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Go down to the netherworld, plant grapes
Somehow this post wound up huge. Thank God for lj-cuts.
1. Today was a rather bad day, but then![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
csecooney found this card of Mary Magdalene. She had never before realized, she said, that the saint was a lycanthrope. So I wrote the litany.
Mater luporum, mater moeniorum, stella montana, ora pro nobis. Virgo arborum, virgo vastitatis, umbra corniculans, ora pro nobis. Regina mutatum, regina siderum, ficus aeterna, ora pro nobis. Domina omnium nocte dieque errantium, nunc et in hora mortis nostrae, ora pro nobis.
Mother of wolves, mother of walls, star of the mountains, pray for us. Virgin of trees, virgin of desert, horned moon's shadow, pray for us. Queen of changes, queen of constellations, eternal fig-tree, pray for us. Mistress of all who by night and day wander, now and at the hour of our death, pray for us.
I feel slightly better now.
2. I dreamed last night of secret agents and the same fifteen minutes playing and replaying and almost no one noticing it was not the same universe each time, though the changes were not small: the zither on the wall is now a classical guitar, a stack of books on the dining room table instead of flowers. This feels like the premise of a film I haven't seen yet.
3. Jill Paton Walsh's Farewell, Great King (1972) is one of the more impressive novels I have read lately in terms of slow-dawning character work and evocation of the ancient world. For about a chapter, it is confusing that it's not by Mary Renault.
The narrative is fairly straightforward: it is a first-person account of the life of Themistokles, written on the eve of his suicide and addressed to Artaxerxes I of Persia in explanation of a broken bargain; though he has been given refuge in his exile and made governor of three cities in Asia Minor, the once-victor of Salamis cannot, after all, make war for the Great King on his native Athens. How he came to be faced with this decision is the ostensible substance of the novel. He's more or less chronological about it and he admits he doesn't have a flowery style. It seems, therefore, like the kind of book where the reader will mostly come away with a better grasp of early Athenian democracy and the Persian Wars, the historical figure being there to hang the viewpoint on. What it is, really, is a portrait of an immensely complicated man who knows about half of his own contradictions and would instinctively mislead the reader about the other half and none of it is on the surface of the text in any case.
To be hated by an Alkmeonid, or by a Philaid, is a crown of olive to a man like me. How many times, by now, I've worn that crown! It takes longer to fade than the crown of an athlete, too.
You can take the novel at its word, of course, but it would be a mistake. Themistokles as Paton Walsh writes him is both a casual and a thoughtful manipulator of people; it doesn't make him incapable of friendship or kindness or generosity, but there is always that eye to the main chance, the reflex level on which he assesses every newcomer for their potential usefulness and doesn't even notice anymore.1 Like any statesman, he loves to be adored and followed and looked to in those moments when the wheel of the world hangs waiting for the hand to take hold of it and turn—he has known since the age of twelve that what he likes to do is get things done and get the credit for it—and he has a curious trick, concomitant, of needing to be untrustworthy, as if to make sure that he is never predictable enough to be manipulated himself. He takes bribes, he twists arms, he lies with the fluency of Odysseus and he doesn't mind being known for it. He gets the job done. Periodically, when it won't backfire on him, he screws somebody over. He is absolutely the genius he thinks he is, and yet for all his offhand Olympian ego, the reader notices that he can never quite acknowledge unmixed skill in anyone else, no matter how dear they are to him. Athens is the exception, his doting and his hard-edged ambitious dream. He loves his city. He would give her the sea.
And Athens, being mine, all mine, like a bride with her husband or a boy with his lover, smiling, agreed. We voted for ships.
And throughout it all is Aristeides, called "the Just," the great unrequited love of Themistokles' life and his great rival, who in some ways he is really writing this last letter for.2 They are not entirely opposites, no matter how they're drawn by history, because life is not that schematic, but in Aristeides Themistokles sees all that he is not—pure-blooded Athenian, thoughtlessly incorruptible, as strictly and beautifully principled as a kouros in stone—and whether he envies it or is contemptuous of it or merely wonders how anyone who's spent so much time with ideas can be so stupid sometimes, he's drawn to it and it maddens him. There is a powerful, almost noir-tinged scene late in the novel in which Themistokles swears he'd have gone straight for Aristeides' sake and—in the same breath, with the same passion—that Aristeides owes him for keeping his hands clean, for being the wheeler-dealer, the fixer, the trickster with his silver and his ships, so that Aristeides can truly deserve his nickname. I heard it in my head half in Greek, like much of the novel. μηδὲ σύ, ὦ Δίκαιε. There are not many authors who can pull that off. Also, I think my bar for historical slash is now set very high.
Great King, the shadow of the column of the window silently rotates across the floor; I shall be writing late into the night. And then another grey dawn will come up on a wakeful night; and as for what I wept for, so long ago, I have lived without it, and will die without it still.
There's more, which I will not spoil. You can certainly take it as a refresher course on Herodotos and Plutarch; I will never again forget the playwright Phrynichos. But it is a good novel, whether you know anything about the source material or not, and I will be looking for a copy. Its protagonist was evidently dear to Jill Paton Walsh, all sorts of difficult as he was; I like that it's communicable.3
1. In epitome: "Soon I had a son-in-law too, a man of impeccable honesty, who had fought very bravely at Salamis. He had no money, but I preferred him to the others who offered themselves, saying I'd rather have a man without money than money without a man. I think the girl's kindly treated, and he makes himself useful to me."
2. I said the novel was brilliant about the ancient world: in fifth-century Athens, it's unrequited not because Themistokles is half-metic or Aristeides only goes for women, but because the two men are age-mates. It will never occur to Aristeides to think of Themistokles that way, like a beloved boy or an admiring lover. The one time they ever get near discussing the subject, Aristeides assumes that his friend is crushing on his new eromenos—he's noticed that Themistokles gets tongue-tied and awkward around the two of them, though Themistokles actually thinks the kid is pretty but dumb as a board—gently offers Themistokles the option to court him, and Themistokles leaves in an Attic attitude of fail my life. There are a lot of scandalous things a politician in Athens can make capital of, but turning dizzy with desire when a fellow-archon grasps his wrist isn't one of them.
3. One of her other books I got out from the library when I picked this one up was Children of the Fox (1978), which seems to be three YA novellas about Themistokles: I will be fascinated to see how that works.
4.shweta_narayan has done a link roundup of the thing with the poem and the SFPA. It is not a good poem. In some ways, that's the least of its problems; and in others, everything else is just noise. Both are true. Intersections exist. Hello.
No fifth thing, because I'm going to bed. Tomorrow, Providence.
1. Today was a rather bad day, but then
csecooney found this card of Mary Magdalene. She had never before realized, she said, that the saint was a lycanthrope. So I wrote the litany.
Mater luporum, mater moeniorum, stella montana, ora pro nobis. Virgo arborum, virgo vastitatis, umbra corniculans, ora pro nobis. Regina mutatum, regina siderum, ficus aeterna, ora pro nobis. Domina omnium nocte dieque errantium, nunc et in hora mortis nostrae, ora pro nobis.
Mother of wolves, mother of walls, star of the mountains, pray for us. Virgin of trees, virgin of desert, horned moon's shadow, pray for us. Queen of changes, queen of constellations, eternal fig-tree, pray for us. Mistress of all who by night and day wander, now and at the hour of our death, pray for us.
I feel slightly better now.
2. I dreamed last night of secret agents and the same fifteen minutes playing and replaying and almost no one noticing it was not the same universe each time, though the changes were not small: the zither on the wall is now a classical guitar, a stack of books on the dining room table instead of flowers. This feels like the premise of a film I haven't seen yet.
3. Jill Paton Walsh's Farewell, Great King (1972) is one of the more impressive novels I have read lately in terms of slow-dawning character work and evocation of the ancient world. For about a chapter, it is confusing that it's not by Mary Renault.
The narrative is fairly straightforward: it is a first-person account of the life of Themistokles, written on the eve of his suicide and addressed to Artaxerxes I of Persia in explanation of a broken bargain; though he has been given refuge in his exile and made governor of three cities in Asia Minor, the once-victor of Salamis cannot, after all, make war for the Great King on his native Athens. How he came to be faced with this decision is the ostensible substance of the novel. He's more or less chronological about it and he admits he doesn't have a flowery style. It seems, therefore, like the kind of book where the reader will mostly come away with a better grasp of early Athenian democracy and the Persian Wars, the historical figure being there to hang the viewpoint on. What it is, really, is a portrait of an immensely complicated man who knows about half of his own contradictions and would instinctively mislead the reader about the other half and none of it is on the surface of the text in any case.
To be hated by an Alkmeonid, or by a Philaid, is a crown of olive to a man like me. How many times, by now, I've worn that crown! It takes longer to fade than the crown of an athlete, too.
You can take the novel at its word, of course, but it would be a mistake. Themistokles as Paton Walsh writes him is both a casual and a thoughtful manipulator of people; it doesn't make him incapable of friendship or kindness or generosity, but there is always that eye to the main chance, the reflex level on which he assesses every newcomer for their potential usefulness and doesn't even notice anymore.1 Like any statesman, he loves to be adored and followed and looked to in those moments when the wheel of the world hangs waiting for the hand to take hold of it and turn—he has known since the age of twelve that what he likes to do is get things done and get the credit for it—and he has a curious trick, concomitant, of needing to be untrustworthy, as if to make sure that he is never predictable enough to be manipulated himself. He takes bribes, he twists arms, he lies with the fluency of Odysseus and he doesn't mind being known for it. He gets the job done. Periodically, when it won't backfire on him, he screws somebody over. He is absolutely the genius he thinks he is, and yet for all his offhand Olympian ego, the reader notices that he can never quite acknowledge unmixed skill in anyone else, no matter how dear they are to him. Athens is the exception, his doting and his hard-edged ambitious dream. He loves his city. He would give her the sea.
And Athens, being mine, all mine, like a bride with her husband or a boy with his lover, smiling, agreed. We voted for ships.
And throughout it all is Aristeides, called "the Just," the great unrequited love of Themistokles' life and his great rival, who in some ways he is really writing this last letter for.2 They are not entirely opposites, no matter how they're drawn by history, because life is not that schematic, but in Aristeides Themistokles sees all that he is not—pure-blooded Athenian, thoughtlessly incorruptible, as strictly and beautifully principled as a kouros in stone—and whether he envies it or is contemptuous of it or merely wonders how anyone who's spent so much time with ideas can be so stupid sometimes, he's drawn to it and it maddens him. There is a powerful, almost noir-tinged scene late in the novel in which Themistokles swears he'd have gone straight for Aristeides' sake and—in the same breath, with the same passion—that Aristeides owes him for keeping his hands clean, for being the wheeler-dealer, the fixer, the trickster with his silver and his ships, so that Aristeides can truly deserve his nickname. I heard it in my head half in Greek, like much of the novel. μηδὲ σύ, ὦ Δίκαιε. There are not many authors who can pull that off. Also, I think my bar for historical slash is now set very high.
Great King, the shadow of the column of the window silently rotates across the floor; I shall be writing late into the night. And then another grey dawn will come up on a wakeful night; and as for what I wept for, so long ago, I have lived without it, and will die without it still.
There's more, which I will not spoil. You can certainly take it as a refresher course on Herodotos and Plutarch; I will never again forget the playwright Phrynichos. But it is a good novel, whether you know anything about the source material or not, and I will be looking for a copy. Its protagonist was evidently dear to Jill Paton Walsh, all sorts of difficult as he was; I like that it's communicable.3
1. In epitome: "Soon I had a son-in-law too, a man of impeccable honesty, who had fought very bravely at Salamis. He had no money, but I preferred him to the others who offered themselves, saying I'd rather have a man without money than money without a man. I think the girl's kindly treated, and he makes himself useful to me."
2. I said the novel was brilliant about the ancient world: in fifth-century Athens, it's unrequited not because Themistokles is half-metic or Aristeides only goes for women, but because the two men are age-mates. It will never occur to Aristeides to think of Themistokles that way, like a beloved boy or an admiring lover. The one time they ever get near discussing the subject, Aristeides assumes that his friend is crushing on his new eromenos—he's noticed that Themistokles gets tongue-tied and awkward around the two of them, though Themistokles actually thinks the kid is pretty but dumb as a board—gently offers Themistokles the option to court him, and Themistokles leaves in an Attic attitude of fail my life. There are a lot of scandalous things a politician in Athens can make capital of, but turning dizzy with desire when a fellow-archon grasps his wrist isn't one of them.
3. One of her other books I got out from the library when I picked this one up was Children of the Fox (1978), which seems to be three YA novellas about Themistokles: I will be fascinated to see how that works.
4.
shweta_narayan has done a link roundup of the thing with the poem and the SFPA. It is not a good poem. In some ways, that's the least of its problems; and in others, everything else is just noise. Both are true. Intersections exist. Hello.No fifth thing, because I'm going to bed. Tomorrow, Providence.
no subject
I grew increasingly allergic to Mary Renault's visceral dislike of women. I enjoyed Thrones, Dominations despite its being on the slight side. If you want more waning Byzantium stories, most of Ismíni Kapádai's novels fit the profile: http://www.kastaniotis.com/author/520
no subject
Thank you. If you want to write anything in that direction . . .
If you want more waning Byzantium stories, most of Ismíni Kapádai's novels fit the profile
I've never heard of her before; I'll check her out!