by Mary Renault
Rated B-
Fire from Heaven is an historical novel of Alexander the Great's life from his birth through the death of his father when Alexander was a young man.
This novel deals only with the period before he became king. He grew up in one of history's great dysfunctional families. His father and mother did not see eye-to-eye. Part of the reason was that his mother was probably overly politically ambitious. She reminded me of the Queen in Dororthy Dunnett's Race of Scorpions, the one with no nose.
Also another part of the problem was that his father, Phillip was of the old spartan school of thought and engaged tutors for him that stressed harsh living conditions and semi starvation as a way of toughening up and building character in young men. His first teacher was the harsh Leonidas, a relative of Olympias, perhaps her uncle.
Leonidas was replaced with Lysimachus, who taught Alexander to play the lyre, and taught him an appreciation for the fine arts of music, poetry, and drama. Later on he studied under Aristotle.
Alexander was a sensitive and a slightly built and effeminate boy Alexander liked drama, the flute and the lyre, poetry and hunting. In order to survive this rough upbringing Alexander developed a tough shell and as he grew older independence of both of his parents. However he couldn't have been all that sissified because he was commanding troops in Byzantium at age 16 and was king at 18.
While Alexander was indisputably a great leader Renault's somewhat over the top depiction of him had me rolling my eyes in several places. You knew he had to be bright, probably precocious and must have been dripping with charisma in order to accomplish all the things he did as an adult. But I thought that Renault made him out to be just a little bit to perfect as a child. I personally would have liked him better if he had he taken time out from walking on water and spilled his milk or fell down and skinned his knees once in a while when growing up. It was interesting to read about what it might have been like to have had Aristotle as a tutor
