osprey_archer: (books)
osprey_archer ([personal profile] osprey_archer) wrote2021-12-09 07:14 pm

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.
sovay: (Claude Rains)

[personal profile] sovay 2021-12-10 01:03 am (UTC)(link)
In a way it is futile to ask why an author kinks on certain things, but also WHY. WHY, MARY.

Brace for impact if you attempt Return to Night (1947).
tei: Rabbit from the Garden of Earthly Delights (Default)

[personal profile] tei 2021-12-10 01:29 am (UTC)(link)
The War Quadrants are an excellent summary of the approach to war in this book. If it helps, The Persian Boy is “brutal and glorious, but mostly for other people, and maybe at some point we could possibly consider not-war as a possibility for a bit, maybe?”

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…
troisoiseaux: (Default)

[personal profile] troisoiseaux 2021-12-10 01:44 am (UTC)(link)
I was about to say, I know she has one young man/older woman romance— I've never read Return to Night, but I, uh. imagine that this trend might come up in it.
troisoiseaux: (Default)

[personal profile] troisoiseaux 2021-12-10 01:44 am (UTC)(link)
At one point Laurie, apparently with no sense of irony, tells Ralph "my mother's pretty well-balanced." Laurie. Laurie. IS SHE, Laurie?

I mean, is Laurie a particularly good judge of anyone's psychology.
hedgebird: (Default)

[personal profile] hedgebird 2021-12-10 01:48 am (UTC)(link)
I always assumed (given when she wrote) the books had to explain What Made Them Gay and "weird relationship with mom" was the current theory. But maybe it wouldn't actually come up that often if it weren't a kink.
sovay: (Claude Rains)

[personal profile] sovay 2021-12-10 01:57 am (UTC)(link)
Does it have other qualities that make it worth reading despite the off the charts levels of Oedipus complex?

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.
Edited 2021-12-10 01:58 (UTC)
sovay: (I Claudius)

[personal profile] sovay 2021-12-10 02:12 am (UTC)(link)
Maybe Return to Night will be my next Renault, actually. It looks like it's not about war, which definitely bumps it up the list right now.

It is a very good hospital novel, if you happen to enjoy such things. Renault had trained and worked for more than a decade as a nurse; it's visible in most of her contemporary novels, but I especially enjoy it in Return to Night where, unlike her first novel Purposes of Love (1939), I don't want to set the entire second half of the book on fire. I have some arguments with the ending of Return of Night, but I don't think it needs a total rewrite.

It's also the only one of her books that even got close to being made into a movie during her lifetime: it won a prize from MGM, on the financial strength of which Renault and her partner Julie Mullard moved to South Africa for the rest of their lives. The film was never made, however, and I am faintly sorry just because I would like to have seen what even happened when Hollywood met Renault's id. Every now and then I have opinions about casting.
tei: Rabbit from the Garden of Earthly Delights (Default)

[personal profile] tei 2021-12-10 02:48 am (UTC)(link)
I don't know if there's a glut of war stories with this focus, but I suppose the neither brutal nor glorious angle would be focusing on the vast numbers of people involved in essentially drudgery of carrying out logistics... I don't remember it well enough to say whether this was a significant theme, but I recall parts of the WW2 narrative of Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon were somewhat like that? A major plot point that centred on someone's having gotten sloppy in choosing letters at random from a bingo machine for crypto pads, that kind of thing.

And yeah, I think that may have been part of the attraction :P
asakiyume: created by the ninja girl (Default)

[personal profile] asakiyume 2021-12-10 03:37 am (UTC)(link)
Shrieking like an incoherent dolphin --awww, too adorable!

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.
asakiyume: created by the ninja girl (Default)

[personal profile] asakiyume 2021-12-10 03:40 am (UTC)(link)
I was wondering about that fourth quadrant--yeah, maybe Hogan's Heroes and that sort of thing.

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.
kore: (Default)

[personal profile] kore 2021-12-10 05:32 am (UTC)(link)
Persian Boy is way less "war is glorious/glorious AND brutal" and more "war is brutal, and here's the POV of someone treated like a chess piece," altho Alexander is still the bee's knees. IIRC Olympias is also in it WAY less. I thought it was kind of more varied and open than FFH, if that makes sense? FFH at times almost felt claustrophobic, although it's been a LONG time since I read it and I think I only reread it once, maybe twice.
kore: (Default)

[personal profile] kore 2021-12-10 05:41 am (UTC)(link)
Hunh, Blackadder maybe? Until at least that last episode. Or yeah, Hogan's Heroes would fit. I remember my mother, who grew up during WWII, being REALLY offended by Hogan's Heroes and forbidding me to watch it. (So of course I watched it.)

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.
kore: (Default)

[personal profile] kore 2021-12-10 05:42 am (UTC)(link)
OKAY I FORGOT THAT BIT
AND I AM GLAD I DID AND WILL ENDEAVOUR TO FORGET IT AGAIN
regshoe: Redwing, a brown bird with a red wing patch, perched in a tree (Default)

[personal profile] regshoe 2021-12-10 07:07 am (UTC)(link)
I like the 'quadrants of war stories' model, and yeah, it's very understandable that books in the 'brutal AND glorious' quadrant would be particularly difficult.

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.
regshoe: Redwing, a brown bird with a red wing patch, perched in a tree (Default)

[personal profile] regshoe 2021-12-10 07:11 am (UTC)(link)
That was what I thought about The Charioteer—but then Julian in Return to Night is not gay and he seems to be the most Oedipus-complex of them all. Hmmm.
regshoe: Redwing, a brown bird with a red wing patch, perched in a tree (Default)

[personal profile] regshoe 2021-12-10 07:14 am (UTC)(link)
It's definitely an Experience—and I would hesitantly say one on par with The Friendly Young Ladies. The ending is definitely less of a spectacularly total disaster—in general I found it much more fun than TFYL, but still in a very, er, This Book Is A Lot way.

[personal profile] anna_wing 2021-12-10 01:17 pm (UTC)(link)
[Error: Irreparable invalid markup ('<i?hogan's>') in entry. Owner must fix manually. Raw contents below.]

<i?Hogan's Heroes</i>, <i>MASH</i>, <i>Dad's Army</i>, all of which in my view have interesting conceptual overlaps with school stories...

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