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| Home > Reads > The Persian Boy: A Novel of Sex, Theft, Friendship and Musical Theater |
| The Persian Boy: A Novel of Sex, Theft, Friendship and Musical Theater | | Date Created: Jan 26, 2005, 03:45 PM |
A classic of gay fiction, The Persian Boy tells the story of Bagoas. The story begins with Bagoas' abduction from the house of his father, his um ... gelding (ouch!) and his eventual sale to the Persian King Darius. Upon Darius' betrayal at the hands of some of his generals, Bagoas ends up in the court of Alexander and becomes the King's confidant and lover. Though Bagoas is the narrator of the story, and chiefly is relating the adventures of Alexander, in many ways, this book is more about Bagoas than Alexander.
I love the sparceness of the narration. It's as if Bagoas is trying to remain discrete even in his telling of these tales, even though Alexander is already dead. Bagoas is still protecting his lover's memory. Renault never forgets Bagoas' background and we are constantly treated to the contrast of his lack of (book) education with his deep understanding of what makes men tick, having been trained in the royal courts as a courtesan for Darius. His love for Alexander can be fawning at times, but never cloying. In sum, he's a brilliantly written character that walks several fine lines, but never falls off.
I'm loving this book so much that I'm writing this review, and I haven't even finished the book yet. I'm starting to realize that if I want to find decent gay fiction, I need to look for the older stuff, rather than the newer books that are coming out -- most of which are crap.
Having said that, I did enjoy Marc Acito's How I Paid for College. Somewhere I read a review that said this book was like Catcher in the Rye if it were written by David Sedaris. That's a bit of an overstatement. It's neither as original or alienated as Catcher in the Rye, nor is it as sardonically funny as Sedaris. If I liked those kinds of analogies, I'd say it's more like what would happen if Paul Rudnick wrote a script for a John Hughes film, but I hate those kinds of analogies. (Speaking of John Hughes, what ever happened to him? After Ferris Bueller's Day Off, and Pretty in Pink, and Sixteen Candles, he makes films about big slobbering dogs.)
Another review of this book states, "You will laugh out loud" which is almost never true. A line like that makes it nearly certain that I will never buy the book. I think I did guffaw once or twice in public. I think I may have been drinking at the time, so take that for what it's worth.
Apparently this Marc Acito guy is the "gay Dave Barry." I'd never heard of him (Acito) until I picked up the book, and I don't read Dave Barry. I think I'd be offended if someone called me the gay Dave Barry ... or the straight Dave Barry ... or the tall Dave Barry. Actually the more reviews I read, the more people just keep comparing this book or its author to someone else. I guess that indicates the "not quite famous yet" status of both the book and/or its author.
The Amazon review states, "As stated in the title, this book finds humor and adventure mainly in those topics that would most appeal to a stereotypically gay audience: musicals, piano bars, and sex, sex, sex." I find that pretty offensive. I do not find piano bars appealing.
Anyway, back to the book. Let's just say I think it was far easier taking out many many many loans to go to Calvin than what the main character of this book goes through to pay for Juliard. Of course if I did any of the things he did to pay for my time at Calvin, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't have let me in, in the first place. But I might have had more fun there.
(Oh, and I'm bored of this template, so I'll probably be trying out a few over the next few days. If you happen to visit and see something really ugly, don't freak out. Unfortunately the software I use to produce the blog only has a certain number of fixed templates, so I'm kind of stuck on how creative I can be.) |
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