Alexander's Choice by Edmund Marlowe

Finally managed to finish reading the above book over the festive season.

The ending hits like a rather unpleasant tackle whilst playing a dominant team, an expected result.

Anyway, I enjoyed some fine writing from Edmund Marlowe. Alexander indeed makes his choice and the plot heads in a familiar direction.  There is no getting away from it, 'school boy' romance tends to be something read through the cracks in one hands as one flinches at the on page action.

Of course when I finished reading, I can understand why our hero was called Alexander, it is all in the Greek references.  My hero nearly had the same name but in the end I went for the slightly more obscure Russian variant Alexei in honour of his slightly fiery nature and because I wanted to use the familiar version of Sacha.

I too nearly came out with the same ending but veered away at the last moment when I realised there was an alternate ending, which most people can relate to.

Anyway I recommend reading Alexander's Choice.

In the mean time, happy new year!

Ian

A Follow On?

The most requested item is a follow on to Scholarship.

Indeed this remains a possibility. A couple of ideas have come to me in recent weeks, aided by some down time from the real world of working. The ideas that have arisen follow Sacha on the next stage of his life at his new mixed boarding school where of course girls start to play a big part of his life.  Again some of the inspiration will come from my own life as a teenager, the urge to confirm, sexual experimentation and the risk of your whole life falling apart. In other words, a typical teenage experience of life.

Indeed I did start to write a short section of prose based around Sacha's existence at a new school, how a girl comes into it. Whether that was a false start or not I do not know at this stage

Who was Sacha?

No, I am not going to name names but rather respond to a question from a correspondent about who Sacha was in real life.

Sacha was the son of two parents who met at Oxford University.  Oxford was something that ran in the family as one of Sacha’s uncles was a senior academic at the University.

Sacha’s parents started their married life in Oxford. All three children (Sam, Peter and Sacha) were born in Oxford.  But when Sacha was a small boy the family moved and his mother stopped working to look after her expanding family with the aid of an au pair who looked after Sacha and Peter.

I never found out much about Sacha’s home life other than the family had a dog and that Sacha had the smallest bedroom in the house.  The one story Sacha told me about his home life was when he was left home alone one evening when his parents went out socialising.  Bored, Sacha decided to try the whisky in the drinks cabinet and then proceeded to drink himself senseless, passing out on the dining room floor.  Fortunately, this rare example of Sacha's more adventurous side was not discovered as he managed to creep back up stairs to his bedroom unnoticed.

Sacha and Peter were in constant rivalry throughout their childhood.  The stories of fights over football came from Sacha. Their rivalry came about as Sacha was the brighter of the two.  Peter was more artistic and used to paint and play the guitar and I suspect was destined to join the family business unless he escaped.  Peter left school at 16 and went to college as he was not cut out for academia.  

Post 'The Rocks' Sacha did well at his O levels with 4As amongst nine in total.  He went on to do four A levels in maths and the sciences.  Sacha told me that he was expected to go to Oxford, he probably did.  His parents were very keen for him to go to university and do well.  That was part of the reason why he was quite driven as his parents put a lot of pressure on him.

Beyond that I do not know what happened, but Sacha always struck me as a conformist so I imagine him out there, married with kids in a respectable job.  But sometimes life is not like that!