Louis Couperus
Iskander, de roman van Alexander de Grote
(Iskander, the novel of Alexander the Great)
first published: 1920 (in Dutch, Rotterdam, Holland); German translation: 1925
William Heinemann, c1933 (no ISBN)
(still available: as part XI of Louis Couperus' collected works)
 

Louis Couperus (The Hague, Holland, 1863-1923) is still considered one of the foremost writers of Dutch literature.  His works, written in a very rich and almost bombast style, always echo the approach of naturalism:  the believe that people are predestined to act as they do and the basic idea that free will does not exist.  Couperus wrote three kinds of novels:  those set in the bourgeoisie circles of The Hague, those set in the former Dutch colony of Indonesia and those set in the ancient Greek and Roman past.

Couperus' Iskander belongs to the latter category.  The cruelty of the First World War (1914-1918) inspired Couperus to focus his attention on the characters and motives of the warlords of ancient Greece.  In 1918 he published his novel Xerxes about the Greek-Persian wars, which was followed up by Iskander two years later.  Though Iskander is not a masterpiece, it is one of his epic works.

The novel begins with a quote from Quintus Curtius Rufus:  "Et quem arma Persarum non fregerant, vitia vicerunt."  Or: what the Persian armies could not win, was conquered by their way of life.  This stresses the theme of the entire book.  It is a book about Alexander's orientalism, about his alienation from Greek and Macedonian values, about how the conqueror himself was conquered by the temptations of the east.  This is reflected by the title Iskander.  Also, the quote from Curtius Rufus clearly puts Iskander in
the category of books with a more negative approach towards Alexander's personality.  He is not the heroic ideal.  There is no fire from heaven.  In the end, he is a broken drunkard.

The novel is divided in two parts. The first book starts with Alexander's bath in the Cydnus river near Tarsus and his almost fatal illness before the battle of Issus. It ends with the victory at Gaugamela. By that time, Alexander is already fully absorbed by the Persian lifestyle. His deepest concerns are with the Persian women in his entourage and he yearns to enter the city of Babylon. He longs for Babylon, not like a Macedonian to enjoy the fruits of victory, but like a Persian dying to go home.

The second book deals with the entire eastern campaign, ending with   the suicide of Queen Mother Sisigambis. During the eastern campaigns Alexander becomes still more alienated from his roots and in the end he has even alienated himself from the Persians. As the first part describes the process which turned Alexander from a Macedonian into a Persian, the second part describes his demise from a Persian into a true barbarian. The final mourning of Sisigambis has less to do with his physical death; more with the
fact that Alexander had gone so far astray.

Nick Welman
April 2000

(My thanks to Nick for both passing on the info about this work, and reviewing it as well.)