Fiction Review: Bring Down the Sun
Review by Ken St. Andre
Product:
Bring Down the Sun (Alexander the Great)
Product Type:
Historical Fantasy Fiction Novel, Paperback, 224 pages
Author:
Judith Tarr
Cover Artist:
Rick Berry
Publisher:
Tor Books
Publication Date:
May 26, 2009
Review Date:
June 15, 2009
Judith Tarr is an author who lives in Vail, Arizona and raises horses. She also writes fantasy about the back corners of history and makes it seem so real that it feels like a historical novel. Her most recent book, Bring Down the Sun, a fantasy romance about the mother of Alexander the Great, is the story of the marriage of the woman that history records as Olympias to Phillip II of Macedon. Known as Polyxena at the beginning of the story, this young princess of Dodona is living the life of a celibate priestess of the Mother Goddess, and she doesn't like it. She watches the young men of the king's army at their exercises and dreams about sex, but she doesn't get any until she attends a Festival of the Mysteries on the island of Samothrace. There she plays goddess to Phillip's bull-god, and knows she has finally found the man of her dreams (literally). In our time, we would simply write the whole thing off as a wild party, but in ancient Greece, getting drunk and having sex was consecrated to the gods.
I have read that the people of prior centuries did not have the same perceptions of the world that we have today. To them everything was numinous. Gods and spirits lurked just out of sight in almost everything. Certainly this feeling of immanence informs everything that young Polyxena thinks, feels, and does. She thinks she can work magic, and when an earthquake shakes the town up, she claims the credit for it, or the blame. She sees herself as an incarnation of the Goddess. I think most modern men would see her as mentally disturbed, verging on psychotic. Such is Tarr's skill as an author that you can read it either way, depending on what you bring to the story.
On the surface not much happens in this novel. Woman meets Man, Woman seduces Man, Man marries Woman, Woman has a Baby. Woven around this elemental story are a number of power struggles. The priestesses of Dodona want to keep her subservient and hidden from the world. Phillip of Macedon wants her as just another concubine bringing him a good alliance with Dodona. The witches of Thessalia want her to be one of them and a puppet queen. None of them want her to claim the transcendent power that resides within her. None of them want her to bear a free and independent god-child who can conquer the world. (Does this sound like paranoia to you?). Yet she must find the Power within herself, master the man, out-magic the witches, and persevere through magic, confusion, and pain to bear her divine son whose existence justifies all her delusions of grandeur.
As we know, Alexander, son of Phillip the II, continued his father's conquering ways, united all of Greece, conquered the Persian Empire, and all of the Middle East including Egypt, which was pretty much the known world in 340 B.C. Certainly, he felt that he was of divine heritage, and much of the world agreed at that time.
What most fascinates me about this book is the many different ways the reader can see it. Is it a simple fantasy about a princess attacked by witches? Is it one of the great romances of all time about Phillip of Macedon and Olympias of Dodona? Is it a study in ancient Grecian mysticism? Is it a tribute to the divine power of motherhood, culminating in the supreme moment of a woman's life when she brings a new child into the world? Is it a study of insanity? (And by our modern standards weren't all those god-kings and queens of the ancient world paragons of megalomania?) I'd have to say that Bring Down the Sun is all of these things wrapped into a single, exquisitely-crafted short novel, fully demonstrating why Tarr has been a successful writer for the last three decades.
One caveat: I feel that this is more of a novel for women than it is for men, and if you're the kind of reader who prefers simple blood and thunder, then this won't be your cup of wine.
Ken St. Andre
June 15, 2009
Buy it here:
Bring Down the Sun (Alexander the Great)
About The Reviewer: Ken St. Andre is the creator of the fantasy roleplaying game Tunnels and Trolls. He also co-created the classic PC game Wasteland. He has written various other games and fiction, and is an active member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. He currently dwells in Phoenix, Arizona, where by day he takes on the guise of a public librarian. He is worshipped as the Trollgod in a universe parallel to Earth's, in a place called Trollhalla, where he is also known by the name Khenn Arrth.
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