Mary Renault's "Persian Boy"

[chris_taylor]

the author doesn't understand enough about story mechanics & dramatic structure to fully grasp why "The Persian Boy" worked as a story where Oliver Stone's script failed.

This is probably off-topic, but the essay doesn't give a literary critique of the novel. I'd be interested in your views on this.

There are several published writers here and they are more qualifyied than me to offer a litary critique. But I've always admired Renault's technical brilliance and felt that readers preconceived ideas about Alexander and/or homosexuality prevented her being given the credit she deserved as a writer.

Personally, I think that the Persian Boy should be a "must read" on the curriculum of every course on dramatic storytelling for any medium - radio, film or novel. For those interested, I outline why below, using choice of main character, plot, characterization and language to illustrate what I mean.


Choice of Main Character:

When writing a story of a historical character after his/her death *from the point of view of that person*, then the hero must undergo a crucible prior to the events that made them famous and the story must end before those achievements start. Its inherent in the laws of dramatic structure formulated by Aristotle in their simplest form: every must have a beginning, a middle and an end.

"Alexander set out to conquer Asia and then he died" isn't a story. It has no middle.

"Alexander set out to conquer Asia, but he had to overcome his army's resentment to succeed" would be a story, but that's not what happened.

"Alexander set out to conquer Asia through Verschmelzungspolitik, but everyone else wanted war" would be a story, but that's not what happened neither.

"Alexander wanted to conquer Asia through war, but he failed because he didn't learn it was morally wrong" would be a story, but that definetely didn't happen.

There is no evidence that Alexander ever questioned the morality of what he was doing: for all we know, he pursued his goal from start to finish unchanged. He is the archetype of a hero whose moral values do not change, no matter what size the obstacle you throw at him. In other words, he had no character arc.

So the Renault needed to solve two problems: separate the dramatic function of the protagonist from that of the main character, ie the person through whom the reader experiences the story - and then find that main character an arc strong enough to withstand a relentless battering by none less than Alexander the Great.

Out of the 800 or so characters listed in Heckel's "Who is who in the age of Alexander", there weren't many candidates for the role: few were close enough to have had enough first or second-hand knowledge of all the events that required telling. Of those few, many died before Alexander - and the laws of structure dictate that a main character can't die before the story is over.

The best potential candidates were Olympias, Philip Arrhideus, Roxanne, Stateira, Oxyathres, Bagoas and Barsine.

Of those, Olympia and Roxanne character arcs weren't any more arc'ed than that of Alexander and both would have been difficult to portay sympathetically. Stateira and Barsine had too little personal contact with Alexander to make them credible witnesses to Alexander's personality, and their more traditional role as women precluded them from being witnesses to his wars.

That left the 3 men: a brother who came to power as a result of Alexander's death, the blood relative of an enemy and a eunuch lover. All three would have been perfect choices: as historical figures, they weren't well fleshed out, so their characters could be made to suit their dramatic function and their real life positions gave plenty of material for internal and external conflict.

That Renault chose Bagoas was both inspired and couragous: it allowed her to use the element of a love-story, but at the cost of alienating a large section of a potential audience. It's to her (and her publisher's) credit that she stuck with it.

As a result, she wrote a timeless love story. Those who think that's too far fetched may try the following: change Bagoas into a poor peasant girl, cut out the sex and change Alexander into a dashing prince who can win wars without really killing anyone. What's left is the bare-bones story mechanics of a Disney fairy tale. Same skeleton, different fleshing out.

Oliver Stone was hamstrung by Hollywood sensibilities (as well as copyrights), so he couldn't use Bagoas to tell his story. He could have used Oxyathres or Philip Arrhideus, but they were very different characters and no one has written Alexander's story from their point as yet. It would have meant writing a script from scratch that rivalled Renault's achievements. Oliver Stone is a master director, but script writing is a very different skill. He picked Ptolemy and it predictably failed.

"Ptolemy set out with Alexander to conquer Asia and became King of Egypt instead" is not a story and no amount of pyrotechnics will fool an audience into believing otherwise.


Characterization

All we know about Bagoas is that he was a beautiful teenage eunuch who went on to became the lover of both the Protagonist and the Antagonist in a war over world dominance.

A completely absurd, but a fairly standard story premise - the script for every James Bond girl since Ursula Andres. Fun to watch, but everyone knows it just doesn't happen in real life. Yet if we are to believe the sources, that's exactly what Bagoas did.

That presented Renault with not one, but two problems: the normal dramatic template for Bagoas' role wasn't going to work - Bond-girls and Cinderalla archetypes are not credible as real-life characters. She had to invent a character who was so radically different from the archetype that the audience wouldn't get confused AND make him credible in the role history cast him in.

She did it with an amazing psychological insight.

Bagoas was a Eunuch, ie he survived castration. No anaethetic, no antibiotics, no blood transfusions. His scrotum was simply hacked off. Anyone who has seen what that means in practice will understanad the reality hidden behind those simple words "He was a Eunuch". If you haven't seen it, trust me, you don't want to know. Renault was a nurse during the war and she knew. Her first hand experience of injury leaps off the pages of all her writings.

Having survived castration, Bagoas survived the court intrigue under Darius and went on to become his lover. He survived the death of his king and his empire, and the upheaval of the transition to a new world order. He went on to become the lover of the next king and succeeded in remaining in his favour, despite the xenophobia of Alexander's generals and his army. He even may have succeeded in winning them over a little bit: the army insisted Alexander kissed him in public.

To survive and thrive against those odds required cunning, egoism, ruthlessness and opportunism. Once no longer required for survival, none of those traits are pleasant, but he must have had a redeeming quality that endeared him to the two most powerful men of his time, who were themselves enemies. The quality Renault chose was "loyalty".

Whether a reader likes the Persian Boy or not, it is difficult to argue that using the combination of character traits, Renault managed to create a character who could credibly have achieved a feat that was improbable to the extreme.


Plot:

Once Renault had determined the main character, the main problem was to find ways of telling all of Alexander's story without changing historical reality. As Bagoas didn't meet Alexander until 4 years into an 11 year campaign, not an insignificant problem. And the ups and downs of historic events don't normally match the rise and fall of the beats as required by dramatic story-telling. Mediocre writers solve the problems by shifting narrative focus, competent ones by sacrificing historical accuracy.

Renault went about it in a different way.

a) she invented ways of how the main character would have known about events he would not have been present at. In the process, she killed two birds with one stone: it allowed the reader to become familiar with the story world without breaking narrative focus: 7 months of the siege of Tyre all related through gossip and hearsay scoured from the streets of Babylon and at court, and yet we get a good sense of the skill and relentlessness with which Alexander pursued his goal. By the end of the chapter, Renault's oneliner has the same devastating effect as Alexander's final assault.

"And then Tyre fell."

b) she re-weighs the meaning of each event by viewing it through the lens of her narrator. Alexander's victory at Gaugamela isn't described in terms of military genius, or its significane for world history. In fact, it isn't described at all: we experience it through the effect it had on the city of Arbela and the life of a eunuch in the bizarre world of the Persian court. Yet the reader is left in no doubt as to what happened on the battlefield spelt the beginning of the end for Darius.

c) she wraps the core narrative (Alexander's campaign) into the outer story of Bagoas writing his book. This flashback-narrative allows her to complete the arc of her main character in the present.

This narrative complexity is held together by a dramatic framework of awe-inspiring perfection: no matter which analytic tool you choose to take it apart - Aristotle, Campbell, Vogler, Truby, Aronson, Dramatica - its always turns out flawless. All the beats, in all the right places. Always.


Language

The Persian Boy is written as an autobiography of the main character. To make that credible, the historical Bagoas had to be taken into account: he was a native Persian speaker, who wrote his (fictious) book in his second language, with all the subtle mistakes / idiosyncrasies / idiomatic changes that it would have entailed.

Renault had to capture the interplay of his (fictious) character, language and culture, imagine how that would have filtered through into a second ancient language and then convey it the subtleties in English vocabulary, syntax & grammar, while still making it all intelligent to a modern day reader.

The opening lines of the Persian Boy are worth quoting:

"Lest anyone should suppose I am a son of a nobody, sold off by some peasant father in a drought year, I may say our line is an ancient one, although it ends with me."

By modern standards, syntax and vocabulary are very odd, but it's easy to imagine that this how a proud Persian eunuch living 2500 years ago would have started a book about himself. Once you've followed so far, that opening line no longer sounds odd, but self-evident.

But to understand how much skill has gone into crafting those lines becomes apparent when listening to the dialogue in Oliver Stone's Alexander. The movie had a budget of $ 15o million dollars and that still wasn't enough to find a scriptwriter skilled enough to make the audience forget that everyone on screen was talking in the wrong language.

Chris.

[marcus]

Chris,

Many thanks for this. It is very interesting and, as it is probably 25 years since I read The Persian Boy, it was especially useful to be reminded of certain things that Renault did in the novel.

I would have to re-read the book to comment properly on what you have said, although at first reading I can't really see anything I would dispute. Except one thing!

You say:

There is no evidence that Alexander ever questioned the morality of what he was doing: for all we know, he pursued his goal from start to finish unchanged. He is the archetype of a hero whose moral values do not change, no matter what size the obstacle you throw at him. In other words, he had no character arc.

Two things, really. First, remember that you are applying modern "morality" when you say this. Alexander did not question the morality of what he was doing, because as far as he was concerned he was doing what was right for him to do. I don't disagree with you, basically, but just to clarify!

Second, I do disagree that Alexander had no character arc. I agree that the 'arc' is missing when considering the morality (see comment above) of what he was doing. But in the context of his life as a whole, I would say that there's an entire bloomin' rainbow - orientalism, increasing disaffection of his troops, causes and consequences of judicial and extra-judicial murder of friends and colleagues, his ultimate disappointment of not reaching the ends of the world, plans for future conquests, and an untimely death that prevents the character arc from completing itself ... and, if you like, final redemption through his everlasting fame.

ATB

[chris_taylor]

First, remember that you are applying modern "morality" when you say this. Alexander did not question the morality of what he was doing, because as far as he was concerned he was doing what was right for him to do. I don't disagree with you, basically, but just to clarify!

Two very subtle points and well worth clarifying: as far as Alexander's morality is concerned, I agree. Measured by the standards of his own time, he was a flawed, but remarkably moral man.

Second, I do disagree that Alexander had no character arc. I agree that the 'arc' is missing when considering the morality (see comment above) of what he was doing. But in the context of his life as a whole, I would say that there's an entire bloomin' rainbow - orientalism, increasing disaffection of his troops, causes and consequences of judicial and extra-judicial murder of friends and colleagues, his ultimate disappointment of not reaching the ends of the world, plans for future conquests, and an untimely death that prevents the character arc from completing itself

I understand how you interpret the term character arc. But in the formal language of story structure, I see the items listed above are external events, not milestones on a character arc. The best example is that of Philotas & Parmenio's deaths: imagine that Alexander had to live his life again knowing what he knew - would he act differently?

I think so: he'd have them both killed in Egypt two years earlier. He would have learnt how to avoid the mistake, but the moral values underlying his behaviour would be the same. But it's only the latter that is a character arc.

... and, if you like, final redemption through his everlasting fame.

That is the usual reward for a story hero who fulfils his goal through dying for what he believes in. It would have been perfect, if Alexander had died a final battle. That he didn't, has given everyone who ever wanted to dramatize his life a headache, which was very much the point of my piece. Stone didn't solve the problem, Renault did.

Chris.

[marcus]

Second, I do disagree that Alexander had no character arc. I agree that the 'arc' is missing when considering the morality (see comment above) of what he was doing. But in the context of his life as a whole, I would say that there's an entire bloomin' rainbow - orientalism, increasing disaffection of his troops, causes and consequences of judicial and extra-judicial murder of friends and colleagues, his ultimate disappointment of not reaching the ends of the world, plans for future conquests, and an untimely death that prevents the character arc from completing itself

I understand how you interpret the term character arc. But in the formal language of story structure, I see the items listed above are external events, not milestones on a character arc. The best example is that of Philotas & Parmenio's deaths: imagine that Alexander had to live his life again knowing what he knew - would he act differently?

I think so: he'd have them both killed in Egypt two years earlier. He would have learnt how to avoid the mistake, but the moral values underlying his behaviour would be the same. But it's only the latter that is a character arc.

Oh, OK, if you are thinking strictly in terms of story structure, then fair enough. Although, had Renault concentrated on a shorter period of Alexander's life, and perhaps ended with his turning back from Hyphasis, then she could have constructed a proper character arc for him. We don't know what Alexander was thinking, but she could have constructed an arc that went from the invincible, loved, top-of-the-world Alexander following the Battle of Gaugamela, to a dispirited, questioning, suspicious Alexander after the deaths of Parmenion and Philotas (or Cleitus). I think the only problem as it is, is that there was too much ground before and after these events.

... and, if you like, final redemption through his everlasting fame.

That is the usual reward for a story hero who fulfils his goal through dying for what he believes in. It would have been perfect, if Alexander had died a final battle. That he didn't, has given everyone who ever wanted to dramatize his life a headache, which was very much the point of my piece. Stone didn't solve the problem, Renault did.

Indeed.

ATB

[Alexias]

Chris, thank you very much for your interesting observations. A few of mine are below.

Choice of main character

Firstly, I have an issue with choosing to tell a major historical character’s story through the eyes of another (with apologies to Scott). I’m also repeating myself here so apologies to anyone who has heard this before. In choosing Bagoas’s point of view, Renault is necessarily choosing to tell Bagoas’s story, not Alexander’s. In order to achieve dramatic coherence, she has to waste a fair chunk of the novel telling us about Bagoas’s early life. On the positive side, this gives her a great deal of freedom to create the world she wants us to know. On the negative side, we do not get to see the inner workings of Alexander’s mind. His repeated “It was necessary” is the nearest we get to understanding his political decisions.

Using a minor character to tell a major character’s story is a device often used in children’s and romantic fiction because it allows for the possibility of a happy ending: eg Mary Queen of Scots’ handmaiden can walk away from her execution, grieving, but into the arms of a suitor who has been waiting faithfully in the wings for the main story to finish. Of course in The Persian Boy there is no happy ending (Mary Renault doesn’t do happy endings) and this lifts the novel out of romance into realism. Yet in this type of story the major character often remains fairly static – a necessary quality for a hero and his identifiable characteristics and persona. We see them moving from triumph to despair perhaps, but their basic character doesn’t change much. In this, I think you are right in The Persian Boy; Alexander doesn’t change very much from the slightly naïve victor of Gaugamela when we first meet him. Bagoas might think he is changing him from a boy to a man, but ultimately Hephaestion, together with death, is the unassailable victor and Alexander is forever the ‘boy-king’. Mary Renault is thus using Bagoas to tell the story of Alexander the hero, Alexander the god, rather than Alexander the man.

Whether it was her conscious decision to do this or just a result of the story structure she chose, I am unsure.

I would, however, disagree with you that the result of choosing Bagoas as narrator is a timeless love story. I think instead it is a timeless story of hero-worship. The love is very much one-sided, not a relationship of equals. Bagoas offers selfless devotion and tireless adoration – his Alexander is never in the wrong, although I could possibly be mis-remembering this. A god rewards his worshipers with protection and favouritism, Alexander gives Bagoas security, a purpose in life and affection. Yet Hephaestion’s death reveals how little Bagoas means to Alexander, and Bagoas is shut out of the Craterus quarrel or, rather, refuses to witness Hephaestion’s humiliation in case it is remembered against him. Like a child witnessing a quarrel between adults, all he sees of the reconciliation is the result, Alexander’s ‘Hephaestion says’, ‘Hephaestion thinks’. Alexander becomes, something I am sure was not lost on Mary Renault, a substitute parent to Bagoas, an erastes if you will, but his death, instead of severing the umbilical cord and freeing Bagoas, crystalizes him into a state of permanent servitude to an untarnished image, partially of his own making. He is Alexander’s ultimate high priest, and there is a large element of narcissism in this in that he is worshipping what he wants to be. The tragedy, and what causes the crystalization, is that he can never be like Alexander because he is a eunuch.

Characterization

I am not sure I agree with you about Bagoas exhibiting cunning, egoism, ruthlessness and opportunism. He is, as far as I remember, remarkably passive. He is also a very valuable commodity, a decorative diversion for a jaded palate in the case of Darius and, initially, a sweetener for Alexander’s titillation.

I don’t recall Bagoas particularly displaying loyalty to Darius as his master, and I am not sure Renault draws particular parallels between Alexander and Darius in relation to Bagoas. The only comparison I can think off is Darius hitting Bagoas for trying to rouse him with a new technique and, what was surely a far greater blow, Alexander turning from Hephaestion’s deathbed and looking through Bagoas as though he weren’t there. Darius sends for Bagoas again when his bruise has faded, and in contrast Bagoas returns to Alexander with scratches and torn garments.

Loyalty is obviously a trait that Alexander valued highly in his friends and his troops. Without it he could not have achieved what he did, but Renault does not really address the issue of what it was in Alexander’s character that caused people to offer him that loyalty. Reward, yes, but devotion beyond the call of duty in his troops in outside her purview and by the time Bagoas meets him he is already an idol. Does Bagoas simply become swept up in fan-worship?

The other issue I have with Renault’s Bagoas is that she seems to equate castration with effeminacy and medically I don’t believe this is true. Her Bagoas’s overwhelming characteristic is his vanity, and I can’t escape the suspicion that it wouldn’t take much to push him into being a stereotypical hysterical queer. His vanity is not hugely attractive, although it may be justified and his looks are his means of survival and the edge he has over the competition. Yet I cannot help thinking that Alexander perhaps takes advantage of Bagoas’s ‘mothering’, even enjoys this unqualified devotion, and might even be too kind to say it is too much, because he can escape from it into other concerns. Bagoas cannot escape from his obsession because it has become his whole reason for existence.

I’ve gone on for too long here to digress on Oliver Stone but I’d totally agree with you that a poor script, poor direction and too much reliance on Mary Renault doomed the film.

Plot

Just a quick word on plot. Mary Renault’s novels are singularly linear in plot line. This is a result of her choosing to write about characters’ life histories which don’t usually follow patterns, but there is little sense of recurring themes, fulfilment and resolution of issues, of letting go and moving on, of characters learning and developing, which a more dramatic writer might include. Someone will probably be able to prove me wrong, but I don’t think plotting is one of her strengths. She is not the most dramatic of writers, and the pacing of her stories at times becomes monotonous. Her later novels become historical chronicles rather than stories and, at least for me, this is one of the reasons she is not a truly great writer, a very excellent one, but not a world great.

[chris_taylor]

Chris, thank you very much for your interesting observations. A few of mine are below

big snip on choosing to tell story through the eyes of a minor character. AIUI, we agree that in Renault's Persian Boy Alexander doesn't change as a character.

Mary Renault is thus using Bagoas to tell the story of Alexander the hero, Alexander the god, rather than Alexander the man.

That was my point.

Alexander is dead and we can never know him. To presume we can (ie, tell his story from his point of view), would cheapen him. Think of Citizen Kane: if he'd told his own story, he would have lost his mystique.

I would, however, disagree with you that the result of choosing Bagoas as narrator is a timeless love story. I think instead it is a timeless story of hero-worship.

Point taken, but I belong to the Symposion's school of thought. Timeless love is hero-worship.

The love is very much one-sided, not a relationship of equals. Bagoas offers selfless devotion and tireless adoration – his Alexander is never in the wrong, although I could possibly be mis-remembering this.

You're not mis-remembering: for Bagoas, Alexander can do no wrong. He is blind with love.

Like a child witnessing a quarrel between adults, all he sees of the reconciliation is the result, Alexander’s ‘Hephaestion says’, ‘Hephaestion thinks’. Alexander becomes, something I am sure was not lost on Mary Renault, a substitute parent to Bagoas, an erastes if you will, but his death, instead of severing the umbilical cord and freeing Bagoas, crystalizes him into a state of permanent servitude to an untarnished image, partially of his own making. He is Alexander’s ultimate high priest, and there is a large element of narcissism in this in that he is worshipping what he wants to be. The tragedy, and what causes the crystalization, is that he can never be like Alexander because he is a eunuch.

It's remarkable how, given the same text, two people can come to diametrically opposing conclusions.

As I see it, Bagoas character arc is his growth from eunuch-boy to a man who accepts who he is. The final trigger for the change could not have been Hephaistion's death, for structural reasons: the book would have needed to end. He's finished his arc. End of story.

As is, Bagoas finishes his arc when he writes his final lines in the present, reflecting on Alexander's death. He remembers how he was hit by a spear during the tumult over Alexander's body.

"it was the only wound I ever took for him".

That's the moment when he lets go and changes into a man. If Alexander came back from the dead then, their relationship could not continue where they left off. Bagoas could no longer be the eromenos, ie a relationship defined by direction, rather than equality.

I am not sure I agree with you about Bagoas exhibiting cunning, egoism, ruthlessness and opportunism. He is, as far as I remember, remarkably passive.

There are multiple comments by Bagoas the Writer, how he weaseled his way through court intrigue by always keeping both sides sweet, flattered, lied or simly steam-rollered Macedonians to get through to Alexander - but knew when to keep his mouth shut, devised ways of murdering Hephaistion, stabbed his rapist to death ...

Judging by some of the quotes that survive, Alexander had an acerbic wit when it came to cutting people down to size (the anecdote of him sending tons of incence to a stingy teacher and his request to the Tyreans to let him pray at the shrine of Hercules had me in stitches). If Mary Renault's Bagoas is anywhere near close to the real Bagoas, he would have been a never-ending source of amusement for him.

I can’t escape the suspicion that it wouldn’t take much to push Bagoas into being a stereotypical hysterical queer.

To my mind, the vanity & stereotypical hysteria, combined with his absolute determination to survive, made him a wonderfully rounded character.

but I don’t think plotting is one of her strengths.

Agreed. Her strength is psychological insight.


Chris.

[sikander]

Greetings,

Just a note to say how thoroughly I enjoyed this thread. That Mary Renault knew how to craft a story is evident when people are still deemed "the next Mary Renault' (though most fail the comparison in the end).

Regards,
Sikander