Fire from Heaven by Mary Renault
Oct. 14th, 2022 05:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
regshoeUgh—reading Mary Renault, you know? I've been in a weird-sad-energetic mood all week and I think it's largely the fault of this book.
Fire from Heaven (1969) tells the story of the early life of Alexander the Great, starting when he's four years old and ending with the assassination of his father King Philip when Alexander is twenty. Along the way we get war, philosophy, opinions on Homer, war, a sweeping look at the political and cultural situation of Macedon and Greece and the relations between them in a time seeing itself as the decline after the glory days, war, political intrigue, war and the absolute worst parent characters I have encountered in a Renault novel so far—father as well as mother!—and that's not an easy honour to gain.
In that first paragraph I could have jokingly said 'Alexander the not-yet-Great', but that is very much not Renault's opinion; her Alexander is utterly exceptional from the beginning, but her writing skill (and the genuine remarkableness of the history itself) are sufficient to pull this off. As a child Alexander unnerves people with the intelligence and perceptiveness of his questions about military strategy and tactics; the traditional coming-of-age rites for boys in Macedon include killing a man in battle, a feat which Alexander runs off to perform on his own initiative after an argument with his father at the age of twelve; shortly thereafter he encounters a furious-tempered horse which will not let anyone ride him and immediately becomes BFFs with him (Renault avoids the name Bucephalus because it 'comes trailing clouds of nineteenth-century cliche', and mostly renders the name in English as Oxhead, which I found rather charming*); later in his teens he's leading armies in his father's wars with faultless skill and courage and inspiring warriors to follow him; in everything he does he's determined with a terrifying purpose on becoming The Greatest in martial prowess and winning eternal fame; he may actually be the half-mortal son of a god (or at least Hephaistion thinks so, bless him). It's an... interesting bit of characterisation, is what I mean; and I think it works partly because Alexander is so far from being generically perfect. He's badly messed up by both parents (his father treats everyone with arbitrary cruelty and violence; his mother is (literally) a witch who hates her husband and uses Alexander as a tool to undermine him and in whatever other schemes she might happen to have going at any moment), as well as by the extremely messed-up culture of his surroundings in general. It's clear that his ambition to achieve perfection in martial prowess and win eternal fame is, er, maybe not the best life choice to be making; and it appears as a sort of tragedy that it's the only one he can make, being what he is.
Having read this book and The Last of the Wine, I've reached the conclusion that, while I may not necessarily like them better, Renault is definitely better at historical novels than contemporary ones, and the history in this one is—so far as I, who know nothing about the period, can say—incredible. The book is full of detail about the historical backstory, the progress of various wars, relations between the different city-states and kingdoms, as well as all sorts of mundane things of everyday life (I was especially struck by her pointing out that at this time most people who could read couldn't read silently, and describing Alexander's unusual ability to do so; that's the kind of important but so easily-overlooked detail that gives such colour to historical fiction); in beautiful detail Renault describes the fact of what happened and conveys its meaning, and her history feels very much lived-in. The Macedonians are considered, and to an extent accept the idea that they are, barbarians compared to the cultured and civilised Greeks, particularly the Athenians; but Athens is no longer what it was at the time of The Last of the Wine, and perhaps it'll take a Macedonian conquerer to bring glory back to it (Philip's relationship with Athens is intense and weird, as Alexander comments). Anyway, there's loads of this kind of thing, and it's really brilliant historical fiction.
That said, a lot of the historical detail is about war—what wars happened where and why, and what war is like in this setting—and the constant brutal violence and glorification of it (Alexander is a bit more clement than the average; but he is, you know, still trying to conquer everyone) got a bit much for me at times. The description of the Battle of Chaironeia is especially vivid—that was the one name I recognised, being the famous last stand of the Theban Sacred Band who were fighting against Alexander and who were apparently all killed, and despite being responsible for the defeat Alexander is very memorably affected by this in particular. I think, as with The Last of the Wine, the largely unrelenting grimness was too much for me to be emotionally invested in quite the same way I can be in Renault's contemporary novels; but, as with The Last of the Wine, the sheer power and beauty of Renault's writing, and certain things about the characterisation, end up affecting me quite a lot anyway.
Hephaistion was my favourite character in this, and very much a case of 'I'm so sorry, you deserved so much better than being in a Mary Renault novel' (this is getting to be a familiar mood). He is absurdly, devotedly, sparklingly in love with Alexander; Alexander does love Hephaistion too, but unfortunately not as much as he loves glory, martial prowess and eternal fame, and this makes for a terribly beautiful relationship which Renault describes, largely from Hephaistion's point of view, with her usual heartbreaking incisiveness of emotion and eloquently implicit sex scenes. It's a good thing it is so one-sided, or I might have got seriously upset about it and that doesn't go well. (Unlike Alexios/Lysis, neither of them has any inexplicable girlfriends; Alexander sleeps with one girl once as part of a bizarre messed-up game his mother is playing with him, Hephaistion appears to be totally uninterested in anyone but Alexander. However, I gather the next book in the trilogy is about another lover of Alexander's, so I suppose that's that for that; poor Hephaistion; it is a good thing I didn't get seriously upset about this one, etc. etc....)
In conclusion, this is an incredibly good book and also an incredibly Mary Renault book. I think I'm going to keep reading the historical novels (but I will probably also read the rest of the contemporaries; and go back and read The Charioteer again at some point, because it's my doom, etc. etc.).
*This name is given him by Alexander, and when we first meet him he's called Thunder. I found this unfortunately hilarious due to Malory Towers, and the general tone of the 'this horse is going to be my BFF forever' episode didn't help; yes, thirteen-year-old Alexander the Great is exactly like a horse-obsessed girl in an Enid Blyton boarding-school novel...
Fire from Heaven (1969) tells the story of the early life of Alexander the Great, starting when he's four years old and ending with the assassination of his father King Philip when Alexander is twenty. Along the way we get war, philosophy, opinions on Homer, war, a sweeping look at the political and cultural situation of Macedon and Greece and the relations between them in a time seeing itself as the decline after the glory days, war, political intrigue, war and the absolute worst parent characters I have encountered in a Renault novel so far—father as well as mother!—and that's not an easy honour to gain.
In that first paragraph I could have jokingly said 'Alexander the not-yet-Great', but that is very much not Renault's opinion; her Alexander is utterly exceptional from the beginning, but her writing skill (and the genuine remarkableness of the history itself) are sufficient to pull this off. As a child Alexander unnerves people with the intelligence and perceptiveness of his questions about military strategy and tactics; the traditional coming-of-age rites for boys in Macedon include killing a man in battle, a feat which Alexander runs off to perform on his own initiative after an argument with his father at the age of twelve; shortly thereafter he encounters a furious-tempered horse which will not let anyone ride him and immediately becomes BFFs with him (Renault avoids the name Bucephalus because it 'comes trailing clouds of nineteenth-century cliche', and mostly renders the name in English as Oxhead, which I found rather charming*); later in his teens he's leading armies in his father's wars with faultless skill and courage and inspiring warriors to follow him; in everything he does he's determined with a terrifying purpose on becoming The Greatest in martial prowess and winning eternal fame; he may actually be the half-mortal son of a god (or at least Hephaistion thinks so, bless him). It's an... interesting bit of characterisation, is what I mean; and I think it works partly because Alexander is so far from being generically perfect. He's badly messed up by both parents (his father treats everyone with arbitrary cruelty and violence; his mother is (literally) a witch who hates her husband and uses Alexander as a tool to undermine him and in whatever other schemes she might happen to have going at any moment), as well as by the extremely messed-up culture of his surroundings in general. It's clear that his ambition to achieve perfection in martial prowess and win eternal fame is, er, maybe not the best life choice to be making; and it appears as a sort of tragedy that it's the only one he can make, being what he is.
Having read this book and The Last of the Wine, I've reached the conclusion that, while I may not necessarily like them better, Renault is definitely better at historical novels than contemporary ones, and the history in this one is—so far as I, who know nothing about the period, can say—incredible. The book is full of detail about the historical backstory, the progress of various wars, relations between the different city-states and kingdoms, as well as all sorts of mundane things of everyday life (I was especially struck by her pointing out that at this time most people who could read couldn't read silently, and describing Alexander's unusual ability to do so; that's the kind of important but so easily-overlooked detail that gives such colour to historical fiction); in beautiful detail Renault describes the fact of what happened and conveys its meaning, and her history feels very much lived-in. The Macedonians are considered, and to an extent accept the idea that they are, barbarians compared to the cultured and civilised Greeks, particularly the Athenians; but Athens is no longer what it was at the time of The Last of the Wine, and perhaps it'll take a Macedonian conquerer to bring glory back to it (Philip's relationship with Athens is intense and weird, as Alexander comments). Anyway, there's loads of this kind of thing, and it's really brilliant historical fiction.
That said, a lot of the historical detail is about war—what wars happened where and why, and what war is like in this setting—and the constant brutal violence and glorification of it (Alexander is a bit more clement than the average; but he is, you know, still trying to conquer everyone) got a bit much for me at times. The description of the Battle of Chaironeia is especially vivid—that was the one name I recognised, being the famous last stand of the Theban Sacred Band who were fighting against Alexander and who were apparently all killed, and despite being responsible for the defeat Alexander is very memorably affected by this in particular. I think, as with The Last of the Wine, the largely unrelenting grimness was too much for me to be emotionally invested in quite the same way I can be in Renault's contemporary novels; but, as with The Last of the Wine, the sheer power and beauty of Renault's writing, and certain things about the characterisation, end up affecting me quite a lot anyway.
Hephaistion was my favourite character in this, and very much a case of 'I'm so sorry, you deserved so much better than being in a Mary Renault novel' (this is getting to be a familiar mood). He is absurdly, devotedly, sparklingly in love with Alexander; Alexander does love Hephaistion too, but unfortunately not as much as he loves glory, martial prowess and eternal fame, and this makes for a terribly beautiful relationship which Renault describes, largely from Hephaistion's point of view, with her usual heartbreaking incisiveness of emotion and eloquently implicit sex scenes. It's a good thing it is so one-sided, or I might have got seriously upset about it and that doesn't go well. (Unlike Alexios/Lysis, neither of them has any inexplicable girlfriends; Alexander sleeps with one girl once as part of a bizarre messed-up game his mother is playing with him, Hephaistion appears to be totally uninterested in anyone but Alexander. However, I gather the next book in the trilogy is about another lover of Alexander's, so I suppose that's that for that; poor Hephaistion; it is a good thing I didn't get seriously upset about this one, etc. etc....)
In conclusion, this is an incredibly good book and also an incredibly Mary Renault book. I think I'm going to keep reading the historical novels (but I will probably also read the rest of the contemporaries; and go back and read The Charioteer again at some point, because it's my doom, etc. etc.).
*This name is given him by Alexander, and when we first meet him he's called Thunder. I found this unfortunately hilarious due to Malory Towers, and the general tone of the 'this horse is going to be my BFF forever' episode didn't help; yes, thirteen-year-old Alexander the Great is exactly like a horse-obsessed girl in an Enid Blyton boarding-school novel...
