Return to Night

by Mary Renault

From the First UK Edition dust jacket
Renault's fourth novel concerns a woman doctor of thirty-four, and her gifted young lover, some ten years her junior, whose will has been sapped, and his ambition crushed, by the remote antagonism of his mother. The story describes the doctor's struggle to release him from his mother's influence, and to restore his broken will, if need be at the cost of his love, and once at the risk of her own life.

The two lovers are, in effect, the only characters in the book, which is made entirely enthralling by the author's subtle, penetrating, and wholly candid observation of the sexes, her unique command of dialogue, and ability to convey an intimate mental atmosphere.

"Return to Night" has been awarded the annual Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer prize of [$150,000], as the outstanding novel of the year, and will shortly be filmed.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Romance, Classics, Queer, Historical

356 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1947

About the author

Mary Renault was an English writer best known for her historical novels set in Ancient Greece. In addition to vivid fictional portrayals of Theseus, Socrates, Plato and Alexander the Great, she wrote a non-fiction biography of Alexander.

Her historical novels are all set in ancient Greece. They include a pair of novels about the mythological hero Theseus and a trilogy about the career of Alexander the Great. In a sense, The Charioteer (1953), the story of two young gay servicemen in the 1940s who try to model their relationship on the ideals expressed in Plato's Phaedrus and Symposium, is a warm-up for Renault's historical novels. By turning away from the 20th century and focusing on stories about male lovers in the warrior societies of ancient Greece, Renault no longer had to deal with homosexuality and anti-gay prejudice as social "problems". Instead she was free to focus on larger ethical and philosophical concerns, while examining the nature of love and leadership. The Charioteer could not be published in the U.S. until 1959, after the success of The Last of the Wine proved that American readers and critics would accept a serious gay love story.

Reviews

[Jes · Rating 4 out of 5]

First reading (12/3/14): My GOD, this woman can write an ending. The middle sections dragged a bit, but on the whole, this was another gorgeous and deeply disquieting book. As with her other novels, I spent the last twenty pages clutching at my heart and whimpering slightly. Wowowow.

Second reading (1/19/18): Renault is to the romance what Tana French is to the detective novel. She's working fully within the structures and tropes of the genre, but doing such fascinating, weird, often dark things with it, and I loooove it. When I first read this one I found it a little too Freudian and heavy-handed (we get it, Julian has mommy issues and that's why he's G-A-Y), but upon rereading I actually found it quite a bit sadder and more complicated. I think it is easy to do a "this is Not Good Feminism" reading of this book, where you judge Hilary for sort of embracing the surrogate mother role at the expense of her own happiness. But I think that for Renault there is something quite honorable about making that kind of clear-eyed sacrifice on behalf of another person. Nearly all of her contemporary romances end with that kind of willingly embraced self-annihilation. In The Friendly Young Ladies and Purposes of Love it feels more questionable to me, since the women have suffered a traumatizing event and seem to sort of collapse or sleepwalk into that final self-sacrifice, but in The Charioteer and Return to Night it feels more like a conscious choice, made with a full understanding of what they are giving up.

Anyway, I freaking LOVE Mary Renault. I also think that while she is often absorbed into the category of 'lesbian literature,' it is way more interesting to read her work as part of a bisexual literary tradition (which is more in keeping with how she and her characters identify).

[Aldi · Rating 5 out of 5]

You know those times when you want something new to read and try half a page of about a dozen books and nothing seems to quite hit the spot, until you come upon That Book and that first page just slides down like a sharp, fresh, delicious tonic?

This was That Book for me. Mary Renault is a firm favourite by now, but I do need to be in the mood, since her writing takes focus and full emotional commitment (and recognising a swift camera pan to some random animal as a love scene, lol - there was one in here that involved an actual crowing cock, which is a new level of cheek). The mood was perfect this time and the book had me on tenterhooks pretty much all the way through. The premise, unusual for the late 30s setting, of a female doctor and her relationship with a younger man smothered by an overbearing mother, lent itself to all manner of intricate psychological and societal tangles and the kind of multi-layered, subtle character and relationship insights that Renault excels at. The prose is gorgeous as ever, the characters captivating and relatable, and although some of the period's more aggravating notions and behaviours re: gender roles still snuck in at odd moments, in general the gender & age switch ensured that the relationship elements stayed fresh and intriguing. Just a fabulous read.

[Chris Gager · Rating 3 out of 5]

Started a bit last night. Mary Renault is a favorite of mine but this is the first non-classical work I've read(am reading). I've only read a few pages but am already liking her style. She uses plenty of words but doesn't waste any of them. You have to pay attention! Not always that easy for me to do...

This is supposed to be as pre-WWII book but the cover of my paperback has obviously more of a 50's-60's look.

Still making slow progress due to work obligations. The set-up seems a bit trite though I'm sure Ms. Renault will make the most of it. The names are pretty standard: Julian and Hilary???!!!

So NOW I'm pissed off... I just wrote a big entry for today and the computer/G'reads lost the whole thing. F... IT!

Maybe I'll go back to day and re-do what got messed up yesterday. I'm almost done after last night. I toyed with the idea of staying up to finish but chose the wiser path of sleep instead. So... now the two are lovers and trying to be together while avoiding detection. What a different world we inhabit now! I was figuring that Hilary would be about my parents age. Either dead now or VERY old. Notes:

- I like Hilary's expressed preference for personality over looks. Good looking people are given all sorts of extra credit they haven't earned. It's a gift AND a curse.

- Julian's mother: the classic needy, manipulative, overbearing bitch-mother - UGH!

- The Julian of the book has blue-black hair but the guy on the cover is fair-haired.

- The surgery scene is excellent: funny and tense!

- The time is 1938-39: Czechoslovakia, Munich, the Sudetenland(SP?).

- Both Renault and Alice Munro, two of my MOST favorite writers like Walter de la Mare.

- All those cigarettes! Reminds me of Salinger...

- Lisa's story is a short and bittersweet side story. You'd like these people to be happy.

- Lots of printing/spelling gaffes so far.

- The fundamental conflicts seem a bit trite. If this ever did get made into a move it'd be a "woman's picture".

- I have had some problem understanding Ms. Renault's complicated writing at times. The emotional stuff is very twisty.

- Mother and son... makes me think about my own late "Mum" and me.

- The scene in the cave was one of those bafflers. Heavily emotional/spiritual. Maybe that comes from sexual reticence?

- It's certainly got to be more difficult for a male reader to get into the intense romantic stuff. "Dearest"...etc.

- Hilary is sensible - barely. Good girl! The riding scene was excellent - very 1940's-50's cinematic.

- Once the romance gets going there's very little time spent on Hilary's professional life. Maybe it was edited out. At one point the author seems to indicate that the romance has taken over and that Hilary's not so interested in the doctoring anymore. Really? Not very liberated there.

Finished last night with this uneven and dated book. Mary Renault is a somewhat great writer but the faults of the book have dragged the rating down to 3.5 stars, which rounds down to 3*. The complications are sort of frustrating for a contemporary reader to deal with. Our "modern" culture is much more easy and accepting relationship-wise. Much of the stuff that Hilary had to be concerned about does not apply now. Back then the social order held a much greater sway over romantic behaviour. The relentless focus of this author on each and every emotional/spiritual complication and challenge gets wearing after a while. In other words, the book is dated. Still...

- Wow! Just as I was thinking that Hilary needs to tell Julian to grow up - she does!

- The cover blurb is about "sexual bondage" - silly and false.

- Two events overtake the lovers and impel them to action. Something HAD to happen.

- The guy who played James on "Upstairs/Downstairs" might've made a good Julian. Maybe Diana Rigg for Hilary.

- The book abruptly changes gears near the end and concludes with a LONG digression into Julian's mother's story. My reaction was "Well, cool, now he can find Hilary and tell her and they can move on with their lives." But, instead, the plot takes a ridiculously melodramatic path to the end. The symbology(O GOD! I can't believe I wrote that - thanks Dan Brown! s.b. "symbolism") was pretty obvious.

- On Mary Renault's Wiki page it says that she was criticized for her villainous female characters. Good point! Here's a list:

Theseus' older first "wife/queen" who required him to kill his predecessor.

Medea - nuf' said.

Ariadne - she takes the primitive path on Naxos and forces Theseus to abandon her. In the legend she causes Aegeus' death too.

Phaedra - again, nuf' said.

Alexander's mother(Olympias) was the all-time murderous, self-centered, manipulative bitch-mother and wife. See "Fire from Heaven" particularly.

Al's first wife was also a schemer and murderer.

- All considered I thought that the mother WAS made to be overly unsympathetic.

- On the other hand, Hilary was just the saviour that the wounded Julian needed. But... was he the best choice of mate for her?

- Julian was the same age as my parents.

[Alicia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just when I was asking for more older heroines. Interesting to see what a (literary?) romance published in the 40s is like. Looking forward to reading Renault’s classical novels.

[Lynda · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have rated this book 3 as it tacles themes of sexuality, disfunctional family and relationships with a frankness that was ahead of its time. This is one of several novels that Renault wrote before she embarked with her partner to South Africa and began her historical novels about Alexander for which she is greatly renowned.

In this novel Renault at great length and in what is sometimes frustratingly meticulous detail dissects the relationship between Julian Flemming, a young aspiring actor recently down from Oxford and his damaged and possessive mother. When Julian is thrown from his horse his world collides with that of Dr Hilary Mansell a woman in a largely male dominated profession whose career has been thwarted by the preferment of a male fried and colleague.

Slowly Hilary and Julian commence a tortuous relationship based on need and desire which Renault plays out in excruiating detail.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first read this novel as a young adult and loved it; I re-read it many years later and still loved it. A particular psychological flaw in one of the main characters is central to the plot; this is a device Renault used in several of the books I've read by her. But all of the characters, whether their roles are primary or secondary, or they are glimpsed only once, are three-dimensional and believable. Her excellent characterization far outweighs anything in the book that is dated.

[Lonesome · Rating 5 out of 5]

this a good book and a good psychological romance , its a character study of a young man suffering from repression from a vindictive bitter mother and the older woman who he falls in love with who carries the blight of becoming his lover and in the same time his new mother , interesting take on the role of woman ( mothering the man ) in a romantic relationship.

[void °❀⋆.ೃ࿔* · Rating 5 out of 5]

currently obsessed with depictions of men written by lesbian women

[ken · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was reading Mary Renault's wikipedia page, and one criticism I read about her was, in a word, her internalized misogyny and especially her depiction of mothers. About her presentation of women in general, and in particular Hilary Mansell's character, Renault writes them a little standoffish, maybe even to the point of callousness. Renault makes these quips about women that makes it seem like she doesn't think too highly of them.

This is another romance with an age gap. My sibling noticed the pattern (after I presented my harsher book review of Love), and what was the fascination with age gap stories lately? Especially because the people around me seem to vilify it immediately, and understandably so. I just think it's fascinating, and what better way to explore that which fascinates, short of going through it myself, than reading about it? Especially if the woman is the much older one. Return to Night was less about the emotional vampirism the old does to the young, since Hilary, if anything, finds Julian's energy exhausting. This narrative and the approach was more Freudian, I found.

As with most Renault novels that I enjoy (I've tried to read The Mask of Apollo but for some reason it didn't appeal to me; I might try again), Return to Night is filled with whiplash, subtleties that force one to read deeply and actively, and turns of phrase that just take one's breath away. I love it – not every minute of it, because I found the climax to the ending was a bit muddled; the added backstory of Julian's mother felt unnecessary unless it was designed to paint Mrs Fleming in a more callous light (in which case, it was effective. But, again, almost unnecessary).

The title, Return to Night might be an allusion to the final scene. Literally about the night, but also a hint of the return to the primordial, since the chapter begins with Hilary assisting a birth, and ends with the "resisting cry of birth". Overall, this novel is enriching, rich with literary references, intertextuality, and allusions. One notes the deep influence of Greek history and myth in Renault's work.

[May Grider · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first read this book decades ago, as a teenager. I had no idea at the time how perfectly Renault captured the tension between working women at different levels: the traditional and the “new pioneer”. I felt this in the 1980’s working as a CPA in a firm where, only a few years before, the only women had been secretaries. Hard to believe she had already died by then (1983). Certainly many women could meet Hilary in this book and recognize themselves and their career progress in her.
The background and characterization she provides for main character Dr. Hilary Mansell is made quite believable by the excellent writing: A hard-working, promising young surgeon whose career and self-confidence has been sadly derailed by an opportunistic lover, leaving her a bit adrift, underutilized, no longer so young, and alone. There is an early, very cinematic introduction of Hilary’s about-to-be patient, Julian Fleming, whose behavior becomes something of a mystery. And we’re off on a journey that seems very individual while seeming at the same time inevitable.
Loved this book all over again, this time from the perspective of someone much older than either protagonist, as opposed to my original reading when I was younger than either.
By the way, I find the British vocabulary pleasing but I did spend some time with the dictionary and Google just for the purpose of spending a bit more time with some of the interesting words (marmoreal, for instance.) Here’s a bit of what I considered British, both from the first chapter:

In a kind of spite against herself and life, she had thrown herself away on this country practice in a small Cotswold market town. It carried a fair-sized panel, a sprinkling of private patients in the neighborhood, and, one week in a rota of three, emergencies at the Cottage Hospital.

. . . the hard shoots were unfurling in fantastic crooks and croziers and little fans

Unhappily the e-text from Libby has a number of inaccuracies introduced, I suppose, by the conversion from print to e-text and not corrected by an editor.

[Dannica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Might have enjoyed this book more if I hadn't read it with a cold. Colds leave me with less patience for frustrating people (and medical drama too lols). Since I still gave it 4 stars, you can see I thought it was quite good.
Some general notes:
-Since Mary Renault was a nurse herself, dare I say she was drawing from real life? But then, she was a nurse, not a doctor. Nevertheless.
-Not even Mary Renault's only doctor-patient romance since we also have Charioteer.
-My first Mary Renault with no gay elements, how weird! But she's still not creating a very typical heterosexual relationship, what with the older woman element; if Renault isn't making things queer, she's at least going to make things Freudian.
-I'm not joking about the Freudian aspect you may think I am but I'm not. MC literally says he's had dreams about killing his father but more importantly the "love triangle" between lover and overbearing mother is a major (possibly the most major) plot element throughout. Renault loves some Freud.
-I liked Hilary a lot more than Julian but it's no surprise I'm going to enjoy a 30's career woman (1930s but also in her 30s) more than a moody and indecisive twenty-three year old dude. Though the two combined were very interesting!
-Loved the motif of darkness, from cave scenes to bedroom scenes and sometimes in a metaphorical sense as well.
-Lisa Clare!
Overall a good read.

[Shaz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This has deeply drawn flawed characters and wonderful prose that hints and suggests but ends up drawing layered and nuanced pictures, and it tells a bittersweet story with a powerfully written ending. I read this slowly and enjoyed the journey.

[Kathi · Rating 2 out of 5]

5/10
I found this to be an odd book. It tells the story of a woman doctor in her mid-thirties who gets involve with a troubled young man, an aspiring but thwarted actor, in his early twenties, just before the outbreak of WWII. Parts of it felt very true to the time period, yet other parts seemed bizarrely contrived.

I will say I have read and enjoyed several of Renault’s historical fiction books, which were quite successful and for which she is best known. This was one of her earlier books when she wrote mostly what were then contemporary romances.

[Kirsty · Rating 2 out of 5]

Return to Night was published in 1947, and was awarded the annual Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Prize for the outstanding novel of the year. As in Purposes of Love, Return to Night features a hospital setting, and it also focuses upon the relationship between two individuals – in this case, a doctor and a patient. Dr Hilary Mansell loses out to her ex-lover on a promotion, and decides to move to a rural hospital. Here, she saves a patient named Julian Fleming, who has been seriously injured in a horseriding accident. When he recovers, he ‘seeks her out’ and – rather predictably, one feels – she promptly falls in love with him.

Perhaps the most interesting element of Return to Night is the way in which the gender roles have been examined. That the doctor focused upon is female immediately puts her in a position of power. She also has age on her side; she is ten years Julian’s senior, which further enforces the hold which she has over him. Indeed, from the beginning, Hilary demonstrates the power which she holds over others: ‘Hilary pulled off her white coat, saw that it was splashed with blood, and tossed it into a corner on the floor. On second thoughts, she stirred it with her feet till the bloodstain came uppermost. This, she hoped, might indicate to someone that she did not want to see it again on her next call’.

Renault’s setting in Return to Night is strong, but the characters occasionally feel lost as they stand against it. Sadly, one cannot help feeling that the entirety of Return to Night is just a little too predictable, and the writing does not demonstrate the same interest and power which so many of her other books hold.

[Silvia · Rating 4 out of 5]

First of all, Mary Renault’s novels have the most evocative titles. Return.To.Night. There is a scene set in a dark meandering cave which is both spooky and alluring, where, engulfed in darkness and surrounded by the ominous threat of an unforgiving natural environment, the two protagonists find each other.

Return to Night is a novel ahead of its time in the portrayal of gender inequality: the narrator, Hilary, is a 30 something year old doctor who, at the beginning of the novel, loses out a promotion she deserves to a male doctor. After moving to another town and a new hospital, she saves the life of a young man ten years her junior. The story is a nuanced psychological analysis of the two characters, their aspirations, love, relationship and their role in society. It’s one of Renault’s contemporary novels set around a hospital and hospital life, like The Charioteer and Purposes of Love.

Return to Night is a novel that requires to be read slowly to fully appreciate it. Personally, I find it refreshing when a book decides the rhythm you’re to read it by and more so when it forces you to slow down. In a time when I see that people are basically swallowing books like candies, want to teach you how to read more and more quickly and pontificate from a high-speed bullet train, I find myself more at ease on a slow and rickety steam powered contraption, thank you very much (or maybe I’m just jealous because I’m a painfully slow reader).

[Sandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was really pleased to see this on the shelves of a local charity shop since I'd not known that Mary Renault's books had been re-issued, nor that she'd written anything other than the historical ones I'd read before I reached double figures.
And this was fascinating and entertaining on many levels, not least for the depiction of social attitudes of the time. For the most part, too, the writing eloquent, but every now and again I came across sentences that were over-stuffed or did not make sense, references that were meaningless, and the near-final denouement was unconvincing on many levels. So yes, as Sarah Dunant says, a doctor/nurse romance, and while maybe not a four star, definitely more than 3.5.

[Brenda Clough · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very different work from Renault's usual fiction -- set in England before WW2. A number of her favorite themes lurk underneath, however, and it's a fascinating work, complex and elliptical.

[Edward Amato · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was intrigued by this book as I have read everything else by her as well as her biographies. This made the book more meaningful for although I did have problems with word usage and sentence arrangement.

[Abra · Rating 4 out of 5]

re-read 11/4/14; re-read again 11/18/16

[E · Rating 4 out of 5]

Absolutely gorgeous writing and both characters are dears. The protagonist especially is so full featured and real.