than attending staid old Sunday Mass!

Personally, I'd prefer to browse through a New Age store any day.    Sunday Mass? Been there, done that! 

I'm with the women on this score! 

I'm ready for chapter 2 when you are. Would you like to begin? 

[injest]

Chapter 2!!

and the introduction of the evil stepmother and SOCRATES!!

[injest]

there is a lovely scene in this chapter of the relationship between Alexias and his father...Alexias has struck a slave and his father walks in.

He tells Alexias to bring him his shield. Alexisa can not lift it...and this is what his father tells him:


"When you are man enough to carry a shield, you will learn how it happens that men are sold into slavery, and their children born in it. Till then, it is enough for you to know that Amasis and the rest are slaves, not through any merit of yours, but by the destiny of the heaven." 

I think of classes we have today....whenever someone sneers at poor people or minorities or gays...it is their destiny...they don't choose to be that way..

[Kerry]

Before progressing to chapter 2, there are a couple of additional quotes from chapter 1, that I believe warrant comment:

“And it is seldom a man can say, either of the Spartans or the plague, that he owes them life instead of death.”  We have already spent a lot of time discussing how awful it must have been for Alexias to have suffered under the weight of all the bad omens happening at the time of his birth. I was dwelling so much on the negative that I missed this little gem. And it seems to me that here Alexias is saying that he views the Spartans and the plague as a positive, not a negative at all. For without them (to distract his father), he would surely have died. In this, he is quite right.

“But women . . . will always suppose that whatever causes them trouble must be wicked.” Absolutely priceless! And not a fault solely relegated to women, surely! How many times in life have we been hurt by benevolent forces? Not wicked in the least. Here be wisdom, indeed.

“My grandfather had a stone set up  . . . showing the friends clasping hands in farewell, and a cup beside them on a pedestal.” I am presuming here that this is the cup of hemlock. If so, it is clear that suicide was not viewed as a disgrace in ancient Athens.

“My mother having brought me forth nearly a month too soon, either through a weakness of her body or the foreknowledge of a god.” How did I miss this gem on first reading? Of course, if it had been a full term pregnancy, Alexias’ mother would have died when she was eight months pregnant and he would never have been born. Ergo, his premature, runt status was a blessing “of a god”, not a curse after all.

MR is soooo deep!

[Kerry]

there is a lovely scene in this chapter of the relationship between Alexias and his father...Alexias has struck a slave and his father walks in.

He tells Alexias to bring him his shield. Alexisa can not lift it...and this is what his father tells him:


"When you are man enough to carry a shield, you will learn how it happens that men are sold into slavery, and their children born in it. Till then, it is enough for you to know that Amasis and the rest are slaves, not through any merit of yours, but by the destiny of the heaven." 

I think of classes we have today....whenever someone sneers at poor people or minorities or gays...it is their destiny...they don't choose to be that way..

You have expressed this beautifully and I readily agree. To quote a line from Mart Crowley's "The Boys in the Band" (see thread under Our Daily Thoughts), "I've known what I was since I was four years old" (attempt at levity LOL  ). Certainly, like the majority of gay people, I believe that one does not make a choice about one's sexuality. Just as one does not make a conscious choice to be black, white, yellow, whatever. I'm sure most straight people would agree that they did not sit down one day and decide whether to be heterosexual or not. And then again, if one believes in reincarnation, one can view these matters from an entirely different perspective. But I digress - it's late and my mind's wandering . . .   

So, big bad daddy appears to have acquired some amount of wisdom. And he sounds cute, too! Bit of a stud, actually!  I did squirm a little when reading the very sexy description Alexias gives of his father. Sounded somewhat weirdly incestuous to me. I can't imagine ever writing about my father in these terms:

"I used to look at him and wonder how it felt to be beautiful. He was more than six feet tall, grey-eyed, brown-skinned, and golden-haired; made like those big Apollos Pheidias' workshop used to turn out" (i.e., stunning!!!) 

and this:

"It pleased me, however, to see him in his best blue mantle with the golden border, his brown chest and left shoulder bare, bathed and combed and rubbed down with sweet oil, his hair dressed into a garland and his beard short-pointed."

Very sexy imagery from a six year old, describing his father! 

Is it me?

[injest]

well remember this is Alexias at a much older age recalling his youth. and in Greece at that time, physical beauty was considered a virtue...it feels to me as envy and hero worship more.

I will have to remind you of this descriptiong later in the book. I think MR had a reason for it...

[Kerry]

Have you had any luck in obtaining the Sweetman biography of MR? She was  very progressive. Very ahead of her time. There's a photo of her in the book, taken at a Black Sash protest in 1955. The caption reads, "She was among the first to join this women's movement against apartheid."