osprey_archer (
osprey_archer) wrote2021-12-09 07:14 pm
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Book Review: Fire from Heaven
As I reported yesterday, I have AT LONG LAST finished Mary Renault's Fire from Heaven, which I have been reading since, God help me, August.
In the past I've sort of informally sorted war books along an axis, based on their attitude from war, which axis runs from BRUTAL to GLORIOUS. During Fire from Heaven, it occurred to me, perhaps belatedly, that these are properly two separate axes: brutal to not-brutal and glorious to not-glorious. These axes should be overlaid to form four quadrants of war stories.
So, on the glorious/not-brutal quadrant, you have classic boy's own war adventures. On brutal/not-glorious, you've got things like All Quiet on the Western Front. And then you've got Fire from Heaven, which is in the "war is brutal AND glorious" quadrant."
In a sense this is unavoidable: it's a book about Alexander the Great, who is Great because he conquered a swathe of the known world, and this is not a book that is trying to complicate your understanding of whether that is truly Great. This is a book about how Alexander is the bee's knees, and although war is brutal (I wouldn't say that Renault lingers unduly on the brutality, but there is a certain "this is not a boy's own story" emphasis on its presence) this does not, somehow, mean it is not glorious. In fact, brutality and glory may be inseparable.
For many modern readers, and by "many modern readers" I of course mean myself, this is an alien view. Frankly, I probably found it as challenging as many of her early readers may have found her positive depiction of Alexander and Hephaistion's love affair. (This is adorable and does not take up a lot of page time.) I was not, unfortunately, in the mood to be challenged, particularly not on this particular topic, because I read so many war books over the past year that I am honestly just tired of war right now, so whenever Alexander marched to the cusp of another brutal yet glorious battle I screeched to a halt, hence the fact that it took me four months to read the darn book.
Possibly I'm just not the right audience for historical fiction about world conquerors. I should keep this in mind if I ever run across a novel about Napoleon.
***
ALSO, does Mary Renault have an Oedipus complex kink, or DOES she have an Oedipus complex kink? It had not occurred to me that this could be a thing, but I've read four of her novels now, and the Oedipal thing is ALL over three of them, and the fourth one has female main characters, so there's really no place to shove in an Oedipal complex, but let's be real, The Friendly Young Ladies had MORE than enough going on already.
1. In The Charioteer, baby!Laurie asks his mother to marry him. They grow up to have an arrestingly dysfunctional relationship during which she's more or less constantly telling him to stop having feelings about things like "you put my beloved dog down because he was inconvenient." (At one point Laurie, apparently with no sense of irony, tells Ralph "my mother's pretty well-balanced." Laurie. Laurie. IS SHE, Laurie?)
2. In The Last of the Wine, Alexias's father accuses him of sleeping with his hot young stepmother and Alexias runs away into the hills SO far and SO fast that he almost DIES and then collapses, sobbing, because although the accusation is not literally true it is true in his HEART. And then he gets his first girlfriend, who is literally old enough to be his mother.
3. In Fire from Heaven, baby!Alexander (like Laurie!) asks his mother to marry him, AND ALSO spends most of the book seesawing about whether or not he wants to kill his father, before finally deciding that his father is NOT his father so patricide is not technically patricide and is, therefore, okay, probably. But then his father dies of other causes anyway.
In a way it is futile to ask why an author kinks on certain things, but also WHY. WHY, MARY.
I scream this to the heavens as if it is going to in any way hinder me from reading more Renault books. It definitely will not. I will continue reading them and then shrieking like an incoherent dolphin.
...But probably these further Renault readings will take place after a break of some months because honestly I am SO tired of war books right now. I've read so many. I just want to read books about books and savor the quiet life among people who are not leading any conquering armies at all.
In the past I've sort of informally sorted war books along an axis, based on their attitude from war, which axis runs from BRUTAL to GLORIOUS. During Fire from Heaven, it occurred to me, perhaps belatedly, that these are properly two separate axes: brutal to not-brutal and glorious to not-glorious. These axes should be overlaid to form four quadrants of war stories.
So, on the glorious/not-brutal quadrant, you have classic boy's own war adventures. On brutal/not-glorious, you've got things like All Quiet on the Western Front. And then you've got Fire from Heaven, which is in the "war is brutal AND glorious" quadrant."
In a sense this is unavoidable: it's a book about Alexander the Great, who is Great because he conquered a swathe of the known world, and this is not a book that is trying to complicate your understanding of whether that is truly Great. This is a book about how Alexander is the bee's knees, and although war is brutal (I wouldn't say that Renault lingers unduly on the brutality, but there is a certain "this is not a boy's own story" emphasis on its presence) this does not, somehow, mean it is not glorious. In fact, brutality and glory may be inseparable.
For many modern readers, and by "many modern readers" I of course mean myself, this is an alien view. Frankly, I probably found it as challenging as many of her early readers may have found her positive depiction of Alexander and Hephaistion's love affair. (This is adorable and does not take up a lot of page time.) I was not, unfortunately, in the mood to be challenged, particularly not on this particular topic, because I read so many war books over the past year that I am honestly just tired of war right now, so whenever Alexander marched to the cusp of another brutal yet glorious battle I screeched to a halt, hence the fact that it took me four months to read the darn book.
Possibly I'm just not the right audience for historical fiction about world conquerors. I should keep this in mind if I ever run across a novel about Napoleon.
***
ALSO, does Mary Renault have an Oedipus complex kink, or DOES she have an Oedipus complex kink? It had not occurred to me that this could be a thing, but I've read four of her novels now, and the Oedipal thing is ALL over three of them, and the fourth one has female main characters, so there's really no place to shove in an Oedipal complex, but let's be real, The Friendly Young Ladies had MORE than enough going on already.
1. In The Charioteer, baby!Laurie asks his mother to marry him. They grow up to have an arrestingly dysfunctional relationship during which she's more or less constantly telling him to stop having feelings about things like "you put my beloved dog down because he was inconvenient." (At one point Laurie, apparently with no sense of irony, tells Ralph "my mother's pretty well-balanced." Laurie. Laurie. IS SHE, Laurie?)
2. In The Last of the Wine, Alexias's father accuses him of sleeping with his hot young stepmother and Alexias runs away into the hills SO far and SO fast that he almost DIES and then collapses, sobbing, because although the accusation is not literally true it is true in his HEART. And then he gets his first girlfriend, who is literally old enough to be his mother.
3. In Fire from Heaven, baby!Alexander (like Laurie!) asks his mother to marry him, AND ALSO spends most of the book seesawing about whether or not he wants to kill his father, before finally deciding that his father is NOT his father so patricide is not technically patricide and is, therefore, okay, probably. But then his father dies of other causes anyway.
In a way it is futile to ask why an author kinks on certain things, but also WHY. WHY, MARY.
I scream this to the heavens as if it is going to in any way hinder me from reading more Renault books. It definitely will not. I will continue reading them and then shrieking like an incoherent dolphin.
...But probably these further Renault readings will take place after a break of some months because honestly I am SO tired of war books right now. I've read so many. I just want to read books about books and savor the quiet life among people who are not leading any conquering armies at all.
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Brace for impact if you attempt Return to Night (1947).
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Oh, yeah: I actually like it as a novel and have a much better opinion of the central couple's long-term chances than Renault does; I consider it her one real successful instance of contemporary m/f. But the male lead's relationship with his mother fits right into the Renault Oedipal matrix. I don't think she was incapable of writing other kinds of maternal relationship, but she definitely had a default.
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HOO BOY.
Honestly, this makes me kind of want to read it? Not because I think it will be ENJOYABLE per se but because it will clearly be an Experience, possibly even an Experience on par with The Friendly Young Ladies.
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The Oedipus kink is SO STRONG. (I have only read extracts of Return To Night, but they were the most Oedipal extracts, unless the rest of the book is equally so, in which case… yeah.) Though I must consider in this case whether Alexander has Mary’s kink or if Mary has Alexander’s, because in addition to the one Extreme Mother Situation he was born with he then picked up a couple more Mother Situations on the road…
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There is theoretically a fourth quadrant where war is neither brutal nor glorious. Possibly that mainly shows up in comedic war stories?
If this was the only Mary Renault book I'd read, I might believe that Alexander's life story forced Mary's hand on the Oedipus complex. But having read all these other books that had Oedipal elements NOT forced on the author by history, I think that aspect was in fact part of what drew her to the Alexander's story in the first place.
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And yeah, I think that may have been part of the attraction :P
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Once you discover the Power of the Quadrant (as you have), you can go on to write articles for the business press! Back when I started out editing and was working for a business magazine, it seemed like every. single. article. had one. BE IN THAT UPPER RIGHT QUADRANT, PEOPLE... and NEVER EVER in the lower left one.
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Dr Strangelove? Most of the ones I could think of are way older....Allo Allo, Dad's Army, McHale's Navy, how I Won the War, and then I ran out. (As said above, WII comedy was not a popular genre in my house growing up.) And a lot of the comedies seem in sort of sub-categories -- hapless hero with a bunch of nurses, or boot camp comedies, or civilians trying to make it on the Home Front.
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I mean, is Laurie a particularly good judge of anyone's psychology.
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AND I AM GLAD I DID AND WILL ENDEAVOUR TO FORGET IT AGAIN
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OMG. *boggles* Uh, is the sensuousness from Alexander's perspective, or from his mother's, or from the narrator's? If those can be separated...
Also, I was thinking that not-brutal, not-glorious might be like one of those WWII homefront diaries, but OTOH they're kind of at a distance from the war.
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it's a book about Alexander the Great, who is Great because he conquered a swathe of the known world, and this is not a book that is trying to complicate your understanding of whether that is truly Great. ahahaha, yeah, I can see how that's more cognitive dissonance than you want in this particular moment in world history (or maybe ever).
You really have read Quite A Lot of war books.
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I think there is a sense of claustrophobia to FFH. So many characters locked in horrible antagonistic relationships with their closest relatives/former friends, whom they cannot escape.
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Er, yeah, I agree with the other comments about Oedipal complexes and Return to Night...! Nice to know Renault keeps on writing exactly what she likes, no matter the setting, I suppose.
I scream this to the heavens as if it is going to in any way hinder me from reading more Renault books. It definitely will not. I will continue reading them and then shrieking like an incoherent dolphin.
Extremely relatable sentiment, specifically and in general when it comes to Renault. :D
I'm glad the Alexander/Hephaistion relationship is positive and adorable, though! I didn't think any of Renault's main couples were that. Although perhaps not as 'main', if it doesn't have much time on the page compared to all the war and conquest.
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I have spent a certain amount of time wailing "MARY RENAULT, I WISH I COULD QUIT YOU," but really that's a lie. Not only am I incapable of quitting, but in my heart I don't even really want to.
I will say that Fire from Heaven may have completely warped my understanding of "positive" and "adorable," and Alexander/Hephaistion might only look like that in comparison with all the other complete disaster relationships in the book. "Oh my God, you guys are actually nice to each other and don't harbor any secretly murdery impulses towards each other!" I gasped, weeping with joy.