#alexander trilogy

[artandbeauty71]

bagoas in the persian boy is straight up like "so this is my boyfriend, alexander. and this is my boyfriend's husband, hephaestion. I hate him so much and I want him dead and the only thing preventing me from actually killing him is alexander's reaction" lmao

[theoboopis]

coloured an old sketch

[hlblng]

Currently reading "The Persian Boy" by Mary Renault (nr 2 in the Alexander trilogy babey) and the insane second hand embarrassment I feel when Bagoas is thinking about his importance for Alexander is making it hard for me to continue at times.

What is wrong with that poor boy, I'm only half way through and I would understand it if someone strangled him out of annoyance.

[lashtonesie]

My Mythology ships

- Achilles x Patroclus

-Alexander x Hephaestion

- Krishna x Arjun

[copper-dust]

I’m really impressed by the Alexander the Great fandom cluster’s commitment to never, ever spelling any of the names the same way from one fic to another. I truly appreciate the pronunciation chaos and spelling anarchy of this fandom. You never know whether you’ll get an Anglicized spelling, a Greek spelling, some strange combination of hard C’s and double K’s, or even a writer committed to using the dipthong ‘æ’ no matter how annoying it is to type. Keep up the good work!

[gracchisuggestions]

The Last of the Wine remains languishing in if-I-don’t-read-any-further-nothing-bad-will-happen limbo, but meanwhile I’ve plunged headlong into the Alexander trilogy. Emerging from a sea full of fat Potential Deep Discussion Fish with a minnow to excessively nitpick over (Alexander speaking to Bagoas):

Herc is from King Phil’s side, that’s simple enough. 

Olympias, meanwhile, is from Epirus, which as far as I know goes:

Achilles + Deidamia = Pyrrhus

Pyrrhus + Andromache = Molossus, etc.

I’m not sure where Hector fits in, unless they believed in some kind of transitive property of penis. It might be supposed to come in further down the family trees, but IIRC versions where Astyanax survives weren’t in vogue back then. 

[etal-late]

Try reading Mary Renault’s explanatory notes to The Persian Boy without hearing Sting.

[audreyhheart]

Best Books of 2018

Here’s a list of the best books I read in 2018. Note: not all of these titles were published in 2018. I also included older books I discovered this year. 

Less by Andrew Sean Greer

I’ve already written about this book so I’ll stop gushing! No I won’t. It’s amazingly funny and poignant. 

My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh

This is probably my favourite book of 2018 and the most surprising. I don’t even know how to describe it. It’s like reading the memoir of a female character from a Brett Easton Ellis novel. Hilarious and absolutely savage. You will hate yourself for laughing.  

What If It’s Us by Becky Albertalli & Adam Silvera

Guys, I’ve gone soft. This is usually the kind of YA I steer clear of. Squeaky clean teens, ridiculously cute meet-cute, pithy dialogue that rivals the Gilmore Girls, an avalanche of pop culture references (will Americans ever stop talking about Hamilton???) But somehow it charmed me.    

The Alexander Trilogy by Mary Renault

2018 will forever be remembered as the year I discovered Mary Renault and fell in love with Alexander the Great. Bless. I know some readers are salty about the way she depicts Hephaestion, but come on, he dated history’s most celebrated cinnamon roll, of course he’s a pushover, who wouldn’t be!    

Circe by Madeline Miller

If you’re a fan of TSOA you must read Circe. I wasn’t sure what to expect from this novel because she has such a small role in The Odyssey. Folks, this goddess’ family tree is WILD. She’s the daughter of Helios and the aunt of the fucking Minotaur! Odysseus makes a cameo but this is decidedly not his story, which I found refreshing.  

Death in Venice by Thomas Mann

Read this novella after watching the film for the first time this year. It’s the story of a writer’s obsession with a boy he meets on holiday in Venice, but it’s also a dense treatise about art and life, the Apollonian and Dionysian, in other words "the complete devotion of the one who tries to create beauty to the one who is endowed with it."

Honourable mentions: The End of Eddy by Édouard Louis; The Sparsholt Affair by Alan Hollinghurst; The Perfect Nanny by Leïla Slimani