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Mary Renault: A Biography
The author of The Charioteer and The King Must Die, Renault studied at Oxford but eventually abandoned the academic world and England for South Africa, where she and her companion, Julie Mullard, remained. "A superb biography of an exceptional novelist" (New Yorker). Named a Notable Book of the Year by the New York Times. Index; photographs.
336 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
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December 13, 2022
Mary Renault is my favourite author thanks to her eight novels set in ancient Greece. I have read The Last of the Wine and the two about Alexander more times than any other books and their sheer beauty still brings tears to my eyes as easily as when I was a boy. Partly it is the subject matter: apparently like her, and for all its faults, I find ancient Greece more inspiring than any other society, certainly including today’s. Partly it is because no kind of creativity fascinates me as much as the authentic recreation of past societies presented on their own terms without shabby compromises to modern sensibilities. The admiration she has elicited from leading classicists is testimony to how successfully she accomplished this. Partly it is the emotional power, charm and clarity of her prose. And it is many other things besides.
Sweetman writes about his subject with an appealing sympathy that does justice to his name. The other side of the coin to this is that his book has the faults of an authorised biography, which it more or less is, since much the most important sources appear to have been Renault herself and Julie Mullard, her lover for nearly half a century. It is informative rather than critical or analytical, but given that this was the first biography of her, it is information that matters much the most. This is presented amply, but without tedium. I find the first half about her life in England a more compelling story, even though my main interest is in the background to her novels written later.
There are no footnotes or references to sources, which would be ruinous if the subject were controversial or dead long before writing, but does not matter here where the sources are personal or self-evident. Far more worrying are a number of inaccuracies and confusingly sloppy statements, which would surely have annoyed such a stickler for accuracy as Renault. For example, having been born in 1905, “she decided to write her first novel just before the end of the war, at the age of eight.” Renault’s life changed suddenly in 1947, when she won as a prize for one of her novels “a sum quite beyond belief” that enabled her to emigrate to South Africa with Mullard. She told Julie it was “£ 150,000, over £ 37,000 at the time.”(?) Before emigrating, however, she went on a spending binge probably more than she belatedly discovered she would have left over after paying 97½ % wartime tax. So, are you clear as to how easily she was able to finance her new life?
I had vaguely intended to read this biography for years, but in the end it was one of those books I was driven to read by the opposite of a recommendation: criticisms which convinced me I would like it, encountered in a review by another distinguished historical novelist, Hilary Mantel. “It is odd and unfortunate”, she says, “that by the end of [Sweetman’s] book one admires his subject less rather than more.” Not so; her reasoning made me suspect the opposite, and thus it turned out; it was Mantel whom I admired less in the end. Elaborating on this disagreement seems a good way of conveying why I think Renault was admirable and her life usefully spent and well worth reading about.
The gist of Mantel’s disapproval seems to be that Renault was politically incorrect, which conveys nothing to me about her personal quality other than to reassure me she had the independence of mind and courage to express it that are keys to my respect. The title of Mantel’s review was “Homophobic.” As neither she nor Sweetman himself say anything about him that could be so construed, I presume this refers to Renault, bizarre as it is to refer thus to one whose writings brought self-accepting relief to thousands of homosexuals in an age when it was still rare and courageous to express understanding of their feelings. Renault has apparently disappointed some homosexual activists by her dislike of their politics, which she dismissed as “sexual tribalism” and personally self-limiting, and though Mantel admits “there is something very wise and humane in her recognition that sexual identity is fluid and mutable,” she seems annoyed that Renault would not identify herself as a lesbian. It looks though that what really draws Mantel’s ire was Renault’s unfashionable expressions of admiration for men and her wish that she had been one. Mantel is deeply disappointed that her motives in writing as she did were not political: she should have written sympathetically about homosexuality because that is correct rather than because she admired it, and she should have been miserable rather than at ease depicting with sympathetic understanding such an overtly masculine society. In effect, Mantel feels cheated by Renault having chosen to write about a civilization she was in tune with, though her doing so is the key to how she was able to write as utterly convincingly as she did. Here we approach the essence of the gulf in mentality between those driven by political considerations and those driven by higher ideals.
Asked by Sweetman what she would like to be remembered for, Renault replied “As someone who got it right.” That is just how I remember her.
Edmund Marlowe, author of Alexander’s Choice, the story of a boy inspired by Renault’s novels, https://www.amazon.com/dp/191457107X
Sweetman writes about his subject with an appealing sympathy that does justice to his name. The other side of the coin to this is that his book has the faults of an authorised biography, which it more or less is, since much the most important sources appear to have been Renault herself and Julie Mullard, her lover for nearly half a century. It is informative rather than critical or analytical, but given that this was the first biography of her, it is information that matters much the most. This is presented amply, but without tedium. I find the first half about her life in England a more compelling story, even though my main interest is in the background to her novels written later.
There are no footnotes or references to sources, which would be ruinous if the subject were controversial or dead long before writing, but does not matter here where the sources are personal or self-evident. Far more worrying are a number of inaccuracies and confusingly sloppy statements, which would surely have annoyed such a stickler for accuracy as Renault. For example, having been born in 1905, “she decided to write her first novel just before the end of the war, at the age of eight.” Renault’s life changed suddenly in 1947, when she won as a prize for one of her novels “a sum quite beyond belief” that enabled her to emigrate to South Africa with Mullard. She told Julie it was “£ 150,000, over £ 37,000 at the time.”(?) Before emigrating, however, she went on a spending binge probably more than she belatedly discovered she would have left over after paying 97½ % wartime tax. So, are you clear as to how easily she was able to finance her new life?
I had vaguely intended to read this biography for years, but in the end it was one of those books I was driven to read by the opposite of a recommendation: criticisms which convinced me I would like it, encountered in a review by another distinguished historical novelist, Hilary Mantel. “It is odd and unfortunate”, she says, “that by the end of [Sweetman’s] book one admires his subject less rather than more.” Not so; her reasoning made me suspect the opposite, and thus it turned out; it was Mantel whom I admired less in the end. Elaborating on this disagreement seems a good way of conveying why I think Renault was admirable and her life usefully spent and well worth reading about.
The gist of Mantel’s disapproval seems to be that Renault was politically incorrect, which conveys nothing to me about her personal quality other than to reassure me she had the independence of mind and courage to express it that are keys to my respect. The title of Mantel’s review was “Homophobic.” As neither she nor Sweetman himself say anything about him that could be so construed, I presume this refers to Renault, bizarre as it is to refer thus to one whose writings brought self-accepting relief to thousands of homosexuals in an age when it was still rare and courageous to express understanding of their feelings. Renault has apparently disappointed some homosexual activists by her dislike of their politics, which she dismissed as “sexual tribalism” and personally self-limiting, and though Mantel admits “there is something very wise and humane in her recognition that sexual identity is fluid and mutable,” she seems annoyed that Renault would not identify herself as a lesbian. It looks though that what really draws Mantel’s ire was Renault’s unfashionable expressions of admiration for men and her wish that she had been one. Mantel is deeply disappointed that her motives in writing as she did were not political: she should have written sympathetically about homosexuality because that is correct rather than because she admired it, and she should have been miserable rather than at ease depicting with sympathetic understanding such an overtly masculine society. In effect, Mantel feels cheated by Renault having chosen to write about a civilization she was in tune with, though her doing so is the key to how she was able to write as utterly convincingly as she did. Here we approach the essence of the gulf in mentality between those driven by political considerations and those driven by higher ideals.
Asked by Sweetman what she would like to be remembered for, Renault replied “As someone who got it right.” That is just how I remember her.
Edmund Marlowe, author of Alexander’s Choice, the story of a boy inspired by Renault’s novels, https://www.amazon.com/dp/191457107X
June 8, 2023
For anyone working their way through the queer literary canon of the 20th century, Mary Renault is a must-read author. Supremely popular in her heyday (namely, the late 50s to early 70s) and beloved by the gay community of her time, this biography paints a picture of a complex woman who, on the one hand wrote novels that spoke to an entire generation of gay men, but, on the other hand, was a staunch anti-feminist despite having a lifelong female partner. A British woman who, after relocating to South Africa, vocally opposed apartheid, and yet was just as vocally opposed to the affirmative action that would have opened up the literary society, of which she was president, to writers of color.
Her biographer, David Sweetman, though he clearly admired her, and though he does often offer heavily biased justifications for some of her more unsavory beliefs, does a fair job supplying a well-rounded picture of Mary as an author and as a human being.
He begins with her childhood as a tomboy in England during the Edwardian Period and how this bucking of gender roles led to a fraught relationship with her mother that would last the rest of her life. This relationship with her mother would also, Sweetman seems to invite us to extrapolate, serve as the foundation for Mary's disdain for women as a whole and her reluctance to identify as a lesbian despite her life partner, Julie, being a woman.
Given the publication of this biography in the early 90s, Sweetman does not even entertain the idea that Mary's feelings about her gender or about womanhood suggest that in a different time she might have transitioned and lived as a man. And that may well not have been the case; feminism and female identity were very different beasts in the 20th century, making the distinction between things like feelings of oppression, internalized homophobia, and wanting to transition very muddy.
Certain anecdotes included by Sweetman seem to suggest that, whether Mary herself understood this or not, her true unhappiness lay with the gender roles and restrictions placed on her by society, not with her sex. But because second wave feminism hadn't quite gotten as far as proclaiming patriarchy the enemy of the people, she (and others like her) likely didn't have the language or socio-cultural awareness to parse any of that out. And so instead she engaged in what we would call 'pick-me' behavior nowadays -- effort by a member of a marginalized group to distinguish themselves as exceptional by contrasting the traits they share with the in-group against what are perceived as negative traits of the group to which they belong. A rather pathetic 'I'm one of the good ones' attitude.
For instance, Sweetman writes: "Dennis recalled that they had no lesbian friends, and Julie confirmed that they found women couples hard to accept and refused to use the word of themselves. As Julie put it, 'If people talked about "lesbians", we used to draw our skirts away.'" (151)
Yet, throughout their lives both Mary and Julie had many close gay friends, and gay relationships are at the heart of the bulk of Mary's novels.
This same cognitive dissonance rears its head again when it comes to her feelings about race. She and Julie immigrated to South Africa in the late 1940s and somewhat threw themselves into the middle of the brewing question of apartheid, removing 'whites only' signs from their local beach, and protecting their African housekeeper. But then later, when a newly opened theater their friends were hosting a show at refused to desegregate, Mary supported her friends' decision to debut the show anyway. And then again, even later, when presented with the opportunity to, in effect, desegregate the writer's association she was president of by lowering the qualifications for acceptance to accommodate African authors, she refused.
This all sounds rather contradictory until taking into consideration what principle underpinned her lifelong code of ethics, according to Sweetman: "It was Plato's belief in the individual which caught her imagination [...] a good state would be produced only by good people [...] Systems alone could not create the ideal state, only individuals could." (36)
It's a wonderful idea, and explains her attraction to a figure like Alexander the Great as well as why she would support her friends despite an unjust system while at the same time defending her housekeeper in the face of that same bad system.
Because that's the flip-side of the coin: a bad system run by good people will still have bad outcomes that individual acts of kindness or compassion cannot compensate for.
This is an important aspect of Mary to understand in order to unpack many of the themes running through her work.
And speaking of her work, her journey as an author is definitely somewhat unusual; many of her best-selling and most famous works weren't published until she was well into middle age. Indeed, Sweetman notes that after trying unsuccessfully to write a novel in her late twenties, "She was not depressed, but it took all her resources of hope to confront the fact that her attempt to be a writer had floundered and she had precious little to look forward to." (43)
But creativity and tenacity eventually paid off, and she began her career in earnest by publishing a slew of sapphic hospital love triangle dramas (something she had personal experience with). It's worth noting that while many 20th century queer texts exist in harmony with the belief that sexuality is a binary, her earlier novels, in which many of the characters display fluid sexuality, acknowledge the spectrum that sexual identity often exists along, "settling for a time at points which are not as fixed as some people would like to imagine." (62)
Later, when she got into the meat of her career as a writer of queer historical novels, she often prided herself on her dedication to getting things right in terms of historical accuracy and became an accomplished amateur classicist. This dedication earned her much praise, but also left the door open for academics to more viciously rip into anything she might have gotten wrong.
The popularity of a much more recent female authored Greek-themed novel, 'The Song of Achilles' has drawn fair comparison to her popular novel 'The Persian Boy.' The set up and execution of both novels are stunningly similar: both follow the exploits of a famous leader/warrior through the eyes of their respective companions (Patroclus and Bagoas) and both novels end with the tragic death of that hero figure. But does that make 'The Song of Achilles' derivative? Absolutely not. These are tragedies. Greek tragedies no less; that's just kind of how those always end.
Sure, both novels are written by women, but it's clear that they had very different preoccupations. While 'The Song of Achilles' is preoccupied with defining what non-toxic masculinity could look like, 'The Persian Boy' explores, as we've established, how only good men can build an ideal society -- even if that means ideal societies will always be fragile.
Patroclus and Bagoas are also just two very different characters. Patroclus is passive and compassionate, while Bagoas is active and self-absorbed.
Nevertheless, I suspect that most fans of 'Song of Achilles' would enjoy 'The Persian Boy' (and many of Mary's other novels) but that not every fan of Mary's work would enjoy 'Song of Achilles.'
Given all of this, what is Mary's place in literature?
She was a queer woman who lived her truth openly in a time that was less than hospitable, and wrote novels that others in her community saw themselves in and continue to celebrate to this day. Some of her hot takes on issues of the day, and even of her own community, read as very cringy through a 21st century lens, but serve to demonstrate just how far the discourse has come since her time. Some might argue because of the dialogue about sexuality her writing prompted-- history creating ripples and all that.
And at the end of the day, she's just a good writer, so give one of her books a try and see what you think.
Her biographer, David Sweetman, though he clearly admired her, and though he does often offer heavily biased justifications for some of her more unsavory beliefs, does a fair job supplying a well-rounded picture of Mary as an author and as a human being.
He begins with her childhood as a tomboy in England during the Edwardian Period and how this bucking of gender roles led to a fraught relationship with her mother that would last the rest of her life. This relationship with her mother would also, Sweetman seems to invite us to extrapolate, serve as the foundation for Mary's disdain for women as a whole and her reluctance to identify as a lesbian despite her life partner, Julie, being a woman.
Given the publication of this biography in the early 90s, Sweetman does not even entertain the idea that Mary's feelings about her gender or about womanhood suggest that in a different time she might have transitioned and lived as a man. And that may well not have been the case; feminism and female identity were very different beasts in the 20th century, making the distinction between things like feelings of oppression, internalized homophobia, and wanting to transition very muddy.
Certain anecdotes included by Sweetman seem to suggest that, whether Mary herself understood this or not, her true unhappiness lay with the gender roles and restrictions placed on her by society, not with her sex. But because second wave feminism hadn't quite gotten as far as proclaiming patriarchy the enemy of the people, she (and others like her) likely didn't have the language or socio-cultural awareness to parse any of that out. And so instead she engaged in what we would call 'pick-me' behavior nowadays -- effort by a member of a marginalized group to distinguish themselves as exceptional by contrasting the traits they share with the in-group against what are perceived as negative traits of the group to which they belong. A rather pathetic 'I'm one of the good ones' attitude.
For instance, Sweetman writes: "Dennis recalled that they had no lesbian friends, and Julie confirmed that they found women couples hard to accept and refused to use the word of themselves. As Julie put it, 'If people talked about "lesbians", we used to draw our skirts away.'" (151)
Yet, throughout their lives both Mary and Julie had many close gay friends, and gay relationships are at the heart of the bulk of Mary's novels.
This same cognitive dissonance rears its head again when it comes to her feelings about race. She and Julie immigrated to South Africa in the late 1940s and somewhat threw themselves into the middle of the brewing question of apartheid, removing 'whites only' signs from their local beach, and protecting their African housekeeper. But then later, when a newly opened theater their friends were hosting a show at refused to desegregate, Mary supported her friends' decision to debut the show anyway. And then again, even later, when presented with the opportunity to, in effect, desegregate the writer's association she was president of by lowering the qualifications for acceptance to accommodate African authors, she refused.
This all sounds rather contradictory until taking into consideration what principle underpinned her lifelong code of ethics, according to Sweetman: "It was Plato's belief in the individual which caught her imagination [...] a good state would be produced only by good people [...] Systems alone could not create the ideal state, only individuals could." (36)
It's a wonderful idea, and explains her attraction to a figure like Alexander the Great as well as why she would support her friends despite an unjust system while at the same time defending her housekeeper in the face of that same bad system.
Because that's the flip-side of the coin: a bad system run by good people will still have bad outcomes that individual acts of kindness or compassion cannot compensate for.
This is an important aspect of Mary to understand in order to unpack many of the themes running through her work.
And speaking of her work, her journey as an author is definitely somewhat unusual; many of her best-selling and most famous works weren't published until she was well into middle age. Indeed, Sweetman notes that after trying unsuccessfully to write a novel in her late twenties, "She was not depressed, but it took all her resources of hope to confront the fact that her attempt to be a writer had floundered and she had precious little to look forward to." (43)
But creativity and tenacity eventually paid off, and she began her career in earnest by publishing a slew of sapphic hospital love triangle dramas (something she had personal experience with). It's worth noting that while many 20th century queer texts exist in harmony with the belief that sexuality is a binary, her earlier novels, in which many of the characters display fluid sexuality, acknowledge the spectrum that sexual identity often exists along, "settling for a time at points which are not as fixed as some people would like to imagine." (62)
Later, when she got into the meat of her career as a writer of queer historical novels, she often prided herself on her dedication to getting things right in terms of historical accuracy and became an accomplished amateur classicist. This dedication earned her much praise, but also left the door open for academics to more viciously rip into anything she might have gotten wrong.
The popularity of a much more recent female authored Greek-themed novel, 'The Song of Achilles' has drawn fair comparison to her popular novel 'The Persian Boy.' The set up and execution of both novels are stunningly similar: both follow the exploits of a famous leader/warrior through the eyes of their respective companions (Patroclus and Bagoas) and both novels end with the tragic death of that hero figure. But does that make 'The Song of Achilles' derivative? Absolutely not. These are tragedies. Greek tragedies no less; that's just kind of how those always end.
Sure, both novels are written by women, but it's clear that they had very different preoccupations. While 'The Song of Achilles' is preoccupied with defining what non-toxic masculinity could look like, 'The Persian Boy' explores, as we've established, how only good men can build an ideal society -- even if that means ideal societies will always be fragile.
Patroclus and Bagoas are also just two very different characters. Patroclus is passive and compassionate, while Bagoas is active and self-absorbed.
Nevertheless, I suspect that most fans of 'Song of Achilles' would enjoy 'The Persian Boy' (and many of Mary's other novels) but that not every fan of Mary's work would enjoy 'Song of Achilles.'
Given all of this, what is Mary's place in literature?
She was a queer woman who lived her truth openly in a time that was less than hospitable, and wrote novels that others in her community saw themselves in and continue to celebrate to this day. Some of her hot takes on issues of the day, and even of her own community, read as very cringy through a 21st century lens, but serve to demonstrate just how far the discourse has come since her time. Some might argue because of the dialogue about sexuality her writing prompted-- history creating ripples and all that.
And at the end of the day, she's just a good writer, so give one of her books a try and see what you think.
February 10, 2019
Have to admit I didn't read every single page of this, but close. Gave me a good background on Mary Renault's life story for my project. Still intend to get other perspectives, but it's a good start.
July 16, 2018
Fantastic biography on one of my favorite authors. David Sweetman's research revealed so many nuances and layers to this private author.
A treasure!
A treasure!
April 17, 2011
I was ready to write about how interesting it is to see what inspires an author and how closely one can link the events in Mary Renault's life to the book she wound up writing as a response and also how her young love of Edward, Prince of Wales obviously made her sympathetic to the other possibly misunderstood, roguish, golden boys of history (her Alexander and her Theseus and her Alkibiades). I was going to write about all that and then I got to the Acknowledgements page, which I read on a whim.
I am grateful to Dr Howard B. Gotlieb, Director Special Collections, Mugar Memorial Libaray...
WAT?
...Boston University...
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!
I hold the Classics department personally responsible for not telling everyone about this. I think a pilgrimage is in store.
I am grateful to Dr Howard B. Gotlieb, Director Special Collections, Mugar Memorial Libaray...
WAT?
...Boston University...
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!
I hold the Classics department personally responsible for not telling everyone about this. I think a pilgrimage is in store.
Read
August 7, 20111972 I read The Persian Boy.
I was hooked - and devoured all of her novels.
I was hooked - and devoured all of her novels.
July 31, 2016
Loaned to me by a friend. Thanks Maxine.
Immensely readable. Among other things we see why she wrote what she did and how.
Immensely readable. Among other things we see why she wrote what she did and how.
June 15, 2020
I found this book a little disappointing. Though it recites the main points of Renault's life factually enough, I'd have liked much more analysis of her books--the writing style, the influences on that style, what decided her to write mainly in the first person etc...etc. At one point the author remarks that her publisher "seems not to have been much aware" of the literary quality of her work, yet he himself seems to suffer from the same artistic blindness. The greatness of Mary Renault lies in a combination of her erudition, psychological insight, powers of description, particularly of thought and feeling, and amazing lucidity, resulting in a writing style I've not seem approached by any other author. Lines like, "One never saw Xenophon paying court to a youth, nor Plato to a woman, and such extremes of nature tend naturally to discord," are worth quoting and examining. Perhaps Sweetman considered himself inadequate to the task, in which case perhaps he was not the man for the job.
November 8, 2020
I read several of Renault's books in my late teens (over 50 years ago). I have a vague memory of some young man of my acquaintance suggesting one to me, and I greatly fear I was so utterly clueless that I didn't draw what presumably was meant to be an obvious conclusion. I was, still am, a great fan of well-written historical novels, and really loved her work on that ground. I won't say I was entirely oblivious of the homosexual content, just that it didn't mean much to me. Dear me. I certainly had no notion of her iconic status until much later.
I found this biography of Renault an enjoyable read. I usually find biographies are most interesting when discussing the person's childhood and tend to flatten out after that, but this one kept me interested throughout. The author was clearly an admirer, but did not omit some events/attributes that were perhaps less than admirable. Personally, I was absolutely charmed to read of Renault's early and wholehearted enthusiasm for Patrick O'Brian's work and the epistolary friendship they enjoyed.
I found this biography of Renault an enjoyable read. I usually find biographies are most interesting when discussing the person's childhood and tend to flatten out after that, but this one kept me interested throughout. The author was clearly an admirer, but did not omit some events/attributes that were perhaps less than admirable. Personally, I was absolutely charmed to read of Renault's early and wholehearted enthusiasm for Patrick O'Brian's work and the epistolary friendship they enjoyed.
June 7, 2019
I read this as part of a book club; I have not read any books authored by Mary Renault.
She was interesting. The author of this biography went a little overboard in analyzing Mary Renault's work in context of her work and not in context of her life. If you like Mary Renault's work, you will probably like this book. If you don't, skip the enormous sections of this book that are basically Mr. Sweetman describing something in one of Mary Renault's books, then including the actual passage, then describing it again.
She was interesting. The author of this biography went a little overboard in analyzing Mary Renault's work in context of her work and not in context of her life. If you like Mary Renault's work, you will probably like this book. If you don't, skip the enormous sections of this book that are basically Mr. Sweetman describing something in one of Mary Renault's books, then including the actual passage, then describing it again.
April 23, 2020
Fascinating and loving exploration of the life of a writer that I read with delight in my early years. I had no idea about her life, her life long learning about and exploration of ancient Greece, nor her association with South Africa. She was a very private person and was extremely blessed in her biographer. Appreciated his extensive use of quotations from her works and her letters. Also the information about the images that inspired her.
June 27, 2023
Something oddly off key in this, like a self censorship. Also a bit of an old fashioned tone, unsurprisingly given date and writer, that can be a bit off putting. There’s maybe less explanation and analysis than a more recent biography would give.
May 26, 2017
Uneven, though to me fascinating when discussing the actual derivations of her books
June 25, 2020
Mary is exactly the bundle of contradictions you'd expect
January 2, 2021
I'm grateful Sweetman gave us this book. I thoroughly enjoyed peering into the life of Mary Renault.
One aspect that I disagree was his account of Alexias and Lysis. First, Alexias did not struggle with bisexuality. He faced many challenges that are well detailed, but a struggle with sexuality was not a problem in that period of antiquity. Renault believed in seeing the story through the eyes of those times, not modern times, such as Sweetman seems to be doing during his own era, Thatcher's UK.
Renault believed in writing the truth, and so a struggle with bisexuality would not have been a true viewpoint in Athens. Also, I disagree when Sweetman wrote that Alexias and Lysis never made love. If one pays attention to Renault's style of writing across her books while ignoring modern stigmas, one can conclude three points where these two characters did make love.
.
.
.
I said to my heart, "What mighty power hast thou been defying?" Truly love may be likened to the Sphinx of the Egyptians with the face of a smiling god and a lion's claws. When he had wounded me all my longing was to leap into his darkness, and be consumed.
..
And so on.
Her subtlety and symbolism might make the argument gray for some, but she knew young gay men in Cape Town and understood the ways of their nature. And so you might say this aspect of her characters was another piece of her insisting the stories portrayed the landscape of the historical times.
One aspect that I disagree was his account of Alexias and Lysis. First, Alexias did not struggle with bisexuality. He faced many challenges that are well detailed, but a struggle with sexuality was not a problem in that period of antiquity. Renault believed in seeing the story through the eyes of those times, not modern times, such as Sweetman seems to be doing during his own era, Thatcher's UK.
Renault believed in writing the truth, and so a struggle with bisexuality would not have been a true viewpoint in Athens. Also, I disagree when Sweetman wrote that Alexias and Lysis never made love. If one pays attention to Renault's style of writing across her books while ignoring modern stigmas, one can conclude three points where these two characters did make love.
.
.
.
I said to my heart, "What mighty power hast thou been defying?" Truly love may be likened to the Sphinx of the Egyptians with the face of a smiling god and a lion's claws. When he had wounded me all my longing was to leap into his darkness, and be consumed.
..
And so on.
Her subtlety and symbolism might make the argument gray for some, but she knew young gay men in Cape Town and understood the ways of their nature. And so you might say this aspect of her characters was another piece of her insisting the stories portrayed the landscape of the historical times.
December 31, 2014
I've loved the novels of Mary Renault since I first encountered them years and years ago. This biography is fascinating and inspiring;it seems Sweetman had fairly extensive access to Renault's papers and also to her life's companion. Now, it may be that that access made this a particularly positive sort of view of Mary's life...but then, I don't think I would have wanted a negative one (and believe me, there is gossip aplenty in this biography for those who relish that).
July 16, 2010
Sweetman is a great biographer. So entertaining and accurate when he takes on a subject. He is well known for his Expressionists & Impressionists' biographies.
February 9, 2009
Factually informative but lacking insight into the author's psyche and motivations.
March 19, 2011
Very interesting, though the writing style a little clunky. Inspired me to re-read her novels including the early non-Greek ones.
November 19, 2016
re-read 11/4/14; re-read again 11/18/16
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews