Konrad Bercovici
Alexander: A Romantic Biography
J.J. Little & Ives, c1928 (no ISBN)
 

This novel is the first of three on our list which belong to the twilight of the romantic era -- as the subtitle suggests.  The other two are by Mann and Butts, respectively.  It does follow history somewhat better than Mann, who barely follows history at all, or Butts, who has her own philosophic-thematic agendas.  But the novel actually suffers for that sporadic attention to history because it does not follow events nearly well enough.  If not quite as "out there" as Mann's, it bears little resemblance to the modern genre of historical fiction.

There are certain parallels between the novels of Bercovici and Mann.  Both portray Philip as a barbarian buffoon in a parody of Demosthenes, and Olympias as a wild demon priestess in a parody of Plutarch.  In both novels, Alexander is driven by a need for love, though the love objects differ.  In Mann, it's Kleitos (Cleitus); in Bercovici, it's Statiera.  (Although Mann cheerfully ascribes to Alexander both an incestuous love for mommy, and a neurotic homoeroticism -- which is somewhat disturbing given Mann's own freely admitted homosexuality -- Bercovici is quick to assert Alexander's love for women.)

In fact, Bercovici's chief concern is unrequited love between men and women.  Philip loves Olympias, who uses his love to make demands he can't and won't fulfill; and in turn, his infidelities then drive her to wild jealousy and hatred, which she vents on their son.  Mann's Olympias gives Alexander a commission of ushering in a new Golden Age of goddess worship, but Bercovici's Olympias wishes her son to blot out Philip's name from history because he humiliated her.  This is the recurring theme.  Men (Philip, Alexander) fall in love with women (Olympias, Statiera) who scorn them, make demands of them, love the power they have over them, but become wildly jealous when they lose that power.  Other women (Barsine, and an older Olympias) fall in love with men (Alexander, Ochus) before whom they make fools of themselves, and are, in turn, scorned.  Neither is a flattering image of the women.  In fact, when all is said and done, one comes away with the impression that Bercovici does not much like women.  At one point, he refers to the inability of Olympias or Statiera to rule because "their womanly vanity and subjective minds prevented them from lucid thinking."

Despite the improbable romantic twists and occasional descriptions of drunken orgies, the book lacks the car-crash fascination of Mann's extreme histrionic fantasy.  It also lacks the poetry of Butts' novel.  And there are far too many liberties for it to have historical merit.  Barsine is a priestess from Pella and servant of Olympias instead of the widow of Memnon.  Kleitos (Cleitus) is called Alexander's half-brother, not the brother of his nurse.  Nikanor is still alive at the time of the Philotas Affair, and implicated with his brother for treason.  Worse yet, three years of Alexander's campaign are rolled into five extraordinarily confusing pages.  Alexander's seige of Tyre and Gaza, his trip to Egypt, the Battle of Gaugamela, the entry to Babylon, the taking of Susa, the battle at the Persian Gates, and the burning of Persepolis are all simply ignored.  It is not even clear whether the reader is simply to assume them or to pretend they did not happen.  We fly from the Battle of Issus to the capture and murder of Darius.  In fact, the timing of events is a consistent problem, and one gets the impression that Bercovici has Alexander dashing back and forth across Asia without any regard for the difficulties of travel in antiquity.

Dedicated collectors or those with an interest in anti-Nazi sentiment in literature (Bercovici wrote the original treatment of the screenplay for Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator, and later took Chaplin to court for failing to acknowledge him -- and won $90,000 in a settlement -- and also fell out of favor with the Hollywood communist groups due to comparing Stalin to Hitler), might want to acquire this book by the young Bercovici.  But for the reader who merely wishes to sample one of these early romantic novels, either Mann (for its weirdness) or Butts (for her language) are better choices.  Bercovici's book does, however, win the prize for oddest endpage pictures.  The white / brown / black drawnings of -- we presume -- Alexander can only be described as vampiric.

In contrast to his misogyny, Bercovici's positive portrayal of Jews is a curious but welcome anomaly at the height of pre-WWII antisemitism.  But this is typical of Bercovici's interest in and respect for other cultures.  He was, himself, a gypsy, and wrote several novels about gypsy culture and stories.