#Last of the Wine

[renaultphile]

Last of the Wine experts please help!

Can someone tell me what is going on here - it's the bit when Alexias cuts his foot while he is swimming with Lysis. I thought I was used to weird internal monologue after years of reading The Charioteer, but this has me stumped......

[telltaleangelina]

Hello there, I would love to hear all your thoughts on 'The Last of the Wine'!

Hey, thanks for the ask! I really loved Last of the Wine! Alexias was a lovely character, and it was really interesting to watch his development and the development of his relationship with Lysis! He was so sweet in the beginning and then he became harder as the book went on; his father said that he once thought Alexias was 'too soft' to be a soldier, and I think he was right to feel that way at a certain point! His entire character progression was a trip to get through!

I absolutely loved the writing, which was beautiful as always, and there are some parts of the story I don't think I'm going to forget about anytime soon; the story of Phaedo (I cried), the moment Alexias exposes his brother and asks him 'bear no ill-will to me' (I cried), quotes like 'at Gurgos's once I lay awake considering how to kill him. But already it was too late,' 'I saw death reach out for you; and I had no philosophy,' 'if there be any god who concerns himself with the lives of men, the god himself must suffer with me,' etc. etc. It was just so good but very disturbing in some points...sometimes, you never stop to wonder why people do the things they do and only see that what has been done is evil. In a way, this is good; evil things ought to be derided as such no matter the circumstances, but in another way it is unfair and unhelpful. This is how I feel about a lot of the last third of the book: I understand why and how certain things happened, I just wish that they hadn't happened.

Something that made me laugh though and which I will think about forever are the few scenes where it's apparent Mary Renault is writing with a modern audience in mind, like the absolutely hilarious scene where Alexias is afraid of asking Xenophon if he only likes girls because he doesn't want to offend him 😭 or the scene where Alexias, assuring his dying father of vengeance, says: "Am I so base of soul as to forgive my enemies?" They're really cool scenes because they kind of play with the expectations of a modern audience and subvert common sentiments and understandings in modern culture and society; the opposite situation in the Xenophon scene would seem likelier to a modern person (especially at the time Mary Renault was writing) with Xenophon worrying about offending Alexias by asking him if he likes boys. And it's really a head-trip to read that question asked by Alexias because it's a direct contradiction to the common and widely known sentiment of forgiveness and loving your enemies within Christianity...this becomes 10x funnier 10 pages later when Alexias accidentally stumbles onto the whole point of Christianity 'God with us' 😭😭😭 I love the whole sequence of these scenes because they seem written specifically to challenge the reader; to get it through your mind that this was a foreign place and time, and these people are foreign to us; they have an understanding different from our own...but maybe not completely different at the same time.

Anyway, I don't know if this makes sense, my thoughts are kind of all over the place with this one but the tldr version of it is: I loved it! The writing was beautiful! It made me sad!

[sweetmapple]

Least traumatizing performance review

[critter-of-habit]

What has Señor Scratchy found…

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

This wine tastes like pigs blood!

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[booart5]

Took me about 60 hours which is CRAZY,, I call this one The Quark Family when I’m talking about it (which seems apt) and I’ve literally crammed so many references and details and hours into this my life feels so empty without it. Tumblr is butchering the image quality but that’s just what it is ig,,, I’ve tried and I can’t seem to fix it

Progress shots and closeups under the cut (and a full list of the references and stuff I crammed in in the tags bc I have to know that they’re all noticed)

[andromeddog]

a well deserved rest

my secret santa gift for @onlyyouexisthere ✨ i hope you enjoy this drawing of winters having a little break, which we could all use

[marcheriest]

kottabos (commission for a dear friend)

[sillybillylulu]

❤️‍🔥🚬

I know I promised you more mafia/smoking azula so here she is! @latetree123

Also sorry for not posting I've been battling the artblock for awhile now 😭

[demaparbat-hp]

Regarding the Cherry Wine Incident.

[beautysnake]

broke: leshy failing basic tasks cause hes blind

woke: leshy intentionally screwing up basic tasks in a way to cause as much havoc and chaos as possible under the guise of being blind

[renaultphile]

The Last of the Wine help.....

TLOTW people help me out here, I'm three quarters of the way through, enjoying the read, but this blue-eyed grey-haired boy has me stumped! Have I missed something here? He's supposed to be the ghost of something but I can't work out what?

[telltaleangelina]

congratulations alexias son of myron you just invented christianity

[silkentine]

Im in love with your girl piece au!!! Have you thought of what the cross guild would look like? From a oh so humble crocodile fan myself I'd go crazy to see what she'd look like In your mind.

Trust me…. More fem cross guild (and fem croc especially) is in our shared future. I really loved drawing them!!! Thank you for the request <3

[wolfythewitch]

My bible hyperfixated ass: oh cool Wolfy makes Bible art? Sign me up!

Me looking at the Jesus design: ay wait a minute *checks cultural customs of 1st century Nazareth* Nazerites had long hair!

(Its fine lol just something I remembered(i know too much))

Nazirites had long hair, not Nazarenes. Nazirites were people who had taken the Nazirite vow, where some of the conditions include: not cutting your hair, not drinking alcohol, and not touching or going near the dead. Two of which Jesus has done multiple times

There are people who were nazirites, like John the Baptist and Samson

[chayatorns]

(insp.)