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| The Last of the Wine | 
 enlarge | Author: Mary Renault
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
Buy New: $7.61
You Save: $7.34 (49%)
New (32) Used (22) from $3.92
Avg. Customer Rating:  46 reviews
Sales Rank: 236114
Media: Paperback
Edition: 2
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 400
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.9
ISBN: 0375726810
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.912
EAN: 9780375726811
ASIN: 0375726810
Publication Date: June 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: New Softcover with pages that are clean, crisp and unmarked. In the fifth century B.C., Alexias reaches manhood during the last phases of the Peloponnesian War...
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| Customer Reviews:
 Normal Young Men in Ancient Greece October 10, 2008
Keep in mind that this gorgeously written and touching story was first published in 1956 by Renault, an Oxford-educated British woman, dead now 25 years.
"Last of the Wine" is much more than a coming of age tale, as we like to call some of these stories nowadays. Far from it. Yes, it is a gay love story, sans sex, a subtle and timeless and accurately portrayed romance between 2 beautiful young men in 5th Century B.C. Greece - thus, before Alexander. There's a good bit of history and a lot of fun in meeting some of the incomparable ancients - an aging Socrates and a young Plato, and in hearing about others, Alkibiades, for one. If you manage to read Steven Pressfield and Renault, as well as others writing of this era, it all begins to make sense.
Renault seems magically to understand perfectly love in its deepest sense between men and those touchy human aspects of love between anyone: possessiveness, jealousy, soft adoration, absence and longing, and the overwhelming desire to spend all one's time with one's love, to say nothing of comfortable easy silences and shared thoughts.
The 2 primary characters, Alexis (the younger of the two by 6 years) and Lysis, are physical ideals and good to the core. They know how to enjoy the long-lost simple pleasures. I loved them both. She also grasps firmly the intricacies of family, of obligation and of the inevitable inscrutable conflict between father and son.
"Last of the Wine" is as contemporary as your latest e-mail exchange with your partner or offspring. She writes with finesse and profundity. Consider these excerpts.
Page 241. "It was a warm spring evening; one smelt the sea, and supper cooking on pinewood fires, and the scent of flowers upon the hillside; we sat in the doorway of our hut in the late sun, greeting friends as they passed."
Page 242. "The evening sun glowed like bronze upon the reed thatch of the roofs; here and there men were singing about the fires. I (Alexis) said in my heart, `Such things as these are the pleasures of manhood.'"
Page 243. "But we sat a little longer; for as the sun sank, the moon had risen. Her light had mixed with the afterglow, and the hill behind the city was the colour of skins of lions."
Page 244. "'Nothing will change, Alexis' (Lysis speaking). `No that is false; there is change wherever there is life.... But what kind of fool would plant an apple-slip, to cut it down at the season when the fruit is setting? Flowers you can get every year, but only with time the tree that shades your doorway and grows into the house with each year's sun and rain.'" As Adlai Stevenson once said, "Change is inevitable. Change for the better is a full-time job." These young men had a firm grasp on reality.
The story traces not only the rise of fledgling democracy but also its temporary demise. The build-up to Socrates' eventual murder by authorities fearful of his teachings is compelling. The end of the story is both uplifting and sad.
Renault's "Notes" at the end of the book are insightful, the "Chronology Table" is helpful, and the map of "Greece and the Aegean" is a good anchor for orienting yourself to political and physical geography.
Yes, it is fiction. Yes, the over-riding theme is a gay love story. And yes, it's enthralling and gracious. Relax into the story, flow with its pace, learn from it, and read it with unabashed pleasure. Forget the homophobe reviewers who are falsely "offended" by the story (after, of course, they knowingly have read every word!).
Perfection November 28, 2007
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I did not read this book, I devoured it.... In THE LAST OF THE WINE I walked through the ancient streets of Athens, I lived among her people, I loved, fought, and died beside them. It is that kind of novel, pulls you right in and never lets go. Even after I finished it, I kept going back to it again and again.
The message of this story is revelant even today. Who can not think of Iraq now, upon reading of foolish, proud Athens sailing off to destroy Syracuse?
A few thoughts on earlier reviews.... this book is an easy read, the prose is simple and straight forward. One does not need a deep knowledge of Greek history or language to follow this story.
Good novel for GLBT young adults. November 28, 2007
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
What makes a novel for "young adults"? Is it one written for them, one marketed to them, or one which they will like? The correct answer is, of course, "any or all."
I cannot find the reference, but I remember reading an interview with an author who had been quite successful in writing novels for adults, who had been asked to try her hand at a young adult novel. She was advised that the best way to do that was to make her main character the right age, and go on from there.
Given that the main action of the novel starts when the narrator, Alexias, is fifteen and ends when he is in his early twenties, this would classify the work as a young adult novel, although it is usually marketed and criticized as an adult novel.
The story is set in Athens, during and just after the Peloponnesian War. Alexias and his lover Lysis become pupils of Socrates. However, it is not all dry philosophical discussion. Alexias is a middle-distance runner and Lysis is a pankratist. (Pankration was a Greek combat sport; it means 'all power' and involved anything short of biting, gouging, and hair-pulling. Kicks, punches, throw-holds, grappling, and joint-locks were all parts of the pankratist's repertoire. I suppose the nearest thing we have would be full-contact karate.)
Now, why would a teenager be interested in this? Well, the popularity of such films as Troy and The Three Hundred shows that Classical civilization is still of interest to young people; so does the continued growth of enrollments in high school Latin classes. Both war and sports--subjects which young men in this age group find interesting--are important parts of the plot. And, last of all, it is such a well-written, interesting story that one can hardly fail to be sucked into it.
Lastly, for GLBT teens, it offers us a view of a society in which same-sex relationships are seen as normal, even expected. Indeed, Alexias' year-mate Xenophon--yes, the same person who later wrote the Anabasis; Renault is famous for putting real and made-up characters together--is totally heterosexual. At least Alexias suspects that he may be, but says that (a) he couldn't bring himself to ask in so many words and (b) if it were he felt rather sorry for his friend who would thus have missed out on an important part of life. When Alexias' father goes off to Sicily with the army, he and his son sit down for The Talk--but it isn't about girls. Renault presents all this very matter-of-factly. That such a society could exist once implies that it could exist again.
In spite of this, Renault does not idealize Ancient Greece. The evil of slavery, the low place of women, and the casual cruelty are unblinkingly presented. (For example, the way prisoners of war were treated makes recent US violations of the Geneva Conventions look tame.) Contrast this with the thoroughly judgmental tone of Frank Yerby's Goat Song, which imposes early-twentieth century values on Classical Greek culture.
For a more extended discussion of Mary Renault's writing, see http://www.glbtq.com/literature/renault_m.html (accessed 6NOV07); I would recommend this--and indeed all of her mature period novels--for high school on up. The Mask of Apollo is set about a generation later, and sets things up for her trilogy about Alexander the Great (Fire from Heaven, The Persian Boy, Funeral Games.)
Recommended for high school and up.
The End of the City... April 29, 2007
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
I've loved this book for half my life, and I've assigned it to students in Western Civ. classes in universities. Be very clear, now: this is not a novel about the battles of the great war between Athens and Sparta. It's not intended to be like Stephen Pressfield's account of the career of Alkibiades. It's about the decay of Athens' greatness, about the end of the Athenians' belief in their own glory and greatness. It's a tragic book-- about the end of a vision of democracy, about the ruin of a family, about the end of a love affair. But it's brilliantly written-- Renault crafted the language to feel Attic and distanced, and she tried to take up the attitudes and beliefs of her characters. I always read the opening lines to students-- the narrator Alexias blithely recalling that on the day of his birth, his father had ordered him put to death as too weak and sickly to bother raising. Renault's portrayal of Sokrates is sympathetic, human, and sad-- a fine depiction of tragic greatness. This is a novel that I'll assign to classes again, and certainly one that I'll put on my list of books for a desert island.
A great book for anyone interested in the Peloponnesian War February 9, 2007
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
The Last of the Wine is arguably one of Mary Renault's best books. Its moving tale of the collapse of Athens into Sparta and its eventual resurrection are seen through the eyes of the growing figure of Alexias. He becomes interested in the phliosophy of Socrates and through Socrates meets various young philosophers and students of philosophy, including Xenophon, conservative but brave; Phaedo, a slave who comes to respect the people who destroyed his world; and Plato, extremely young, but also extremely wise; there is also Lysis, with whom Alexias becomes involved, at first just as friends, but later sexually. The most amazing moment came when the news of the battle of Goat's Creek was brought to Athens. For the time being, democracy is lost; any reader would feel the deep sadness of that moment. Democracy is restored, but rejoicings are tempered by the fact that the people will destroy Socrates, clearly foreshadowed at the end.
This book encompasses all the great features of Athens and shows their rise and fall. It is also extremely moving.
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