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Title: The Last of the Wine

Author: Mary Renault

Narrator: Barnaby Edwards

Format: Unabridged

Length: 16 hrs and 35 mins

Language: English

Release date: 03-19-15

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 65 votes

Genres: Fiction, Historical

Publisher's Summary:

Alexias, a young Athenian of good family, grows up just as the Peloponnesian War is drawing to a close. The adult world he enters is one in which the power and influence of his class have been undermined by the forces of war, and more and more Alexias finds himself drawn to the controversial teachings of Sokrates.

Among the great thinker's followers, Alexias meets Lysis, and the two youths become inseparable, wrestling together in the palaestra, journeying to the Olympic Games, and fighting in the wars against Sparta. On the great historical canvas of famine, siege, and civil conflict, their relationship captures vividly the intricacies of classical Greek culture.

Members Reviews:

Portrayal Unbridled Lust of a Bacchanalian? NOT!

Where does The Last of the Wine rank among all the audiobooks youve listened to so far?

In the top five.

Which character as performed by Barnaby Edwards was your favorite?

Philo a slave by war that after witnessing the deaths of his father and his lover and his mother being carried off as a victors prize, he is sold into slavery as a boy for hire. His salvation is his mind, who Socrates deems worthy, and entreats a wealthy acolyte to buy the youth and free him. Having done so, the wealthy benefactor employs him as a scribe; an occupation fitting for a foreign freeman. At the end of the book, he has a great speech in which he foreshadows Christ's rejection as the ultimate example of excellence and good being pulled down and killed by the masses so that we are all level and equal. Edwards portrays this soul with great sensitivity.

Any additional comments?

I am an unrepentant fan of Mary Renault when she writes in the historical first person prospective. I have read all her historical based books in my youth. Now that Audible is slowly making her historical works available in audio format I am thrilled to rediscover these literary treasures. In this work she has not disappointed me.

This book invites you into a first person view of what it was like to be born into, grow up, find love, participate in cities life in war and peace, and in victory and defeat. In this view the best ideals of the philosopher Socrates are modeled in the fully developed characters. Our heroes Alexias and Lysis model idealized male love in a pre-Christian era. They also model being able to love women, marriage, and rear children. All of this is set in the cultural morals, superstitions, beliefs, practices, and customs of classical Greek pre-Christian culture. As to her portrayals of war, nothing is more up close and personal then taking a human life with a sharp weapon. The wounds and death throws are described in the clinical detail of a medical professional. The author was, at one point, a nurse by profession. So she brings a gritty sense of reality to death by war and violence or death by starvation and privation.

This book is one of Ms. Renault best textured and multi layered books. The main characters are well fleshed out. You can read/listen to it to compare and contrast different political models and provide a critique of the best and worst features of democracy. It offers a Socrates inspired course in how to assess the character of men using politicians for fodder examples of bad character.