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The Charioteer Paperback – May 13, 2003

by Mary Renault (Author)

4.4 582 ratings

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After enduring an injury at Dunkirk during World War II, Laurie Odell is sent to a rural veterans’ hospital in England to convalesce. There he befriends the young, bright Andrew, a conscientious objector serving as an orderly. As they find solace and companionship together in the idyllic surroundings of the hospital, their friendship blooms into a discreet, chaste romance. Then one day, Ralph Lanyon, a mentor from Laurie’s schoolboy days, suddenly reappears in Laurie’s life, and draws him into a tight-knit social circle of world-weary gay men. Laurie is forced to choose between the sweet ideals of innocence and the distinct pleasures of experience.

Originally published in the United States in 1959, The Charioteer is a bold, unapologetic portrayal of male homosexuality during World War II that stands with Gore Vidal’s The City and the Pillar and Christopher Isherwood’s Berlin Stories as a monumental work in gay literature.

Print length

352 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Vintage
Publication date

May 13, 2003
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5.1 x 0.78 x 8 inches
ISBN-10

0375714189
ISBN-13

978-0375714184
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Phenomenal. . . . Renault is one of the major novelists of our time.” —New York Herald Tribune Book Review

“Miss Renault masters a lyrical style, meticulous and probing, and introduces us into a world of emotions so delicate and private that the reader often feels like an intruder.” —The New York Times

“Tribute must be paid Miss Renault for remarkable literary talents. Her prose, at its best, is dazzling, her perceptions sharp and original, her dialogue natural to the ear.” —Saturday Review

From the Inside Flap

After enduring an injury at Dunkirk during World War II, Laurie Odell is sent to a rural veterans? hospital in England to convalesce. There he befriends the young, bright Andrew, a conscientious objector serving as an orderly. As they find solace and companionship together in the idyllic surroundings of the hospital, their friendship blooms into a discreet, chaste romance. Then one day, Ralph Lanyon, a mentor from Laurie?s schoolboy days, suddenly reappears in Laurie?s life, and draws him into a tight-knit social circle of world-weary gay men. Laurie is forced to choose between the sweet ideals of innocence and the distinct pleasures of experience.

Originally published in the United States in 1959, The Charioteer is a bold, unapologetic portrayal of male homosexuality during World War II that stands with Gore Vidal?s The City and the Pillar and Christopher Isherwood?s Berlin Stories as a monumental work in gay literature.

From the Back Cover

After enduring an injury at Dunkirk during World War II, Laurie Odell is sent to a rural veterans' hospital in England to convalesce. There he befriends the young, bright Andrew, a conscientious objector serving as an orderly. As they find solace and companionship together in the idyllic surroundings of the hospital, their friendship blooms into a discreet, chaste romance. Then one day, Ralph Lanyon, a mentor from Laurie's schoolboy days, suddenly reappears in Laurie's life, and draws him into a tight-knit social circle of world-weary gay men. Laurie is forced to choose between the sweet ideals of innocence and the distinct pleasures of experience.
Originally published in the United States in 1959, The Charioteer is a bold, unapologetic portrayal of male homosexuality during World War II that stands with Gore Vidal's The City and the Pillar and Christopher Isherwood's Berlin Stories as a monumental work in gay literature.

About the Author

Mary Renault was born in London and educated at Oxford. She then trained for three years as a nurse, and wrote her first published novel, Promise of Love. Her next three novels were written while serving in WWII. After the war, she settled in South Africa and traveled considerably in Africa and Greece. It was at this time that she began writing her brilliant historical reconstructions of ancient Greece, including The King Must Die, The Last of the Wine, and The Persian Boy. She died in Cape Town in 1983.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

1

It was the first time he had ever heard the clock strike ten at night. If he had been asleep and waked to hear the strokes, it would have been different, a small manageable fragment broken off the unknown hugeness of night, from somewhere in the middle. He would have been a little uneasy, perhaps, in his waking solitude, and, if he heard anyone stirring, would have found something legitimate to call out for, such as a drink of water. Only babies called out about nothing. The ten months which had passed of his fifth year felt like at least half his remembered life, and he was used to his responsibilities.

Tonight was unique. Tonight he had not been to sleep at all, and it was ten.

Seven o'clock was familiar and domesticated. With luck and good management, at seven his mother might still be sitting on the edge of his bed with an unfinished story. Eight was unusual, and associated with trouble: having been punished, or being sick. Nine was the wild outpost of an unknown continent. Ten was the mountains of the moon, the burial-place of the elephants: white on the map. He lay staring with round birdlike eyes at the dim lapping of light on the ceiling, incredulous of the journey he had made alone.

Outside a man passed the house, whistling. The noise had an absolute foreignness, like the note of a jungle bird. It had no link with humanity; it was simply a mysterious feature on the face of night. Somewhere, so far off that in the daytime one never heard it, a line of railway trucks was shunted together. The metallic clangs, melancholy with distance, not quite harsh and not quite musical, made a loose chain of sound, then stopped inconclusively, leaving the ear suspended and waiting.

If one sat up as long as an hour past bedtime, except on Christmas and birthdays, one would be ill. Laurie, who had had this explained to him many times and accepted it as incontrovertible fact, inferred from it that after three hours, one would probably die.

Separated from life by this vast stretch of solitude, he would not have been surprised to find himself dying any minute. But first an angel would come. Grannie, who had been in heaven for a year, was the only one personally known to him, so it would probably be she. Laurie didn't remember her very well, and thought she would have altered a good deal. She would pick him up out of bed (Grannie had had cold hands, he remembered), and fly with him out of the window, up to heaven. He looked at the space between the curtains. The sky was vast, empty, and quite black.

Last time he had seen Grannie she had been in bed, thin and yellow and absent, with a sweet sick smell. He pictured her thus, wearing her embroidered flannel nightgown with the addition of wings; then as a younger lady like the other angels, with long golden hair floating behind her and a thinner nightgown, just like all the rest. Neither of these pictures soothed, nor--and this was the worst-- wholly convinced him. In this enormous vacuum, he felt a crack open in the warm pearly shell of belief. He knew that dying was being fetched by the angels and taken to heaven; but, suddenly and terrifyingly, he could no longer feel it. What he felt was that it would simply grow darker, not only in the room, but also inside him; and that his mother would not be there.

A wave of despairing terror seized him. A known fact had become real to him for the first time, that sooner or later everyone died; not only old people like Grannie, but Laurie, Laurie Odell, I. He sat bolt upright in bed, a point of protesting, passionate identity in echoing space.

The room was darker. He looked at the night-light, sitting in its saucer of water on the bedside cupboard. Was it really lower, or was he beginning to die? No; the flame was little and round, instead of long and pointed; it always got darker then. He craned over, and looked into the pool of clear wax cupped in the paper shell. It was deep and still, and through it, at the bottom, he could see a glittering square of tin. This was very interesting; it was also strange, and different, like everything else tonight. His especial things were on the cupboard-top beside it: the blue and gold cap from a broken fountain-pen of his father's, a knob of pink quartz which had been the head of one of his mother's hatpins once, a piece of green bottle smoothed and frosted by the sea, a big glass marble with a red and blue twist in its middle. He wasn't allowed them in bed since the quartz had slipped down while he slept and made a sore place on his leg. He remembered this; but everything was different tonight, lawless and wild; if he were dying, he must have at least one of them with him. The pen-cap was the newest and most dear; his father had given it him only a week before. With the desperate courage of an invested garrison making a sortie, he jumped out, snatched it up, and curled back again, still alive.

As a traveller beset with wild beasts and fighting a fever has no time to think about the causes that took him abroad, so Laurie had almost forgotten what it was that, aeons ago, had first kept sleep from him. "Tais-toi; voici l'enfant." He still had the animal's ear whose vocabulary is in the pitch, not the words. The pent-up vehemence of his mother's caress, to herself a comfort and release, had been to him a great breach blasted in the walls of heaven, letting in the terrors of empty space. Something was going to happen. He did not expect to be told what it was, any more than a dog expects to know why the trunks are being got out, or for how long, or if he will be going. He had gone about dumbly, aching with secret fear and avoiding his father; for as surely as he knew that something was going to happen, he knew it was his father's fault. His mother, a fastidiously truthful woman, would have denied with the dignity of affronted innocence that she had given the child so much as a hint of her wrongs; but to him she seemed to have declared in the clearest language that he was her only solace and the last refuge of her violated trust.

During his approaches and retreats he had heard snatches of the conversations his presence had interrupted. He knew that his father had done something wicked while he was away from home. He was often away, covering things (it was not so very long since Laurie had first understood that his father was a newspaperman and not a kind of upholsterer). Laurie loved and admired, without respecting, his father. They were too often in trouble together, for making a mess without clearing up, or being late home from their joint expeditions. Laurie knew that his father had to obey his mother just as he had, under penalty of exile from love. Even though the exile was brief and symbolic, it was still the worst punishment he knew. Now that his father had committed some mysterious, unforgivable sin, he felt his own security still more vulnerable, and in the whole huge unknown world there was no relief for his fears, since she, the source of all safety, had appealed for protection even to him. Tonight, when she tucked him into bed, her face had looked as it had the day Grannie died; and he had listened dumb and uncaring to St. George and the Dragon, though it was his favorite tale; he knew that nothing was safe. Now, his fears confused with the stuff of bad dreams and frightening stories, he had gone so far into danger that he had forgotten how it all began.

Then suddenly rescue came, a step on the stairs. It was his father's. In the relief of hearing it, he forgot all associations except the old one of laughing reassurance. He sat up in bed, but the feet passed, and when he called it was too late; they had gone on to the door of what had in the last few days become Daddy's Room. But he knew by the sound of the door that it hadn't shut properly. Suddenly he was filled with the conviction that all his terrors, like so many before, had been evolved out of his own head and could be dispersed for him, returning him to the eternal verities of warmth and safety. For this his father was better than anyone; he took things easily, and whether he decided to answer a question or not, never rebuked one for having asked it. The landing was dark outside; it took him a few minutes to drum up his courage. Then he jumped out of bed on the side nearest the night-light: a compact, hazel-eyed little boy, with the beautiful gold-red hair that darkens at the end of childhood, and the redhead's thin skin which stays for life, bleeding too quickly and showing sooner than others the stigmata of pain and of fatigue.

The passage perilous of the landing was relieved by the crack of light from the door at the other end. Laurie padded up to it, and looked in.

His father was packing. This was no new sight to Laurie, who had often helped pack; yet he knew, at once, that it was different. Not only had his father got down the big suitcase that he used only for going abroad, not only was every drawer open and the cupboard as well, but there was something different too about the way his father stood and moved. As Laurie looked, he took a file of papers out of a drawer, flipped it through, took out a few sheets, and tore up everything else the file contained. The pieces he threw down in a corner, on the floor, and simply left them there. Laurie had never in his life seen a grown person do this. He went in.

He was halfway across the room before his father noticed. He had picked up another file, and now turned with it in his hand. His face altered. There was something startled in it, shocked and strained. This frightened Laurie. He knew he was committing an enormity by being out of bed in the middle of the night; but he knew too that the look in his father's eyes was not adjusted to his offense. It was private and personal. It recalled the unknown fears of the day.

"Hello," said his father, staring at him. "What do you want?" He spoke quite kindly; but the feeling of difference grew.

Laurie made the emergency known at once. "I can't go to sleep."

"Never mind." His father drew his thick dark brows together; his eyes glancing at his wristwatch looked narrow and blue. He said absently, "It's not eleven yet."

Laurie perceived that his father didn't think he would die. But this fear had dropped away of itself as soon as he entered the room. The fear which returned in its place had, for all its doubtful shape, a dreadful solidity.

"Daddy," he said in a tight, casual voice, "where are you going?"

"Now look," said his father quickly, "this is no time at all to be running all over the house. You'll catch cold. Straight back to bed now and not another word out of you. D'you hear?"

"Yes," said Laurie slowly. The cold was striking through his pink-striped flannel pajamas. He waited for his father to pick him up and carry him back to his own room. But his father stared at him in silence for several seconds, then said in a quick, different voice, "Away with you, now." He began to smile at Laurie, but that was worse, for the smile had something wrong with it. Suddenly his father turned away, and began throwing things into the suitcase from the bed.

At this moment the undertones, the gradual gathering of some days' uncomprehended dread, coalesced for Laurie into a terrible certainty. He didn't attempt to speak. The absolute impotence of childhood crushed him like the weight of the pyramids. His throat swelled; his face, squared like his father's under his mother's hair, grew crimson; the first silent tears burst out, followed by the first, most painful sob. The pressure rose in him, working toward the raging rebellious grief of the man-child who seeks in sound and fury for the strength of a man.

"Mother of God!" said his father. All other considerations swamped momentarily by dread of the approaching noise, he caught Laurie up into his arms, and smothered the convulsed face against his shoulder. The unfamiliar words and the rough gesture increased Laurie's panic. He tried to scream, and, when his father held him more tightly, fought him, rigid, seeking space to thrash about and open his lungs. Dimly sensing this need, his father slackened his grasp, which now felt firm and reassuring. Laurie's screams sank to sobs, to hiccups; he was quiet. Father and son gazed for a moment, with an equal anxious uncertainty, into one another's eyes. Laurie gulped softly, his throat swollen from crying; and his father's hard grip softened into tenderness. He freed one of his hands and began to ruffle Laurie's hair. "Sure," he said softly, "it's a terrible thing then, so it is."

The door opened wide. Laurie, looking over his father's shoulder, saw his mother standing on the threshold.

"Michael!" she said quietly. "Oh, how could you?"

Laurie's father said, "He woke up and came in."

There was a pause. Still held in his father's arms, Laurie looked around and saw his parents confronting one another. With a sense of profound shock, which altered the meaning of everything, he realized that his mother didn't believe his father was telling the truth.

So dreadful a misunderstanding couldn't last for more than a second. But, when he looked at his father's face, he perceived that his father was accepting it. In some larger, unknown way beyond Laurie's scope, the accusation had struck him home. He didn't argue. He just lowered Laurie gently down, and set him on his feet on the floor.

As the firm, warm, supporting strength withdrew, Laurie was seized with a panic sense of insecurity and loss. He rushed blindly forward, sobbing, into his mother's arms. Now all was familiar, immutable, sure. Cozily patted and smoothed, he pushed his wet cheek into her shoulder, and felt the final, absolute reassurance of her soft breast. Dimly he was aware of footsteps, and of a door shutting. When he looked up again his father had gone.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Vintage; Reprint edition (May 13, 2003)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 352 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0375714189
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0375714184
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 10.8 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.1 x 0.78 x 8 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #323,938 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #123 in LGBTQ+ Historical Fiction (Books)
- #1,381 in Historical British & Irish Literature
- #16,588 in Literary Fiction (Books)

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Mary Renault

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Mary Renault (1905-1983) was best known for her historical novels set in Ancient Greece with their vivid fictional portrayals of Theseus, Socrates, Plato and Alexander the Great.

Born in London in 1905 and educated at the University of Oxford, she trained as a nurse at Oxford's Radcliffe Infirmary where she met her lifelong partner, fellow nurse Julie Mullard. After completing her training she wrote her first novel, Purposes of Love, in 1937. In 1948, after her novel North Face won a MGM prize worth $150,000, she and Mullard emigrated to South Africa.

It was in South Africa that Renault was able to write forthrightly about homosexual relationships for the first time - in her last contemporary novel, The Charioteer , published in 1953, and then in her first historical novel, 1956's The Last of the Wine, the story of two young Athenians who study under Socrates and fight against Sparta. Both these books had male protagonists, as did all her later works that included homosexual themes. Her sympathetic treatment of love between men would win Renault a wide gay readership.

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rusticmus

Epiphany, anyone?

Reviewed in the United States on January 25, 2013

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A small grey mouse slips from beneath the door sill, pauses a moment to fan silvery whiskers and smooth down velvet grey fur, then whispers:

First one must thank the good folk at Amazon Shipping for their efforts. They said the book would get here on January 26th and it arrived on the 22nd. One is unable to express how much delight this actuated. So far, this one has re-read it three times since its arrival and plans to spend the weekend on a fourth and fifth visit into Ms. Renault's world.

Now, who does not love to come home to old friends, knowing they will be more then welcome, and anticipating only the most wonderful reunion?

One first read this book over thirty years ago, and is utterly enthralled to find thirty-odd reviews online concerning it. The horrible house ate one's copy about twelve years past and one has been hunting for a copy ever since, because one re-read it once a year up until the time the house held it hostage.

At fifteen, this book was an epiphany, not merely for writing style to an aspiring author, but also for it's subtle and well crafted characterizations.

Please meet Laurence Odell, child of divorce raised solely by his mother. After the age of five he never sees his father again. One follows Laurence - Laurie -through the most formative years of his life until the story settles. One sees his mother push out his father for allegedly cheating on her. One sees him in what we would call High School. He has developed a strong attachment to an older authority figure, R.R. Lanyon. More than a crush, less than a declared intent, Laurie is appalled and enraged when a friend announces that Lanyon is to be "sent up" (expelled) for immoral activities. Only Lanyon's admission that he is not innocent of the accusations pressed against him stops Laurie from Outing himself - completely unaware and unrealistic of the actual repercussions.

Now it is 1940. One finds oneself observing am E.M.S. hospital in the countryside of nearby Bridstow. Laurence has had his kneecap shot off at Dunkirk and must be ignominiously rescued, as all the army was ignominiously rescued, by the navy. He has endured two surgeries to correct the big-gun wound and cannot walk without a crutch or cane. Laurie is a corporal, and comfortable with the other wounded vets who surround him. 'They are a touchy society' to quote the book, ' but they know it'. Enter into this makeshift hospital a batch of c.o.'s, Conscientious Objectors, to replace the orderly and maid staff who left after finding their placement too isolated. Now Laurie meets Andrew Raynes, a seventeen year old Quaker who has opted not to fight. A chaste romance blossoms on Laurie's side, and something seems to be blossoming in Andrew, but Laurie, remembering the lessons taught to him by Lanyon during their last interview seven years ago, cannot tell Andrew what he is and what he feels, because he does not wish to interfere with, or ruin Andrew's self perception.

As this gentle romance meanders along, Laurie runs across a gay intern he played with long-distance, on an impulse. Sandy Reid invites Laurie back to a birthday party for his partner, one later meets Alec Deacon who is also an intern at the hospital. Laurie refuses twice, he has had a bad time at Oxford with a gay man he met, started to get to know, and rejected, but then Sandy Reid mentions Ralph Lanyon and Laurie is hooked. He ventures into the closed society of the homosexual men of the time...a time when blackmail is almost legal against gay men, a time when the laws are not on their side to say the least, a time when a gay bashing might be overlooked as the thing to do.

At the party, Laurie is appalled to hear, and see, the flouncing, frisking gossips and nattering, jewelry sporting men who seem to have no sense of themselves beyond their sexuality and its confinements. He rejected this society at Oxford. He rejects it now. He almost leaves before Lanyon arrives. Lanyon does arrive but not before Alec informs Laurie that it was Lanyon's ship that picked him off the beach at Dunkirk, ostensibly saving his life, and Lanyon wrote to him after being wounded in the sinking of that ship a little later. Lanyon wrote, but the letter came back that Laurie had died of his wounds. Laurie is astounded, and somewhat flattered, to realize that he had Lanyon's attention even when he stank of decomposition and looked like all Hell.

When Lanyon enters, an unquiet scene plays out that results in a particularly unpleasant event. Laurie and Ralph Lanyon are thrown together for the best part of the night, and they exchange any number of confidences as they begin to get to know one another as adults. It's too good to throw out spoilers, read it. The Romance has been thriving, unfed, in both of them for almost a decade. The pleasure of this book is watching them feel their way towards one another, with caution at first, then with determination unabridged on Ralph's part. The ending stops one's breath in one's throat. One likes these young men, and wishes them well, and is very much afraid how their conflicts with devolve: With or without resolution.

Put aside certain details. This is a Romance in the old fashioned meaning of the word. A sweeping emotional Odyssey that covers the first half of two people's lives. Never mind they are gay men. Never mind the back drop of Bridstow, or the E.M.S. Hospital. Here we see humans striving to be worthy to both give and receive love despite all obstacles and social conventions. We want them to be worthy, and we strive right along beside them. I have left out a great many details because there are thirty-odd reviews before this one, and because one has only so much time. And because you should indulge yourself in this book, if you're reading this review then obviously you are interested. It will satisfy, as all Ms. Renault's works do. It is understated, skillfully woven, and always topical.

Left, right, or center, it is always important that one make out as a human being.

Someone in the reviews wants this to be a movie - I say mini-series on HBO or Showtime, but since so much of the book is internal and emotional, I worry it won't really make a good video presentation. I'd by a ticket, or rent it on line. How about a C.G. Peter O'Toole, back when he was young and spare and sharp as a knife?

(Madly anthropomorphizing:) Smoothing back silver whiskers, the grey velvet mouse surveys the scene. Nodding once, it slips quickly back through the door sill and is gone.

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Angell

He also meets a classmate of his from school who is also gay and Laurie (short for Lawrence) Odell is torn between his love for

Reviewed in the United States on November 1, 2014

Verified Purchase

This was an (for me) and unforgettable story, and I am 80 years old and have trouble remembering my own name sometimes. It is about some veterans of the beginning of WW2 who survived the evacuation of British and allied soldiers from Dunkirk, France. The main action takes place in a hospital in Britain where some of the wounded military men were be ing treated after they made it safely back to Britain. It is a "gay" story and involves one soldier in particular who is beginning to realize his gayness and is attracted to a young Quaker conscious objector serving as an orderly in the hospital. He also meets a classmate of his from school who is also gay and Laurie (short for Lawrence) Odell is torn between his love for the Quaker (who can't return his love for religious reasons) and his former classmate who is quite experienced in gay life and is perhaps a bit to calloused and perhaps too jaded for Laurie.

It is a touching story, and Mary Renault's command of the English language is out of the ordinary. She is a very fine writer and I look forward to reading some of her other books. Even though this was written in the late 1950's, it is well worth reading today and does not seem out of date. It was one of the first openly gay themed books to be published in this country along with Gore Vidal"s "The City and the Pillar."

The story has other characters, of course, and Laurie (short for Laurence_

13 people found this helpful

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lawless523

Actual Rating: 4.25

Reviewed in the United States on June 8, 2014

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Deservedly a classic of gay literature (and literature in general). Despite the title, it's not about ancient Greece or Rome, although Plato's Phaedrus is a major influence. Rather, it's set in England during the early days of WWII, after the retreat at Dunkirk, when Laurie (short for Laurence), a soldier injured in the war, and Ralph, an older schoolmate who'd gone into the merchant marine after expulsion for homosexual activity and who is unable to resume his post as ship captain due to an injury of his own, meet again.

Laurie's feelings are divided because of his friendship with Andrew, a conscientious objector assigned to work as an orderly, who is unaware that Laurie harbors romantic and sexual feelings toward him. He spend the book vacillating between his close friendship with Andrew, in which the main conflict is their attitude toward the war and what's right and wrong in a more general sense, and his more tempestuous relationship with Ralph, who accepts his homosexuality and is sexually active. In some ways, Laurie's relationship with Andrew echoes his earlier relationship with Ralph at school. Some of the things Ralph says to Laurie in an effort to convince him to choose him are an eloquent testimony to the desire for tolerance and an equal footing with non-homosexuals. Eventually, Laurie makes a definitive choice, which makes this a gay romance (or an early precursor to m/m), but the book is as much about the war as it is about gayness and is as much about life choices and philosophies as gay life in the 1940s.

While the writing is generally excellent, the book is not perfect. While in some places the book is bold for the time of publication (1959), in others the language is abstract, opaque, and coded, so it's not a quick read, and sometimes I wasn't sure I had interpreted the words the way Ms. Renault intended. The picture painted of Laurie's mother is not pretty, and Ms. Renault seems to subscribe to the theory current at the time that homosexuality resulted from an absent or remote father and a domineering mother. There are other instances of fleeting misogyny as well. It also idealizes ancient Greece to an alarming extent; Plato's Phaedrus is not only discussed but used as a subtle means of seduction, and the text accepts the supposedly chaste and platonic nature of the practice of pederasty -- romantic friendships formed between young men prior to marriage and beautiful teenage boys, in which the older partner serves as a mentor and guide. It's true that this is Laurie (and Ralph's) concept of the practice, but it's highly idealized. Whatever was known in Renault's time, it's now evident (from pottery, among other things) that such relationships weren't as chaste, platonic, and philosophical as Plato depicts.

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Phil-Don

Un roman sobre et agréable

Reviewed in France on December 24, 2019

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Laurie, jeune soldat britannique gravement blessé à la jambe et rapatrié dans un hôpital militaire, s'éprend d'un jeune objecteur de conscience y servant d'homme à tout faire. Une amitié ambigüe nait entre les deux jeunes hommes. A la même époque, Laurie renoue avec Ralph, un ami d'université perdu de vue, capitaine dans la Marine et homosexuel assumé dans son cercle d'amis.

Mary Renault nous offre un roman sobre, parfois touchant, qui, au-delà de l'intrigue, peut se lire comme une réflexion sur l'homosexualité et les différenets façons dont elle peut être vécue (à replacer dans le contexte de l'époque - la 2nde Guerre Mondiale). Un roman agréable.

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crmh99

How can I even describe how much I loved this book

Reviewed in Canada on February 7, 2018

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How can I even describe how much I loved this book? A beautifully written classic that I've already reread once since purchasing! This is a sweet love story about a young man coming to terms with his sexuality and his personal identity during the turmoil of the second world war. Would 100% recommend

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Ian Mackay

This is a most rewarding book, in fact, a truly great novel!!

Reviewed in Australia on July 12, 2017

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This a wonderful book!! BUT be careful not to short-change it!!
First of all, it is a ground breaker - it took on a subject that was very much taboo at the time, and which nowadays is pretty tightly controlled by the Political Correctness watch dogs. It was and is a courageous book. And then, it is deeply honest. Renault was very critical of much of the sentimental shallowness that bedevilled the Gay Rights movement and does so even more now. This is not just a gay-straight issue, it is a problem that automatically troubles ghetto-ised groups, whether religious, gender-based, racial, patriotic, political or whatever! - special allowances are asked for, then demanded, and then taken for granted, and anyone who offends is put down as an enemy - A PHOBE of one kind or another.
Renault shows the dark side of the "gay scene" up relentlessly, while at the same time having a deep sympathy for same sex attraction and writing positively about it. She insists, in many of her books, on the nobility and beauty of passionate friendship, and delights in showing how it is essentially a call to excellence, and never, never an excuse for mediocrity. This novel deals with the challenge pretty comprehensively. So, bear with her - she is well worth it.
There are three protagonists in the novel: Ralph is a modern pagan (heroic, upright and courageous), Andrew is a Quaker, and the third, Laurie, is busy finding himself. So two are set, and one is relentlessly pulled between them. Of the three, all of them attractive, Andrew (the youngest of the three) is by far the most attractive. He is sensitive, passionate, vulnerable, but strong with a strength that comes from his faith. He says to Laurie,"If I say I had feelings about you it would have been wrong to act on, you know enough to see what I mean." Ralph, the pagan, sees himself as a realist and takes his pleasures where he finds them, so long as it doesn't involve dishonesty, meanness, cruelty or any of the other purely human virtues.
This novel holds one's attention very firmly throughout, and becomes very tense and exciting towards the end. One can't help remembering the spirit of excellence, both male and female in the Greek historical novels which were to follow hot on the heels of this one - in fact it seems to call for them, and maybe actually led Renault into writing them. Ralph, consciously modelling himself on the Greek ideal says to Laurie, "A lot of bull is talked about Greece by people who'd just have been a dirty laugh there." The challenging call to a heroic celibate love that will be issued by Socrates to Alexias and Lyses in "The Last of the Wine" could well be Renault's answer to the dilemma Laurie faces in "The Charioteer". That both Alexias and Lyses failed to measure up to it, in spite of heroic efforts, is a problem that can only be resolved by Andrew's courageous faith. As Dave (Andrew's 'uncle') tells Laurie in regard to "The Phaedrus" which Laurie wants him to pass on to Andrew, "Even the most exalted paganism is paganism none the less.
A final note: this book gives us an excellent introduction to Plato's Phaedrus!!!

Gerbrand

Mut zu sich selber haben und ein ganzer Mensch werden

Reviewed in Germany on March 22, 2012

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Als Laurie "Spud" Odell während des zweiten Weltkriegs in Dünkirchen verletzt wird und in ein Veteranenhospital kommt, erhält er unfreiwillig viel Zeit, sein Leben zu reflektieren. Er befindet sich an der Schwelle des Erwachsenwerdens, des Sich-Ausformens, dem Augenblick, wo man wirkliche Liebe sucht, um eine dauerhafte Beziehung einzugehen. Für Laurie stellt sich die zusätzliche, nicht geringe Aufgabe, sich mit seiner Homosexualität auseinanderzusetzen, sich mit ihr zu befreunden, ihr Form und einen Platz im Leben zu geben. Laurie spielt im Geiste Wünsche und Möglichkeiten durch. Was ihn dabei so ungeheuer sympathisch macht, ist die Ernsthaftigkeit und Aufrichtigkeit mit der er darum ringt, integer zu bleiben, den jeweils anderen zu respektieren und ihm seine Würde zu lassen.

Im Krankenhaus verliebt er sich in den jüngeren Andrew, einen Quäker, der dort als Pfleger arbeitet. Die Annäherung der beiden ist sehr zart und vorsichtig, denn Laurie erkennt schnell, dass Andrew noch sehr unschuldig und vertrauensvoll ist und sich über die Art seiner Zuneigung zu Laurie keine Rechenschaft ablegt.

Zur gleichen Zeit trifft Spud Ralph Lanyon wieder, den Helden seiner Schulzeit. Ralph hat den Prozess, in dem Spud gerade steckt, schon hinter sich. Er musste die Schule vorzeitig wegen eines 'Skandals' verlassen, ist danach zur See gefahren. Er hat das Leben ausgekostet, viele Erfahrungen gemacht, ist teilweise desillusioniert, zeigt die Dinge klar und schonungslos auf, ist aber nicht zynisch und abgebrüht. Seine Seele ist heil geblieben.
Auch er ist an dem Punkt - wie weiter? Als er Laurie wiedertrifft, findet er Klarheit. Er wird nicht mehr in verschiedene Richtungen gezogen. Diese zweite Chance bündelt alle Erfahrungen, Weisheit, Kraft und Gefühle in ihm, und er kämpft in unnachahmlicher Weise um seine Liebe.
Mary Renault hat in Ralph einen starken, vorbildhaften Charakter geschaffen, der einen fasziniert und fesselt. So geht es auch Laurie, der lange braucht, um aus seinem Dilemma herauszufinden und nicht merkt, wie sich noch andere Kräfte einmischen, bis sich alles dramatisch zuspitzt.

Das Buch ist nicht ganz leicht zu lesen, es gibt viele Andeutungen, abgebrochene Sätze, man wird aufgefordert, zwischen den Zeilen zu lesen. Manchmal war ich nicht sicher, ob ich alles richtig verstehe, erst recht nicht, ob ich es durchdringe, ergründe. Aber es ist die Mühe ganz sicher wert. Etwas getröstet hat mich beim nachträglichen Lesen von Rezensionen, dass es Muttersprachlern nicht viel anders geht.
Ich finde es unbegreiflich, dass dieses wunderbare Buch nicht ins Deutsche übersetzt wurde.

Als sehr wohltuend empfinde ich es, dass es keine expliziten Sexszenen gibt. Die Art, wie Mary Renault die unterschwellige Spannung und Sehnsucht beschreibt, spricht mich wesentlich mehr an und lässt Raum für das eigene Vorstellungsvermögen. Trotzdem ist das Buch aus 1959 weit davon entfernt, angestaubt, brav oder gar prüde zu sein. Ich finde es eigentlich zeitlos und universell, da es um grundsätzliche Lebensfragen geht, denen sich jeder stellen muss.

Ich bin auf dieses Buch gestoßen, als ich Amazon-Rezensionen von Büchern des Autors William Maxwell las und jemand "The Charioteer" empfahl. Das möchte ich jetzt umgekehrt tun: wenn man "The Charioteer" mag, könnte einem auch "Zeit der Nähe" oder auch "Also dann bis morgen“ von William Maxwell gefallen.

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VCBF (Val)

Honour and Brotherhood

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 9, 2010

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Comparing the secretive comradeship of homosexuals to the brotherhood in arms of servicemen in the Second World War was a very daring thing to do in the 1950s, but Mary Renault does it in this book. All three main characters and some of the secondary ones (Reg, Dave and Alec) have a strong code of honour and a sense of comradeship which leads them to a desire to protect their fellows. Not everyone can live up to the ideals of their respective codes: the public schoolboy who 'rats' on his head of school, the soldier who kills his instructor and blows off his own hand in grenade training, the unfaithful wife of a war-wounded soldier, the superficial gay party-goers, the vicar lacking in empathy or charity. A few characters seem to have no code of honour or comradeship whatsoever, but they seem to show its existence even more strongly by their deviance from it. (Interestingly there are no cowardly conscientious objectors, it is taken as read that all were acting on a moral imperative, war and pacifism were not the targets here.)

I borrowed Mary Renault's historical novels from the school library and enjoyed them very much. This one, possibly her greatest work, was not in the collection. I wish it had been, this is a masterpiece novel which must have been mind-changing for those who read it on first release. Did this novel help bring about the legalisation of male homosexuality? It would have done if enough people read it.

There are no descriptions of sex in this novel. The reader knows when it happens, the omittance is not prudish. The only other concession to the public morality of the time is that characters are given childhood traumas as 'reasons' for their homosexuality. Mary Renault had studied Ancient Greece and knew the real world as well, she knew some people are just born 'that way', but this novel HAD to be published.

It would help if the reader had a passing aquaintance with the works of Plato to understand the significance of that particular book and the various quotes, but it is not essential. The story of the charioteer soul is explained very well for the uninitiated. If any reader of "The Lord of the Flies" finds the choice of the name Ralph significant, it might also add to the understanding of this multi-layered magnificent novel.

Wow! This book almost makes me want to remove a star from every other review I have written.

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