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The Charioteer
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.
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.
347 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1953
452 people are currently reading
17.6k people want to read
About the author
Mary Renault
28 books1,585 followersMary 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 The Charioteer could not be published in the U.S. until 1959, after the success of The Last of the Wine proved that American readers and critics would accept a serious gay love story.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 715 reviews
November 27, 2009
My least favorite thing about this book reporting business is choosing the star rating. I seriously get ulcers trying to quantify my personal, subjective response to each book I've read. Was it just "okay"? Did I "like it" or "really like it"? Part of my problem is that I've resolved from the beginning to be incredibly stingy with my five-star ratings. I've only given five stars to books that I feel have affected my sense of self and relation to the world on some profound and fundamental level, which has created the problem that my four-star category now is the broadest and least meaningful. My rule in distinguishing between a three-star and four-star book is how urgently I feel the need to return to reading it while I am not. Anything I actively crave earns the fourth star: four-star books make me look forward to subway rides, cause me to resent social obligations.... But The Charioteer made me rethink my commitment to the four star system. This was a book that I flung down at midnight on a Tuesday, beating my breast, cursing my fate, and crying out to the gods, "Why must I work?" because it broke my heart that I couldn't stay up all night long finishing it. I did debate postponing Thanksgiving, and there were times while reading that I actually had to stop, put the book down in my lap, and just freak out for a minute about how good it was. This was a book I found myself reading while walking down a crowded street at midday in Chinatown, a childhood behavior to which I rarely revert... Anyway, all of this did, for me, emphasize the limitations of the four-star rating. Shouldn't I just give books five stars if I think they're "amazing"? I guess I will try it, and see how I feel.
This book was amazing! Remember how great and romantic Farewell to Arms was, except that the female character was sort of a misogynistically drawn 2D fuckdoll, and the protagonist was a bit of an inarticulate, hypermasculine alcoholic brute? Well, imagine that book only British, not American, with a sensitive refined young wounded soldier and adorable cute boy orderlies instead of Hemingway's somewhat ridiculous female characters... Okay, this really wasn't anything like Farewell to Arms, and the comparison doesn't do justice to either book. They just both had romances in hospitals between wounded soldiers and hospital staff: I guess it's a genre, and not just those two... it's very romantic, all this wounding and nursing! Well, it is in the books. I don't know about real life.
The Charioteer was like some kind of dream birthday dinner of all my favorite foods. Instead of stuffed tomatoes and coffee ice cream, it had England during World War II, gay romance, and some of the most stunningly skillful writing I think I've ever read. I can't remember many books that more successfully conveyed private emotional states, a description of the physical world, complex and convincingly human characters and their interactions, and all the rest of that stuff that contributes to making up a really class-A, five-star novel. While reading this, I remembered that novels are an art form. As I personally read just for pleasure and judge books exclusively on their merits as entertainment, when I'm forced to confront this artwork thing it feels like a revelation. The Charioteer accomplishes so much of what it is I believe successful literature should do: that is, it conveys the fine and subtle specificity of a certain time, place, and character, while tying this individual story to the broad human experience. Anyone who can hang her novel on some Plato, as Renault does, and make it work so beautifully that a girl like me actually spends time poking at the Phaedrus online, deserves some sort of prize -- perhaps an extra star!
I couldn't stop wondering, as I read this, why I tend so often to love novels about mid-twentieth-century gay men so much. I think I must enjoy the inherent romance and painfully secret subtlety surrounding homosexual relationships in the pre-Stonewall era: there are few things as romantic as a forbidden, secret love that persists amidst strong social prohibitions, plus these books often avoid the tired cliches of heterosexual romances, and therefore seem more fresh. I also really enjoy the unsaid, unspelled-out nature of these relationships. There were so many conversations in this book that I had to read a few times before I caught the meaning implicit between the lines. A lot of that is probably its being British, on top of being gay, but the kind of careful and cryptic, thickly-coded social interaction which is what makes earlier, nineteenth-century novels about upper-crusty types so fascinating, survives longer in gay fiction. I love reading this stuff. It's like doing a crossword puzzle, trying to figure out what it means, only a crossword puzzle with a payoff beyond just the process.
I think another reason I like reading older books about gay men is that I'm so exhausted by depictions of women as objects of desire and of female sexuality, that it's a huge relief to get the romance without having to think about that stuff. There's something so relaxing about it, to me, dodging all those feminist issues, yet still getting the kind of novel I want. There are actually quite a few well-drawn female characters in The Charioteer, and this was one area where it seemed unsurprising that the author was a woman. I am really interested now in Mary Renault. I want to read everything else she wrote, and though I'm not sure how I feel about historical fiction set in Ancient Greece, if it's anything like this, I am sure I will love it.
I really can't say I'd recommend this unreservedly to everyone, though if you're interested in historical fiction about gays in the military, it's hard to imagine that you could do better. I also recommend this to people who love the Novel, especially the life-during-wartime British Novel, which I have to say, I should think would be a lot of you.
This book was amazing! Remember how great and romantic Farewell to Arms was, except that the female character was sort of a misogynistically drawn 2D fuckdoll, and the protagonist was a bit of an inarticulate, hypermasculine alcoholic brute? Well, imagine that book only British, not American, with a sensitive refined young wounded soldier and adorable cute boy orderlies instead of Hemingway's somewhat ridiculous female characters... Okay, this really wasn't anything like Farewell to Arms, and the comparison doesn't do justice to either book. They just both had romances in hospitals between wounded soldiers and hospital staff: I guess it's a genre, and not just those two... it's very romantic, all this wounding and nursing! Well, it is in the books. I don't know about real life.
The Charioteer was like some kind of dream birthday dinner of all my favorite foods. Instead of stuffed tomatoes and coffee ice cream, it had England during World War II, gay romance, and some of the most stunningly skillful writing I think I've ever read. I can't remember many books that more successfully conveyed private emotional states, a description of the physical world, complex and convincingly human characters and their interactions, and all the rest of that stuff that contributes to making up a really class-A, five-star novel. While reading this, I remembered that novels are an art form. As I personally read just for pleasure and judge books exclusively on their merits as entertainment, when I'm forced to confront this artwork thing it feels like a revelation. The Charioteer accomplishes so much of what it is I believe successful literature should do: that is, it conveys the fine and subtle specificity of a certain time, place, and character, while tying this individual story to the broad human experience. Anyone who can hang her novel on some Plato, as Renault does, and make it work so beautifully that a girl like me actually spends time poking at the Phaedrus online, deserves some sort of prize -- perhaps an extra star!
I couldn't stop wondering, as I read this, why I tend so often to love novels about mid-twentieth-century gay men so much. I think I must enjoy the inherent romance and painfully secret subtlety surrounding homosexual relationships in the pre-Stonewall era: there are few things as romantic as a forbidden, secret love that persists amidst strong social prohibitions, plus these books often avoid the tired cliches of heterosexual romances, and therefore seem more fresh. I also really enjoy the unsaid, unspelled-out nature of these relationships. There were so many conversations in this book that I had to read a few times before I caught the meaning implicit between the lines. A lot of that is probably its being British, on top of being gay, but the kind of careful and cryptic, thickly-coded social interaction which is what makes earlier, nineteenth-century novels about upper-crusty types so fascinating, survives longer in gay fiction. I love reading this stuff. It's like doing a crossword puzzle, trying to figure out what it means, only a crossword puzzle with a payoff beyond just the process.
I think another reason I like reading older books about gay men is that I'm so exhausted by depictions of women as objects of desire and of female sexuality, that it's a huge relief to get the romance without having to think about that stuff. There's something so relaxing about it, to me, dodging all those feminist issues, yet still getting the kind of novel I want. There are actually quite a few well-drawn female characters in The Charioteer, and this was one area where it seemed unsurprising that the author was a woman. I am really interested now in Mary Renault. I want to read everything else she wrote, and though I'm not sure how I feel about historical fiction set in Ancient Greece, if it's anything like this, I am sure I will love it.
I really can't say I'd recommend this unreservedly to everyone, though if you're interested in historical fiction about gays in the military, it's hard to imagine that you could do better. I also recommend this to people who love the Novel, especially the life-during-wartime British Novel, which I have to say, I should think would be a lot of you.
January 30, 2008
Probably the single most influential book I ever read. Beautifully written, evocative, haunting, powerful.
August 27, 2021
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This is the fifth time I’ve read The Charioteer and once again I’ve been swept away by it. The Charioteer is quite likely my favourite novel of all time as there are few books that I care as much about.
There is something comforting about The Charioteer, which is strange given that Mary Renault’s impenetrable prose demands her readers’ full attention. There are the coded conversations, thoughts and feelings are often only obliquely hinted at, the pages are full of 40s slang, and there are constant allusions to the ancient classics. Yet, her writing also has a languid quality, perhaps reflective of her protagonist’s convalescence, which I found truly enthralling.
In an almost Bildungsroman fashion The Charioteer introduces us to Laurie as a child. This first chapter recounts a significant moment of his childhood and is followed by a chapter of him at school where he has a memorable encounter with the Head of the School, Ralph Lanyon. The subsequent chapters follow Laurie as he’s recovering from a war injury at a hospital. Here he meets and falls for Andrew, a conscientious objector who is now working as an orderly.
While Laurie is aware of his sexuality, and believes that Andrew reciprocates his feelings, he’s unwilling to reveal to Andrew the true depth of his emotions. By chance Laurie ends up re-connecting with Ralph. As the title of the novel suggests, Laurie’s story can be likened to the myth of the charioteer from Phaedrus.
Now, I know that my summary doesn’t do this novel justice. I don’t wish to reveal too much about the story or its characters. Still, I can say that The Charioteer presents us with a beautiful narrative, one that captures a particular moment in time. The characters’ days are punctuated by Imminent Danger sirens, air raids, shortages. Laurie, alongside other patients, has to obey the hospital’s strict rules. Under Renault’s hand, the war seems almost ‘normal’, and characters will often discuss it as they would any other topic.
Renault’s portrayal of the gay community feels both intimate and compelling. While Laurie himself feels uneasy towards those he deems as ‘flamboyant’ or ‘effeminate’, the narrative doesn’t share his prejudices. Renault’s characters often engage themselves in conversations relating to their role in society, often professing contrasting beliefs. The views they express may ruffle some readers, as they often speak about their sexuality as a limitation or they seem dismissive towards other gay men (partly because both Laurie and Ralph are private individuals and do not wish to be a source of gossip). Their discussion on ethics and morality were riveting, and I soon lost myself in the rhythm of their back and forth.
The novel is as interested in what the characters say as it is with what they don’t say, whether this is due to self-censoring or self-denial. Although Laurie is the story’s protagonist, much of what he feels remains off page. Renault will often only allude to Laurie’s most innermost feelings. Because of this Laurie, and other characters, often seem like unsolvable puzzles. This is quite fitting given that self-knowledge and self-deception are central themes within this narrative.
Laurie’s story is also one that is concerned with connection. Although he becomes fast friends with another patient, he fears being ‘known’. Yet, in spite of this sense of loneliness, he is reticent about ‘embracing’ his community (“He kept telling me I was queer, and I’d never heard it called that before and didn’t like it. The word, I mean. Shutting you away, somehow; roping you off with a lot of people you don’t feel much in common with […]”).
Miscommunications abound in this novel. At times the characters make tentative attempts to form more meaningful relationships but they often betray themselves by not saying what they want to say or by saying the wrong things.
Renault captures with poignancy sadness, anxiety, self-divide, awkwardness, tenderness, longing, ambiguity, confusion, honour, passion, and hope. Her characters reveal her piercing understanding of human nature. Through her expressive and elegant writing Renault demonstrates her inside knowledge of the society she depicted (Renault was both a lesbian and a nurse, which is possibly why she can so conjure up both queer parties and the daily routines of a hospital).
I love everything about this novel. Laurie's quest for identity, the struggle between his desires and his ideals, is as moving as it is thought-provoking.
A truly complex and multi-layered masterpiece that is both heart-rending and intelligent.
Impenetrable, subtle, beautiful, touching. I can't recommend this novel strongly enough.
If you are a fan of gay classics (such as Maurice, Carol, Giovanni's Room, and the underrated Olivia ), you should definitely give Renault a try. I don't think I will ever get tired of re-reading this novel. Each time my understanding for the characters, their inner-struggles and relationships, deepens (although i own a copy of this, this time around i read a kindle copy from overdrive...and i ended up making nearly 500 highlights....which, yeah, that's how much i love this story).
ps: if you have anything negative so say about Ralph, I will fight you
(i'm only half-jesting)
Read more reviews on my blog / / / View all my reviews on Goodreads
“He was filled with a vast sense of the momentous, of unknown mysteries. He did not know what he should demand of himself, nor did it seem to matter, for he had not chosen this music he moved to, it had chosen him.”
This is the fifth time I’ve read The Charioteer and once again I’ve been swept away by it. The Charioteer is quite likely my favourite novel of all time as there are few books that I care as much about.
There is something comforting about The Charioteer, which is strange given that Mary Renault’s impenetrable prose demands her readers’ full attention. There are the coded conversations, thoughts and feelings are often only obliquely hinted at, the pages are full of 40s slang, and there are constant allusions to the ancient classics. Yet, her writing also has a languid quality, perhaps reflective of her protagonist’s convalescence, which I found truly enthralling.
In an almost Bildungsroman fashion The Charioteer introduces us to Laurie as a child. This first chapter recounts a significant moment of his childhood and is followed by a chapter of him at school where he has a memorable encounter with the Head of the School, Ralph Lanyon. The subsequent chapters follow Laurie as he’s recovering from a war injury at a hospital. Here he meets and falls for Andrew, a conscientious objector who is now working as an orderly.
While Laurie is aware of his sexuality, and believes that Andrew reciprocates his feelings, he’s unwilling to reveal to Andrew the true depth of his emotions. By chance Laurie ends up re-connecting with Ralph. As the title of the novel suggests, Laurie’s story can be likened to the myth of the charioteer from Phaedrus.
Now, I know that my summary doesn’t do this novel justice. I don’t wish to reveal too much about the story or its characters. Still, I can say that The Charioteer presents us with a beautiful narrative, one that captures a particular moment in time. The characters’ days are punctuated by Imminent Danger sirens, air raids, shortages. Laurie, alongside other patients, has to obey the hospital’s strict rules. Under Renault’s hand, the war seems almost ‘normal’, and characters will often discuss it as they would any other topic.
Renault’s portrayal of the gay community feels both intimate and compelling. While Laurie himself feels uneasy towards those he deems as ‘flamboyant’ or ‘effeminate’, the narrative doesn’t share his prejudices. Renault’s characters often engage themselves in conversations relating to their role in society, often professing contrasting beliefs. The views they express may ruffle some readers, as they often speak about their sexuality as a limitation or they seem dismissive towards other gay men (partly because both Laurie and Ralph are private individuals and do not wish to be a source of gossip). Their discussion on ethics and morality were riveting, and I soon lost myself in the rhythm of their back and forth.
The novel is as interested in what the characters say as it is with what they don’t say, whether this is due to self-censoring or self-denial. Although Laurie is the story’s protagonist, much of what he feels remains off page. Renault will often only allude to Laurie’s most innermost feelings. Because of this Laurie, and other characters, often seem like unsolvable puzzles. This is quite fitting given that self-knowledge and self-deception are central themes within this narrative.
Laurie’s story is also one that is concerned with connection. Although he becomes fast friends with another patient, he fears being ‘known’. Yet, in spite of this sense of loneliness, he is reticent about ‘embracing’ his community (“He kept telling me I was queer, and I’d never heard it called that before and didn’t like it. The word, I mean. Shutting you away, somehow; roping you off with a lot of people you don’t feel much in common with […]”).
Miscommunications abound in this novel. At times the characters make tentative attempts to form more meaningful relationships but they often betray themselves by not saying what they want to say or by saying the wrong things.
Renault captures with poignancy sadness, anxiety, self-divide, awkwardness, tenderness, longing, ambiguity, confusion, honour, passion, and hope. Her characters reveal her piercing understanding of human nature. Through her expressive and elegant writing Renault demonstrates her inside knowledge of the society she depicted (Renault was both a lesbian and a nurse, which is possibly why she can so conjure up both queer parties and the daily routines of a hospital).
I love everything about this novel. Laurie's quest for identity, the struggle between his desires and his ideals, is as moving as it is thought-provoking.
A truly complex and multi-layered masterpiece that is both heart-rending and intelligent.
Impenetrable, subtle, beautiful, touching. I can't recommend this novel strongly enough.
If you are a fan of gay classics (such as Maurice, Carol, Giovanni's Room, and the underrated Olivia ), you should definitely give Renault a try. I don't think I will ever get tired of re-reading this novel. Each time my understanding for the characters, their inner-struggles and relationships, deepens (although i own a copy of this, this time around i read a kindle copy from overdrive...and i ended up making nearly 500 highlights....which, yeah, that's how much i love this story).
ps: if you have anything negative so say about Ralph, I will fight you
(i'm only half-jesting)
Read more reviews on my blog / / / View all my reviews on Goodreads
February 7, 2025
actual rating: 3.5 stars
November 8, 2015
significantly excellent.
in some passages so stunningly real and identifiable i found myself experiencing things that had happened to me in nearly the same way, as if for the first time.
i feel like i already knew everyone i met in this book.
definitive. absolutely definitive.
discussion with author alexis hall: http://www.prismbookalliance.com/2014...
in some passages so stunningly real and identifiable i found myself experiencing things that had happened to me in nearly the same way, as if for the first time.
i feel like i already knew everyone i met in this book.
definitive. absolutely definitive.
discussion with author alexis hall: http://www.prismbookalliance.com/2014...
July 16, 2014
Shame on me! When I first heard of Mary Renault and her gay novels, I immediately assumed that because they were written in the 1950’s and by a woman that they were bound to be bad. Shame, shame, shame!
I stand duly chastised. And somewhat in awe of Mary Renault. She really gets the whole living in fear and shame thing, the way it distorts your life, causes you to doubt yourself, the overly sensitive panic that “They” somehow know. She never comes out to hit us on the head with this. She just describes Laurie’s emotions and thoughts, often indirectly. She’s discreet and restrained, and it’s a stellar example of how less can be more.
There were some parts that gave me pause. In one scene, Laurie says to an exhausted friend, “You’ll be all right because you’re more a doctor than you are a queer.” One reading would see it as encapsulating all that 50’s homosexual self-loathing that we are so familiar with. On another reading--the one I prefer--it's a statement that gay men and women are not just their sexuality, in the same way that straight men and women are not just their sexuality. The trouble comes when it’s all that you define about yourself when we are all so much more than that. And I would like to believe that that is what she meant, because in so many other ways, she really nailed it.
I stand duly chastised. And somewhat in awe of Mary Renault. She really gets the whole living in fear and shame thing, the way it distorts your life, causes you to doubt yourself, the overly sensitive panic that “They” somehow know. She never comes out to hit us on the head with this. She just describes Laurie’s emotions and thoughts, often indirectly. She’s discreet and restrained, and it’s a stellar example of how less can be more.
There were some parts that gave me pause. In one scene, Laurie says to an exhausted friend, “You’ll be all right because you’re more a doctor than you are a queer.” One reading would see it as encapsulating all that 50’s homosexual self-loathing that we are so familiar with. On another reading--the one I prefer--it's a statement that gay men and women are not just their sexuality, in the same way that straight men and women are not just their sexuality. The trouble comes when it’s all that you define about yourself when we are all so much more than that. And I would like to believe that that is what she meant, because in so many other ways, she really nailed it.
July 13, 2023
You may think I have been rather quick to decide I am in love. But he is clear kind of person, about whom one has to think clearly.
I went into this book almost completely blind. And reading it – a book published in the 1950s, a book full of things not said, or said elliptically, or only alluded to, or deliberately coded – was at times like fumbling in the dark. All the moreso because, admonitions to himself aside, our narrator Laurie is hardly clear-thinking. This is a love triangle where one player, Ralph, imprints himself strongly on the reader through his actions, words, and physicality, while the other love interest, Andrew, is seen primarily through the lens of idealized, disembodied, almost passive devotion – and Laurie, the apex of the triangle, is somehow both fully present and emotionally slippery, hard to get a handle on, torn between two loves and, more to the point, two visions of love and how these could possibly transmute into lives lived.
The Charioteer is a beautifully written, wryly funny, and enormously compelling read, once you come to terms with the fact that you’re not probably going to get everything that’s (un)said, if you’re even supposed to. It is propelled by a series of set pieces: Laurie’s father’s last night at home (his parents divorcing when Laurie is small, thus marking him as different from the outset); Laurie’s defense of and, he believes, last encounter with his idol Ralph Lanyon before the latter is expelled from school because of a forbidden relationship with a younger student (where Ralph and Laurie have a first, extremely discreetly rendered kiss); the world’s most excruciating, dramatic, alcohol-fueled party, where Laurie and Ralph first meet again as two disabled war veterans; an even more excruciating, dramatic, alcohol-fueled evening featuring a confrontation with Ralph’s then-paramour, Bunny; Laurie’s return home for his mother’s dreaded wedding to a horrible vicar, an event at which Ralph expectedly-unexpectedly appears; and a non-confrontation (more accurately, a confrontation-by-proxy) with Andrew in London followed by an agonizing quarrel with Ralph at the hospital, with heartstopping (and ultimately decisive) consequences.
Weaving through all of this is Laurie’s daily life as convalescent in a military hospital after being gravely wounded at Dunkirk. Here he meets Andrew, a Quaker, who with a group of other conscientious objectors is tasked with cleaning and other chores; and here Laurie falls almost instantly in love with this innocent, intelligent, direct, pure, chaste young man. The phrase “Platonic ideal” is of course apropos; and if I were classically educated, I could do more than simply note that Plato’s Phaedrus -- a treatise on kinds of love that makes a distinction between the erotic and the philosophical and features the myth of the charioteer -- features significantly not just as title, but also thematically and as artefact in the text, being passed first from Ralph to Laurie on the day Ralph is expelled, and ultimately from Laurie to Andrew.
The love triangle, then, is on the face of it a contest between the erotic (real) and the philosophical (ideal). Ralph, no longer fit for active service (he was a sailor), is living – not out, as homosexuality was criminalized in Britain until 1967 – but somewhat openly, having had relationships with men and socializing in the small, self-contained, self-policed gay community. Which isn’t at all the right term, and indeed, here’s where things get complicated. Because Laurie’s pull towards Andrew – who is so naïve that he seemingly doesn’t grasp even the concept of gay love and sex; and who I don’t read as asexual (to use a modern term) so much as devoid of even the most basic sexual imagination, in an idealized way that almost doesn’t have a modern equivalent – is very much connected to Laurie’s antipathy for other gay men both as individuals and a collective, as well as queerness as an identity. As Laurie explains to Ralph, recalling his first and only relationship with a gay fellow student at university:
“There was a man at Oxford. It was all rather silly. He looked a bit like one of the less forceful portraits of Byron. It wasn’t so much he himself who attracted me, though up to a point he did. There are always certain people at Oxford who seem to hold a key. I didn’t know what I expected he’d let me into, Newstead Abbey by moonlight or something. He kept telling me I was queer, and I’d never heard it called that before and didn’t like it. The word, I mean. Shutting you away, somehow; roping you off with a lot of people you don’t feel much in common with, half of whom hate the other half anyway, and just keep together so that they can lean up against each other for support. I don’t think I’ve ever tried to put all this into words before; am I talking nonsense?”
With smothered violence Ralph said, “Christ Almighty, no.”
Laurie doesn’t identify with these men and their “limitations” and “specialities”; he memorably tells Alec, a friend and ex of Ralph’s, that he needn’t worry about his personal dramas interfering with his final medical examinations because “you’re more a doctor than you’re a queer”; above all, he does not want to associate or be associated with a community that feels to him false and forced. A child of divorce, an educated man from the upper classes serving in enlisted ranks, a ex-soldier with a disability – these distinctions he has learned to accept or, at least, to live with. But he shudders from identifying himself with men he feels he cannot respect, who he does not even perceive as fully dimensioned.
(Sidenote: I feel like I’m not the right reader to pass judgement here; and of course, this is a 70-year-old text written when homosexuality was still criminalized, so it’s a different discussion to what would be had in relation to today’s LGBTQIA+ community(-ies). But I think there is still relevance to the question of how people in marginalized communities choose to identify, or not, with that community; and indeed, fellow Alexis Hall readers may be struck as I was with how this resonates with discussions between Ardy and Caspian in HTBAB and Oliver and Luc in BM. End sidenote.)
The aversion Laurie feels towards (his experience of) queerness-as-community/identity is far from the only factor drawing him to Andrew, but nor can it be disentangled from it. He admits this to himself freely, if rather morbidly:
You don’t get away from it, thought Laurie; once you’re really in, you never get away. You get swept along the road with the refugees, till you find you’ve been carried through the gates without noticing, and you’re behind the wire for the duration. The closed shop. Nous autres.
It would never be like that with Andrew, he thought. Talking in the hospital kitchen at night, they had felt special only in their happiness, and separate only in their human identities. How good it would be to see him now!
To Laurie, then, Andrew is this brave, reflective, unsullied idealist, who is marked out by his beliefs but not by his desires, and of whom nothing is asked or expected. But as Ralph – who, remember, has paid a price for acting on his desires, having been expelled from school and denied a university education – points out, this kind of love can only, ultimately, be conditional and suspended:
“You say this boy has guts, but what you’re trying to do for him is to keep him like a mid-Victorian virgin in a world of illusion where he doesn’t know he’s alive. He mustn’t be told he’s a passenger when human decency’s fighting for survival, in case it upsets his religion. He mustn’t be told he’s a queer, in case he has to do a bit of hard thinking and make up his mind. He mustn’t know you’re in love with him, in case he feels he can’t go on having his cake and eating it. If he amounts to anything, he won’t really want to be let off being human. And if he does want it, then he isn’t worth all this, Spud. I’m sorry, but there it is.”
We the reader don’t know if Andrew wants to be let off being human, but it happens all the same.
But while Ralph, in contrast to Andrew, is very much situated in the reality of life as a gay man, he no more wants to be defined by his identity than Laurie does. Indeed, as he says to Laurie when they first meet again (and which Laurie refers back to at a crucial point): “It’s not what one is, it’s what one does with it.” Ralph feels contempt for Sandy, Alec’s new partner, and Bunny, his lover -- both of whom, it must be said, are written effeminately and extremely dramatically (Sandy) and duplicitously (Bunny). Ralph does not vest any particular pride or integrity or sense of self in the community around him, but rather in the way he acts and takes responsibility for himself and his friends – that is, in his behavior towards others and his actions in relation to his own principles. Alec, the most clear-sighted of them all, describes Ralph to Laurie as “a person whom responsibility always seems to stick to”; he also says, equal parts accusingly and admiringly, “Everyone isn’t like you, Ralph, trying to carry the world.” But unlike Laurie, Ralph does not ascribe some inherent flaw or limitation to queerness and queer people, instead blaming the secretive, marginalized way they must live:
“It’s got like prohibition, with the bums and crooks making fortunes out of hooch, everyone who might have had a palate losing it, nobody caring how you hold your liquor, you’ve been smart enough if you get it at all. You can’t make good wine in a bathtub in the cellar, you need sun and rain and fresh air, you need a pride in the job you can tell the world about. Only you can live without drink if you have to, but you can’t live without love.”
It should be clear by now that I am wholeheartedly Team Ralph. And this is partly because Andrew, despite (or because of) his ideals, feels so insubstantial; how do you fall in love with a notion? But it’s also because, putting aside Plato and the erotic and the philosophical, what is clear as the story progresses is that Ralph is just as much an idealist and even more of a romantic than Andrew. He is, in fact, a romantic protagonist in a way that feels familiar to the modern romance reader. Ralph may seem cynical and jaded, navigating as he does this (in Laurie’s eyes) sordid world of compromise and limitations. And it is true that when he believed Laurie dead after Dunkirk, he lost hope: “When I heard you were dead, it seemed inevitable somehow. And after that, so did everything else.” But you can only lose hope if you have it in the first place; and when Laurie reappears in his life, we see that, of all of them, it is Ralph who believes most unwaveringly in love, united, in heart, mind, and body. And while Laurie initially believes that it is only Andrew who needs protecting from the (harsh, joyful) realities of life, he eventually comes to realize that Ralph is just as defenseless:
For Laurie couldn’t pretend to himself that even this last loyalty of the heart to Andrew was innocent. It was withheld at the expense of someone who on his side had withheld nothing, and whose need of love was in its kind no less. The idealist and the romantic in Ralph, reviving late and left for dead, felt its own wants with the greater urgency; and it had lived too hard, too close to the ground, to be deceived.
And:
He had asked for nothing, except to give everything. He had made no claims. He had offered all he had, as simply as a cigarette or a drink, for a palliative of present pain.
As Alec astutely observes to Laurie:
“Ralph’s tragedy is that he’s retained through everything a curious innocence about it. I suppose when at last he loses that, the tragedy will be complete.”
Ultimately, then, the surface struggle between the real and the ideal, the erotic versus the philosophical, is being set up only to be knocked down (or more accurately, smashed together). To me, this story is really about what it means to know and be known in all one’s messy entirety. Yes, physical love and intimacy is a vital part of this; and Laurie and Ralph’s sexual relationship, though only obliquely referred to (“He had considerable skill and experience, and his heart was in it”), is clearly, deeply important, so much so that Laurie carries on meeting with Ralph even after he’s officially declared himself for Andrew. But more, it is about loving and being loved not just on the level of ideals but on the level of actions: not just for what you are, but what you do with it.
This is just a wonderful, emotional, unputdownable, heart-through-the-wringer book. I am already excited to read it again.
I went into this book almost completely blind. And reading it – a book published in the 1950s, a book full of things not said, or said elliptically, or only alluded to, or deliberately coded – was at times like fumbling in the dark. All the moreso because, admonitions to himself aside, our narrator Laurie is hardly clear-thinking. This is a love triangle where one player, Ralph, imprints himself strongly on the reader through his actions, words, and physicality, while the other love interest, Andrew, is seen primarily through the lens of idealized, disembodied, almost passive devotion – and Laurie, the apex of the triangle, is somehow both fully present and emotionally slippery, hard to get a handle on, torn between two loves and, more to the point, two visions of love and how these could possibly transmute into lives lived.
The Charioteer is a beautifully written, wryly funny, and enormously compelling read, once you come to terms with the fact that you’re not probably going to get everything that’s (un)said, if you’re even supposed to. It is propelled by a series of set pieces: Laurie’s father’s last night at home (his parents divorcing when Laurie is small, thus marking him as different from the outset); Laurie’s defense of and, he believes, last encounter with his idol Ralph Lanyon before the latter is expelled from school because of a forbidden relationship with a younger student (where Ralph and Laurie have a first, extremely discreetly rendered kiss); the world’s most excruciating, dramatic, alcohol-fueled party, where Laurie and Ralph first meet again as two disabled war veterans; an even more excruciating, dramatic, alcohol-fueled evening featuring a confrontation with Ralph’s then-paramour, Bunny; Laurie’s return home for his mother’s dreaded wedding to a horrible vicar, an event at which Ralph expectedly-unexpectedly appears; and a non-confrontation (more accurately, a confrontation-by-proxy) with Andrew in London followed by an agonizing quarrel with Ralph at the hospital, with heartstopping (and ultimately decisive) consequences.
Weaving through all of this is Laurie’s daily life as convalescent in a military hospital after being gravely wounded at Dunkirk. Here he meets Andrew, a Quaker, who with a group of other conscientious objectors is tasked with cleaning and other chores; and here Laurie falls almost instantly in love with this innocent, intelligent, direct, pure, chaste young man. The phrase “Platonic ideal” is of course apropos; and if I were classically educated, I could do more than simply note that Plato’s Phaedrus -- a treatise on kinds of love that makes a distinction between the erotic and the philosophical and features the myth of the charioteer -- features significantly not just as title, but also thematically and as artefact in the text, being passed first from Ralph to Laurie on the day Ralph is expelled, and ultimately from Laurie to Andrew.
The love triangle, then, is on the face of it a contest between the erotic (real) and the philosophical (ideal). Ralph, no longer fit for active service (he was a sailor), is living – not out, as homosexuality was criminalized in Britain until 1967 – but somewhat openly, having had relationships with men and socializing in the small, self-contained, self-policed gay community. Which isn’t at all the right term, and indeed, here’s where things get complicated. Because Laurie’s pull towards Andrew – who is so naïve that he seemingly doesn’t grasp even the concept of gay love and sex; and who I don’t read as asexual (to use a modern term) so much as devoid of even the most basic sexual imagination, in an idealized way that almost doesn’t have a modern equivalent – is very much connected to Laurie’s antipathy for other gay men both as individuals and a collective, as well as queerness as an identity. As Laurie explains to Ralph, recalling his first and only relationship with a gay fellow student at university:
“There was a man at Oxford. It was all rather silly. He looked a bit like one of the less forceful portraits of Byron. It wasn’t so much he himself who attracted me, though up to a point he did. There are always certain people at Oxford who seem to hold a key. I didn’t know what I expected he’d let me into, Newstead Abbey by moonlight or something. He kept telling me I was queer, and I’d never heard it called that before and didn’t like it. The word, I mean. Shutting you away, somehow; roping you off with a lot of people you don’t feel much in common with, half of whom hate the other half anyway, and just keep together so that they can lean up against each other for support. I don’t think I’ve ever tried to put all this into words before; am I talking nonsense?”
With smothered violence Ralph said, “Christ Almighty, no.”
Laurie doesn’t identify with these men and their “limitations” and “specialities”; he memorably tells Alec, a friend and ex of Ralph’s, that he needn’t worry about his personal dramas interfering with his final medical examinations because “you’re more a doctor than you’re a queer”; above all, he does not want to associate or be associated with a community that feels to him false and forced. A child of divorce, an educated man from the upper classes serving in enlisted ranks, a ex-soldier with a disability – these distinctions he has learned to accept or, at least, to live with. But he shudders from identifying himself with men he feels he cannot respect, who he does not even perceive as fully dimensioned.
(Sidenote: I feel like I’m not the right reader to pass judgement here; and of course, this is a 70-year-old text written when homosexuality was still criminalized, so it’s a different discussion to what would be had in relation to today’s LGBTQIA+ community(-ies). But I think there is still relevance to the question of how people in marginalized communities choose to identify, or not, with that community; and indeed, fellow Alexis Hall readers may be struck as I was with how this resonates with discussions between Ardy and Caspian in HTBAB and Oliver and Luc in BM. End sidenote.)
The aversion Laurie feels towards (his experience of) queerness-as-community/identity is far from the only factor drawing him to Andrew, but nor can it be disentangled from it. He admits this to himself freely, if rather morbidly:
You don’t get away from it, thought Laurie; once you’re really in, you never get away. You get swept along the road with the refugees, till you find you’ve been carried through the gates without noticing, and you’re behind the wire for the duration. The closed shop. Nous autres.
It would never be like that with Andrew, he thought. Talking in the hospital kitchen at night, they had felt special only in their happiness, and separate only in their human identities. How good it would be to see him now!
To Laurie, then, Andrew is this brave, reflective, unsullied idealist, who is marked out by his beliefs but not by his desires, and of whom nothing is asked or expected. But as Ralph – who, remember, has paid a price for acting on his desires, having been expelled from school and denied a university education – points out, this kind of love can only, ultimately, be conditional and suspended:
“You say this boy has guts, but what you’re trying to do for him is to keep him like a mid-Victorian virgin in a world of illusion where he doesn’t know he’s alive. He mustn’t be told he’s a passenger when human decency’s fighting for survival, in case it upsets his religion. He mustn’t be told he’s a queer, in case he has to do a bit of hard thinking and make up his mind. He mustn’t know you’re in love with him, in case he feels he can’t go on having his cake and eating it. If he amounts to anything, he won’t really want to be let off being human. And if he does want it, then he isn’t worth all this, Spud. I’m sorry, but there it is.”
We the reader don’t know if Andrew wants to be let off being human, but it happens all the same.
But while Ralph, in contrast to Andrew, is very much situated in the reality of life as a gay man, he no more wants to be defined by his identity than Laurie does. Indeed, as he says to Laurie when they first meet again (and which Laurie refers back to at a crucial point): “It’s not what one is, it’s what one does with it.” Ralph feels contempt for Sandy, Alec’s new partner, and Bunny, his lover -- both of whom, it must be said, are written effeminately and extremely dramatically (Sandy) and duplicitously (Bunny). Ralph does not vest any particular pride or integrity or sense of self in the community around him, but rather in the way he acts and takes responsibility for himself and his friends – that is, in his behavior towards others and his actions in relation to his own principles. Alec, the most clear-sighted of them all, describes Ralph to Laurie as “a person whom responsibility always seems to stick to”; he also says, equal parts accusingly and admiringly, “Everyone isn’t like you, Ralph, trying to carry the world.” But unlike Laurie, Ralph does not ascribe some inherent flaw or limitation to queerness and queer people, instead blaming the secretive, marginalized way they must live:
“It’s got like prohibition, with the bums and crooks making fortunes out of hooch, everyone who might have had a palate losing it, nobody caring how you hold your liquor, you’ve been smart enough if you get it at all. You can’t make good wine in a bathtub in the cellar, you need sun and rain and fresh air, you need a pride in the job you can tell the world about. Only you can live without drink if you have to, but you can’t live without love.”
It should be clear by now that I am wholeheartedly Team Ralph. And this is partly because Andrew, despite (or because of) his ideals, feels so insubstantial; how do you fall in love with a notion? But it’s also because, putting aside Plato and the erotic and the philosophical, what is clear as the story progresses is that Ralph is just as much an idealist and even more of a romantic than Andrew. He is, in fact, a romantic protagonist in a way that feels familiar to the modern romance reader. Ralph may seem cynical and jaded, navigating as he does this (in Laurie’s eyes) sordid world of compromise and limitations. And it is true that when he believed Laurie dead after Dunkirk, he lost hope: “When I heard you were dead, it seemed inevitable somehow. And after that, so did everything else.” But you can only lose hope if you have it in the first place; and when Laurie reappears in his life, we see that, of all of them, it is Ralph who believes most unwaveringly in love, united, in heart, mind, and body. And while Laurie initially believes that it is only Andrew who needs protecting from the (harsh, joyful) realities of life, he eventually comes to realize that Ralph is just as defenseless:
For Laurie couldn’t pretend to himself that even this last loyalty of the heart to Andrew was innocent. It was withheld at the expense of someone who on his side had withheld nothing, and whose need of love was in its kind no less. The idealist and the romantic in Ralph, reviving late and left for dead, felt its own wants with the greater urgency; and it had lived too hard, too close to the ground, to be deceived.
And:
He had asked for nothing, except to give everything. He had made no claims. He had offered all he had, as simply as a cigarette or a drink, for a palliative of present pain.
As Alec astutely observes to Laurie:
“Ralph’s tragedy is that he’s retained through everything a curious innocence about it. I suppose when at last he loses that, the tragedy will be complete.”
Ultimately, then, the surface struggle between the real and the ideal, the erotic versus the philosophical, is being set up only to be knocked down (or more accurately, smashed together). To me, this story is really about what it means to know and be known in all one’s messy entirety. Yes, physical love and intimacy is a vital part of this; and Laurie and Ralph’s sexual relationship, though only obliquely referred to (“He had considerable skill and experience, and his heart was in it”), is clearly, deeply important, so much so that Laurie carries on meeting with Ralph even after he’s officially declared himself for Andrew. But more, it is about loving and being loved not just on the level of ideals but on the level of actions: not just for what you are, but what you do with it.
This is just a wonderful, emotional, unputdownable, heart-through-the-wringer book. I am already excited to read it again.
July 13, 2013
I knew nothing about this novel when I began reading it. By the time I was done, I was convinced it belonged near the top of the list of the best novels ever written about gay characters.
Mary Renault is known for her historical fiction set in ancient Greece, but The Charioteer takes place during World War II, mostly inside a British hospital where Laurie (Laurence), whose kneecap was blasted away at the Battle of Dunkirk, is recuperating. Laurie becomes enamored with a hospital orderly named Andrew, a conscientious objector who is scorned by the other wounded veterans in the hospital. Later, visiting London on a one-day pass, Laurie gets swept into a circle of cosmopolitan gay men, among them Ralph, whom Laurie had a hero-worship-crush on when they were in school together. The novel’s plot might be boiled down to the love triangle that grows out of these relationships, but there’s a lot more going on here: a timeless exploration of the nature of homosexuality and the essence of love; a depiction of the struggle queers experience navigating between their families of origin and the social families they create; and the daily challenges of disability, as both Laurie and Ralph have been mutilated in the course of their military service.
So why isn't The Charioteer as well known as other mid-20th century masterworks like Giovanni’s Room and A Single Man? Is it because Renault was a woman writing about men, which somehow invalidates her point of view? (As a lesbian in a lifelong relationship, she certainly understood the position of queer people in contemporary society.) Is it because her portrait of Ralph's social circle is loaded with supporting characters who display a stereotypical backstabbing bitchiness? (But no one she presents here is as villainous as the queens in Giovanni’s Room; plus, I’d argue that Renault’s portraiture illuminates how homophobia warps human behavior and turns the victims into victimizers.)
It may also be that The Charioteer is obscure because it’s a challenging work of literature. The contemporary American reader has to fight through layers of British references to public schools, the military, the geography of London neighborhoods, and so on. Characters talk in a naturalistic style wherein subjects of conversations are referred to but not always named; some subjects (like homosexuality) simply couldn’t be spoken about directly at the time, so the reader wades through inference and suggestion to get to what’s at stake. And then there’s Renault’s knowing, often ironic prose style, which doesn’t offer easy exposition, doesn’t “explain.” We are thrust into scenes and have to figure out where we are and what’s changed since the previous chapter. I frequently found myself flipping back to reread moments whose meaning had eluded me.
In a lesser novel all of that would have been frustrating, but Renault is such a good writer, and her characters are so fleshed out and compelling, that the book made me want to work hard for its pleasures. Laurie’s conflict between his chaste crush on Andrew and his more complicated relationship to Ralph generates a lot of suspense in the novel’s second half. The harrowing picture of life during the London Blitz, with its air raid sirens and blackout curtains and sudden bursts of gunfire, created a backdrop of uncertainty and danger. The slow awakening of the central character to self-determination, at the core of which is his love for other men, was set against a reading of Plato’s "Phaedrus," which contains the myth of the charioteer that gives the novel its title, and points the way to Renault’s more famous books, written after this.
Whatever the reason for its relative obscurity, The Charioteer strikes me as ripe for rediscovery.
Mary Renault is known for her historical fiction set in ancient Greece, but The Charioteer takes place during World War II, mostly inside a British hospital where Laurie (Laurence), whose kneecap was blasted away at the Battle of Dunkirk, is recuperating. Laurie becomes enamored with a hospital orderly named Andrew, a conscientious objector who is scorned by the other wounded veterans in the hospital. Later, visiting London on a one-day pass, Laurie gets swept into a circle of cosmopolitan gay men, among them Ralph, whom Laurie had a hero-worship-crush on when they were in school together. The novel’s plot might be boiled down to the love triangle that grows out of these relationships, but there’s a lot more going on here: a timeless exploration of the nature of homosexuality and the essence of love; a depiction of the struggle queers experience navigating between their families of origin and the social families they create; and the daily challenges of disability, as both Laurie and Ralph have been mutilated in the course of their military service.
So why isn't The Charioteer as well known as other mid-20th century masterworks like Giovanni’s Room and A Single Man? Is it because Renault was a woman writing about men, which somehow invalidates her point of view? (As a lesbian in a lifelong relationship, she certainly understood the position of queer people in contemporary society.) Is it because her portrait of Ralph's social circle is loaded with supporting characters who display a stereotypical backstabbing bitchiness? (But no one she presents here is as villainous as the queens in Giovanni’s Room; plus, I’d argue that Renault’s portraiture illuminates how homophobia warps human behavior and turns the victims into victimizers.)
It may also be that The Charioteer is obscure because it’s a challenging work of literature. The contemporary American reader has to fight through layers of British references to public schools, the military, the geography of London neighborhoods, and so on. Characters talk in a naturalistic style wherein subjects of conversations are referred to but not always named; some subjects (like homosexuality) simply couldn’t be spoken about directly at the time, so the reader wades through inference and suggestion to get to what’s at stake. And then there’s Renault’s knowing, often ironic prose style, which doesn’t offer easy exposition, doesn’t “explain.” We are thrust into scenes and have to figure out where we are and what’s changed since the previous chapter. I frequently found myself flipping back to reread moments whose meaning had eluded me.
In a lesser novel all of that would have been frustrating, but Renault is such a good writer, and her characters are so fleshed out and compelling, that the book made me want to work hard for its pleasures. Laurie’s conflict between his chaste crush on Andrew and his more complicated relationship to Ralph generates a lot of suspense in the novel’s second half. The harrowing picture of life during the London Blitz, with its air raid sirens and blackout curtains and sudden bursts of gunfire, created a backdrop of uncertainty and danger. The slow awakening of the central character to self-determination, at the core of which is his love for other men, was set against a reading of Plato’s "Phaedrus," which contains the myth of the charioteer that gives the novel its title, and points the way to Renault’s more famous books, written after this.
Whatever the reason for its relative obscurity, The Charioteer strikes me as ripe for rediscovery.
July 21, 2018
I need to build Mary Renault a worship shrine. And maybe one for Ralph Lanyon as well.
December 10, 2024
While reading The Charioteer, I had something on my mind, and it wasn’t the book itself. I constantly asked myself what rating I would give in the end. At some points, I wanted to rate this story a million stars, and at other points, I felt lost. But maybe Laurie was lost, too, in a way.
In this story, you constantly have to read between the lines. What is not said is just as important or perhaps even more important than what is said. So, I read slower than usual.
Laurie, the main character, is quite distant, and therefore, it‘s difficult to determine what he really feels. Only sometimes I felt his needs, especially at the beginning and the end of the novel. But I can (partly) imagine what he felt: a gay man in World War II who understands that he is different, who tries to avoid the subject, but at the same time cannot resist the temptation to have long conversations with Andrew or to meet up with Ralph. And perhaps that is also why I, as a reader, experienced less of his feelings. Laurie pushed his feelings away and put them in a box as if they didn’t exist.
This book was written in 1953 and sometimes has outdated opinions in the way the characters looked at their gayness, but as Ralph ultimately said:
I didn’t choose to be what I am, it was determined when I wasn’t in a position to exercise any choice and without my knowing what was happening.
I read a few reviews of this book, and one of those reviewers said that The Charioteer would make a fantastic movie. I agree. I believe this is one of those stories that is even better on screen because of the things you can't see when you're reading, especially the secret glances and those small touches.
Like I said above, I loved the story but also got lost. In the beautiful prose. In the jumps from one scene to another. In the dialogues. And I don’t think the large number of adverbs would be allowed in modern literature. Ultimately, this is a book that will always stay with me, especially in those last two chapters. And for those who want to know, I'm team Andrew, even though he had less page time than Ralph, who always seemed to be around. But somehow, the quietness of his personality drew me toward him, even so much that he was my favorite person in this book.
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In this story, you constantly have to read between the lines. What is not said is just as important or perhaps even more important than what is said. So, I read slower than usual.
Laurie, the main character, is quite distant, and therefore, it‘s difficult to determine what he really feels. Only sometimes I felt his needs, especially at the beginning and the end of the novel. But I can (partly) imagine what he felt: a gay man in World War II who understands that he is different, who tries to avoid the subject, but at the same time cannot resist the temptation to have long conversations with Andrew or to meet up with Ralph. And perhaps that is also why I, as a reader, experienced less of his feelings. Laurie pushed his feelings away and put them in a box as if they didn’t exist.
This book was written in 1953 and sometimes has outdated opinions in the way the characters looked at their gayness, but as Ralph ultimately said:
I didn’t choose to be what I am, it was determined when I wasn’t in a position to exercise any choice and without my knowing what was happening.
I read a few reviews of this book, and one of those reviewers said that The Charioteer would make a fantastic movie. I agree. I believe this is one of those stories that is even better on screen because of the things you can't see when you're reading, especially the secret glances and those small touches.
Like I said above, I loved the story but also got lost. In the beautiful prose. In the jumps from one scene to another. In the dialogues. And I don’t think the large number of adverbs would be allowed in modern literature. Ultimately, this is a book that will always stay with me, especially in those last two chapters. And for those who want to know, I'm team Andrew, even though he had less page time than Ralph, who always seemed to be around. But somehow, the quietness of his personality drew me toward him, even so much that he was my favorite person in this book.
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February 4, 2021
I've been meaning to re-read this for sometime now. It's one of those books that feel formative to me and so I wanted to know how it held up after some years. This was one of, if not the first full length gay novel I had ever read. I had read a lot of gay stories online in my late teens, mostly from sites like Gay Authors and Literotica, and they were important in that they showed me that I wasn't as alone as I thought I was and they were also readily accessible. I had known about "The Charioteer" for a while, it was always highly recommended and it was one of those books I hoped to get shipped to me someday. Then one day as I was looking at books on a shelf in my local library I saw the familiar name Mary Renault in golden letters on an old black book's spine, the book had not been borrowed since the 80s. It took me some moments to get over the disbelief and I hurried to get the book checked out as though it might have disappeared at any moment. And it had been a literary feast.
The story itself is one of the oldest ever told. A love triangle involving two British soldiers who survived Dunkirk and a pacifist who was torn about going to the war and didn't in the end. Laurie, who is the protagonist, has had an admiration and love for Ralph since they were in school and one day when an incident happens that forces Ralph out of school, he gives Laurie his copy of Phaedrus. They lose touch and the second world war begins, Laurie is injured and nearly dies following an attack and it is while he is recovering in hospital that he meets Andrew, a member of the Quaker faith and starts a friendship when the pacifist group of volunteers he belongs to is met with harassments from the soldiers and general community. Then as a love between Andrew and Laurie develops, Ralph and Laurie meet again, complicating things.
Among the other fascinating parts of this wonderful book is the language. This books like other gay novels written during or about the pre-legalization era in Western countries like Baldwin's Giovanni's Room, Delany's Dark Reflections, Forster's Maurice, Toibin's Story of the Night among others, has another language running below the language in the book. Language born out of hidden necessity and hard to describe better than how Renault writes:
'He had heard in Ralph's voice that secret overtone only half of which is created by the one who speaks, the other half of which is created by the one who listens, and which says in any language, "By and by all these people will have gone."'
I think it's very difficult to write a book about homosexual love in the 1940s between two disabled characters without exploiting pain and misery, but Renault handles it all so expertly and delicately that this book stands without a doubt as a favourite I shall return to again and again as long as I am able to through the years.
The story itself is one of the oldest ever told. A love triangle involving two British soldiers who survived Dunkirk and a pacifist who was torn about going to the war and didn't in the end. Laurie, who is the protagonist, has had an admiration and love for Ralph since they were in school and one day when an incident happens that forces Ralph out of school, he gives Laurie his copy of Phaedrus. They lose touch and the second world war begins, Laurie is injured and nearly dies following an attack and it is while he is recovering in hospital that he meets Andrew, a member of the Quaker faith and starts a friendship when the pacifist group of volunteers he belongs to is met with harassments from the soldiers and general community. Then as a love between Andrew and Laurie develops, Ralph and Laurie meet again, complicating things.
Among the other fascinating parts of this wonderful book is the language. This books like other gay novels written during or about the pre-legalization era in Western countries like Baldwin's Giovanni's Room, Delany's Dark Reflections, Forster's Maurice, Toibin's Story of the Night among others, has another language running below the language in the book. Language born out of hidden necessity and hard to describe better than how Renault writes:
'He had heard in Ralph's voice that secret overtone only half of which is created by the one who speaks, the other half of which is created by the one who listens, and which says in any language, "By and by all these people will have gone."'
I think it's very difficult to write a book about homosexual love in the 1940s between two disabled characters without exploiting pain and misery, but Renault handles it all so expertly and delicately that this book stands without a doubt as a favourite I shall return to again and again as long as I am able to through the years.
September 25, 2019
It’s a world record! I’ve got 53 notes and 204 highlights! I had to reread many passages a few times!?!?! And it was not enough.
I’m still in awe, how is this even possible for a ”bookish, suburban woman” in 1953 to write such a complex book about gay men?
story - 10 ⭐️
audio by Joe Jameson - 5 ⭐️
I’m still in awe, how is this even possible for a ”bookish, suburban woman” in 1953 to write such a complex book about gay men?
story - 10 ⭐️
audio by Joe Jameson - 5 ⭐️
June 27, 2022
Renault’s writing is exceptional and, as many other reviewers have stated, this is undoubtedly an important and brave novel for its time. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and was hooked right up to the final, moving, pages.
December 18, 2020
How does this not have more ratings and more reviews?
So exceptional it hurts.
So exceptional it hurts.
October 15, 2023
What. The. Fuck.
You know what, there was a lot of really phenomenal stuff in here. There was a lot of really horrible stuff in here.
Mary Renault - great writer, great plotter, great understander/depicter of human nuance……. Also very nasty, very misogynistic!!
Also having actually read this book I gotta go back and reassess the references to it in recent queer romance - if you(r characters) are unequivocally fans of this book they have some issues they need to unpack!!
Seriously, me jumping off the time machine in South Africa: “what the fuck asshole?!? Get your act together!!”
You know what, there was a lot of really phenomenal stuff in here. There was a lot of really horrible stuff in here.
Mary Renault - great writer, great plotter, great understander/depicter of human nuance……. Also very nasty, very misogynistic!!
Also having actually read this book I gotta go back and reassess the references to it in recent queer romance - if you(r characters) are unequivocally fans of this book they have some issues they need to unpack!!
Seriously, me jumping off the time machine in South Africa: “what the fuck asshole?!? Get your act together!!”
February 15, 2015
I think this was meant to be one of the most emotionally sophisticated and nuanced books I've ever read. Unfortunately, trying to make any of those emotional moments even remotely legible in the face of Renault's unnecessarily opaque writing style was basically impossible, and as such the actual reading experience was incredibly unpleasant and ultimately disfigured the book's true beauty. It's one thing to not allow the characters to speak frankly for fear of having their queerness exposed and their lives ruined; it is another thing to inexplicably apply that same circumspection to your plot, motivations, authorial digressions, etc. I can appreciate a literary project that decides to demand a lot of heavy lifting from the reader -- that's what early Modernism was all about if we are to believe Joyce, Stein, Eliot, et al -- but the effort required here felt arbitrary. This was a love story and a coming of age story. Melodrama loses a lot of its power and all of its ability to pack a wallop if you have to re read and infer moments of trauma and catharsis 5-10 times to even grasp their significance.
July 17, 2007
Mary Renault is one of those authors for whom I was tempted to give 5 stars to all of her books, because I enjoyed them so much. But in the interests of maintaining standards (Hi Betsy!), I will give 5 stars to "The Charioteer", a book probably 50 years ahead of its time, but go ahead and recommend all of her historical fiction anyway. With perhaps "The Mask of Apollo" and "The King must Die" being my favorites among her remaining books.
October 14, 2023
No language but myth
to voice one’s solitude, joy,
fear, hope, communion.
Bumped this up a star. Holy cats, this book rewards rereading. The parallels between Ralph and Laurie and Laurie and Andrew and Socrates and Phaedrus...
Firmly Team Ralph.
to voice one’s solitude, joy,
fear, hope, communion.
Bumped this up a star. Holy cats, this book rewards rereading. The parallels between Ralph and Laurie and Laurie and Andrew and Socrates and Phaedrus...
Firmly Team Ralph.
September 17, 2011
My heart. Is it still there? Because I feel like someone tore it out and stomped on it.
I stayed up way later than I usually do, last night, to finish this, because I couldn't wait any longer. The intense and emotional turmoil inside of me started with Andrew's letter and followed through to the end.
It wasn't until I finished, and turned off the lights to go to sleep, that I realized what I had been holding in. And I cried for a few minutes: for the story, for the beautiful writing, for the characters.
The story was subtle and slow-moving; romantic and emotional. I can't stop thinking about it.
I stayed up way later than I usually do, last night, to finish this, because I couldn't wait any longer. The intense and emotional turmoil inside of me started with Andrew's letter and followed through to the end.
It wasn't until I finished, and turned off the lights to go to sleep, that I realized what I had been holding in. And I cried for a few minutes: for the story, for the beautiful writing, for the characters.
The story was subtle and slow-moving; romantic and emotional. I can't stop thinking about it.
December 14, 2024
~THE CHARIOTEER by Mary Renault is a beautiful, complex, queer must-read!~
Cat Sebastian's We Could Be So Good is why I bought this book and I'm so glad I did because I ended up LOVING The Charioteer. I had the best time reading and analysing the book with Cody.
The Charioteer is a queer 1953 novel set during WWII. It's one of the first queer books with a happy ending which in itself makes it a key part of queer literary history, but it's also an incredible book in itself. It's about Laurie who was wounded at Dunkirk and who's recovering at a hospital in England. Laurie soon finds himself in a love triangle where he's struggling to choose between two very different men and the lives they represent.
This book was just. Wow! Unlike any I've read before and it's left me completely unmoored. The Charioteer is a book written in subtext, ellipses, and between the words on the page. Its usually more about what's left unsaid than what's said. It's such a fascinating, but complicated, book to read.
And Laurie? That meme of a dog in a burning room, ignoring the roaring fire, going "it's fine"? That's Laurie Odell, disaster gay, and love of my life who I frequently wanted to smack upside the head for being delulu. Laurie is one of the OG unreliable narrators. This man is on the struggle bus, he's often lying to himself and the reader just to cope which means you have to really pay attention when reading.
I don't usually like love triangles, but I didn't mind it in this book. It both uses the common idea and tropes of a love triangle but it's so much more than that, too!
The Charioteer is about queer love, truth, deceit, betrayal, and self-acceptance. It's about society's ideals and norms in a time where being queer was illegal and viewed as obscene, and how that affects and influences a queer man's ideas of himself, the world, and the queer community.
Authors who're fans of Renault and/or whose work contains parallels or references to Renault's writing include C.S. Pacat, Alexis Hall, Alice Winn, and of course Cat Sebastian.
Cat Sebastian's We Could Be So Good is why I bought this book and I'm so glad I did because I ended up LOVING The Charioteer. I had the best time reading and analysing the book with Cody.
The Charioteer is a queer 1953 novel set during WWII. It's one of the first queer books with a happy ending which in itself makes it a key part of queer literary history, but it's also an incredible book in itself. It's about Laurie who was wounded at Dunkirk and who's recovering at a hospital in England. Laurie soon finds himself in a love triangle where he's struggling to choose between two very different men and the lives they represent.
This book was just. Wow! Unlike any I've read before and it's left me completely unmoored. The Charioteer is a book written in subtext, ellipses, and between the words on the page. Its usually more about what's left unsaid than what's said. It's such a fascinating, but complicated, book to read.
And Laurie? That meme of a dog in a burning room, ignoring the roaring fire, going "it's fine"? That's Laurie Odell, disaster gay, and love of my life who I frequently wanted to smack upside the head for being delulu. Laurie is one of the OG unreliable narrators. This man is on the struggle bus, he's often lying to himself and the reader just to cope which means you have to really pay attention when reading.
I don't usually like love triangles, but I didn't mind it in this book. It both uses the common idea and tropes of a love triangle but it's so much more than that, too!
The Charioteer is about queer love, truth, deceit, betrayal, and self-acceptance. It's about society's ideals and norms in a time where being queer was illegal and viewed as obscene, and how that affects and influences a queer man's ideas of himself, the world, and the queer community.
Authors who're fans of Renault and/or whose work contains parallels or references to Renault's writing include C.S. Pacat, Alexis Hall, Alice Winn, and of course Cat Sebastian.
April 12, 2024
Mary Renault's The Charioteer is a landmark novel, a daring exploration of homosexual love during a repressed era.
But … it is a book that dances between beauty and unevenness.
The book shines in its portrayal of a young man, Laurie, grappling with his sexuality against the backdrop of World War II. Renault crafts beautiful moments of intimacy and yearning, particularly in Laurie's relationship with the idealised Andrew.
However, the uneven pacing and occasional meandering can disrupt the flow. The initial chapters can feel sluggish bogged down in Laurie's convalescence and introspection.
The ending, while thematically resonant, leaves you wanting more closure. While some may find it open-ended and thought-provoking, it could also be interpreted as lacking a satisfying resolution.
Laurie himself is a compelling, if frustrating, protagonist. His indecisiveness and passivity can be aggravating. Yet, this reflects Renault's strength: creating a character true to his time and circumstance. Homosexuality was ostracised, forcing Laurie into secrecy and self-denial. His internal conflict adds a layer of realism to the narrative.
Renault draws on Plato's Chariot Allegory, where the soul is a charioteer driving two horses - one representing reason, the other desire. Laurie grapples with these contrasting aspects of love through his relationships with Andrew and Ralph. Andrew offers a pure, idealised love, while Ralph embodies a more physical, passionate connection. This internal conflict is beautifully rendered, making Laurie's journey one of self-discovery.
This is a novel of contrasts. Its groundbreaking portrayal of same-sex love is undeniably important, and its exploration of self-discovery during wartime is poignant. However, the uneven pacing and occasional overwrought moments hold it back from reaching its full potential.
It is a rewarding read for those seeking a historical novel that tackles challenging themes. It's a beautiful reminder of the enduring power of love, even amidst war's brutality. However, be prepared for a slow burn and a narrative that stumbles.
3.5 to 4 stars
But … it is a book that dances between beauty and unevenness.
The book shines in its portrayal of a young man, Laurie, grappling with his sexuality against the backdrop of World War II. Renault crafts beautiful moments of intimacy and yearning, particularly in Laurie's relationship with the idealised Andrew.
However, the uneven pacing and occasional meandering can disrupt the flow. The initial chapters can feel sluggish bogged down in Laurie's convalescence and introspection.
The ending, while thematically resonant, leaves you wanting more closure. While some may find it open-ended and thought-provoking, it could also be interpreted as lacking a satisfying resolution.
Laurie himself is a compelling, if frustrating, protagonist. His indecisiveness and passivity can be aggravating. Yet, this reflects Renault's strength: creating a character true to his time and circumstance. Homosexuality was ostracised, forcing Laurie into secrecy and self-denial. His internal conflict adds a layer of realism to the narrative.
Renault draws on Plato's Chariot Allegory, where the soul is a charioteer driving two horses - one representing reason, the other desire. Laurie grapples with these contrasting aspects of love through his relationships with Andrew and Ralph. Andrew offers a pure, idealised love, while Ralph embodies a more physical, passionate connection. This internal conflict is beautifully rendered, making Laurie's journey one of self-discovery.
This is a novel of contrasts. Its groundbreaking portrayal of same-sex love is undeniably important, and its exploration of self-discovery during wartime is poignant. However, the uneven pacing and occasional overwrought moments hold it back from reaching its full potential.
It is a rewarding read for those seeking a historical novel that tackles challenging themes. It's a beautiful reminder of the enduring power of love, even amidst war's brutality. However, be prepared for a slow burn and a narrative that stumbles.
3.5 to 4 stars
December 9, 2013
The Charioteer ~ Plato
…Let us say, then, that the soul resembles the joined powers of a pair of winged horses and a charioteer. Now the horses and drivers of the gods are of equal temper and breed, but with men it is otherwise… it sinks down in the midst of heaven, and returns to its own home. And there the charioteer leads his horses to the manger, and puts ambrosia before them, with nectar for their drink. Such is the life of the gods.
*Really helps to have some understanding of this allegory prior to reading this novel.*
Laurie is the epitome of the saying “still waters run deep”. He’s unflappable. He’s profound. He’s fickle. And, if I’m being completely honest, a wee bit annoying. He strikes me as very melancholy, destined to be forever dissatisfied. He has a wealth of intellect on the human condition but, has so much trouble expressing himself.
“Life is cruel, he thought; leaving out war and all that wholesale stuff, human life is essentially cruel.”
Some rather dramatic things do happen throughout the course of The Charioteer including a failed suicide attempt all of which seemed to be taken very cerebrally. Perhaps that’s just the way things were handled during this time, I couldn’t say but, I will say it was simultaneously refreshing and frustrating to have characters handle a situation rather than becoming histrionic about it. Still, there are some things in life that require some level of emotionality.
Person A: “I have the Ebola virus.”
Laurie: “That’s all right.”
Person B: “I have Chlamydia and I’ve infected most of the tri-state area. I’m fairly certain they’re going to sue me for all I’m worth.”
Laurie: “It’s all right.”
Person C: “I’m a sociopath and I’ve come to gut you like a pig and string up your remains in the back yard.”
Laurie: “That’s all right.”
NO! No, it most certainly is not all right!
All of The Charioteer is told through Laurie and begins with him as a child finding his father packing to leave which, I believe, is a large part of Laurie’s overall melancholic attitude. Laurie has been injured in WWII and the majority of the book covers his convalescence in hospital. He meets Andrew, an orderly, and falls “in love” with him. Their love is sublimated and, by today’s standards, virtually non-existent; however, the notions of subtlety and subtext seem de rigueur in Laurie’s world. It’s a stark contrast to contemporary society but, in all likelihood is a good representation of the trials and tribulations of being gay in wartime England complete with religious fanatics looking to convert those infected with homosexuality.
All of the characters are well developed. As a matter of fact, I can’t remember the last time I read a novel and knew exactly who that person was within a paragraph or two. Laurie’s mother is the perfect 1940s woman who doesn’t acknowledge anything that runs counter to her picturesque world. If she doesn’t acknowledge it, it doesn’t exist. Laurie tells her he’s gay, she keeps talking to him about marriage and children. Ralph Lanyon, Laurie’s crush from school who he runs into again, is a drunk but a plain spoken one! He’s actually the only character that I halfway liked. On the one hand, I see him as being indifferent to the whole notion of love while, on the other I think he’s a product of society’s constraints and does the best he can within them. He’s that person that shows his love or admiration rather than stating it but, he's also a stubborn ass at times. Andrew, I considered naïve yet possessing that childlike quality of viewing the world in its simplicity. Concrete thought contains a certain intelligence while ignoring the possibilities of the abstract and said concreteness led to the instance wherein I lost all respect for him. So, the gist is I didn’t particularly like any of these characters. I understand them, I even empathize with them but like? Not so much.
However, at the end of the day, I can’t rate it anything less than 4 stars based on the prose alone. That doesn’t even take into account how much I enjoyed the era-specific lingo such as “drip”, “pal” and “riff raff”, classics in my opinion.
A leisured view of the room yielded so many awful little superfluities, so many whimsies and naughty-naughties, tassels and bits of chrome, that one recalled one’s gaze shamefaced as if one had exposed the straits of the poor.
There is some military speak which went over my head but I don’t think it took away from the overall experience. It could do with a bit more clarity regarding who's speaking in the conversations. But, there were no typos that I found. If you’re interested in a historical read, you should enjoy this. If you’re interested in action and/or romance, look elsewhere.
A copy was provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
October 12, 2023
It took me quite a while to read this. I know I checked it out of a library sometime in the late 90s, early 00s, when I read a lot of Mary Renault's historicals. I later got a copy for myself, second hand (or third, or fourth), a very battered paperback which I owned already in 2010 and I then shelved it as planning-to-read-2011-no-excuses (back when I thought I could plan what I read, lol... ).
Starting this I was reminded of why I had not read it before with all that: it's hard work. I needed to put some serious work here to figure out what was going on (my kindle reading estimates were much slower than usual for this page count!), stopping and thinking, rereading dialogues (several times the crucial bits!), dictionary checking words. This is just so full of unspoken context everywhere, and a lot of it (boys' school lingo for example, Reg's slang, 1940s general slang, hierarchy of nurses), maybe even not wanting to be censored it's one of the "hardest", most opaque novels I have read and not in a fun intentional way (like say Pale Fire).
Any sexual touch between men is totally skipped, glossed over, not mentioned, no particulars ever - I wonder if she censored herself,or if it was editor or publisher imposition . It might have been unpublishable if any less opaque, perhaps - as it is, it was published in the UK but it was not published in the USA for a few years. That ads to the cryptic-ness of what is *actually* going on.
It was worth persevering though, past the very confusing at first read chapter 2 (a few things make more sense later when characters talk about it). And then Ralph Lanyon turns up at a queer party and is very surprised and I was a goner, and it became a page turner...
So this is about Laurie, who is 23 and injured, permanently, at Dunkirk, and perfectly realizes he is gay in 1940s Britain and the love triangle he finds himself stuck with, the perfectly idealized platonic innocent pure idealistic love object and the older boy he idolized back at school, now returned and the captain who saved him from Dunkirk. I think all readers will be rooting for the same one of these guys though suspense is maintained about if the author was going to give us the choice we wanted, or perhaps even kill somebody just to maintain morality... Not sure if this is spoilers, but this book has been very popular for a long time. .
It is a fantastically compelling story, with all kinds of layers and little bits of things which feel very true, but it is a not perfect story. That opaqueness - even admitting Renault was writing for a very different audience for whom references were clear really is extreme. Some plot points are left dangling when this reader would like things a bit more tied up .The ending is wildly romantic but also overly dramatic and abrupt (but yes, satisfactory, but so over the top...).
Reading older fiction is a very different thing from reading historical fiction, so many details no modern author would dare include or perhaps even imagine: all that drunk driving! The constant smoking on hospital wards, with children also! The extremely frequent bombings and the matter of factedness people got on with their lives (Marvin's story, I will not forget that...). The perspectives sometimes, the choices, stereotypes, the reactions, concepts which have been revised since then are also clearly not what modern readers would think normal. That is all extra interesting, valuable to me.
Fantastic but flawed, and I now need a break by reading something very easy and fluffy...
Starting this I was reminded of why I had not read it before with all that: it's hard work. I needed to put some serious work here to figure out what was going on (my kindle reading estimates were much slower than usual for this page count!), stopping and thinking, rereading dialogues (several times the crucial bits!), dictionary checking words. This is just so full of unspoken context everywhere, and a lot of it (boys' school lingo for example, Reg's slang, 1940s general slang, hierarchy of nurses), maybe even not wanting to be censored it's one of the "hardest", most opaque novels I have read and not in a fun intentional way (like say Pale Fire).
Any sexual touch between men is totally skipped, glossed over, not mentioned, no particulars ever - I wonder if she censored herself,or if it was editor or publisher imposition . It might have been unpublishable if any less opaque, perhaps - as it is, it was published in the UK but it was not published in the USA for a few years. That ads to the cryptic-ness of what is *actually* going on.
It was worth persevering though, past the very confusing at first read chapter 2 (a few things make more sense later when characters talk about it). And then Ralph Lanyon turns up at a queer party and is very surprised and I was a goner, and it became a page turner...
So this is about Laurie, who is 23 and injured, permanently, at Dunkirk, and perfectly realizes he is gay in 1940s Britain and the love triangle he finds himself stuck with, the perfectly idealized platonic innocent pure idealistic love object and the older boy he idolized back at school, now returned and the captain who saved him from Dunkirk. I think all readers will be rooting for the same one of these guys though suspense is maintained about if the author was going to give us the choice we wanted, or perhaps even kill somebody just to maintain morality... Not sure if this is spoilers, but this book has been very popular for a long time. .
It is a fantastically compelling story, with all kinds of layers and little bits of things which feel very true, but it is a not perfect story. That opaqueness - even admitting Renault was writing for a very different audience for whom references were clear really is extreme. Some plot points are left dangling when this reader would like things a bit more tied up .The ending is wildly romantic but also overly dramatic and abrupt (but yes, satisfactory, but so over the top...).
Reading older fiction is a very different thing from reading historical fiction, so many details no modern author would dare include or perhaps even imagine: all that drunk driving! The constant smoking on hospital wards, with children also! The extremely frequent bombings and the matter of factedness people got on with their lives (Marvin's story, I will not forget that...). The perspectives sometimes, the choices, stereotypes, the reactions, concepts which have been revised since then are also clearly not what modern readers would think normal. That is all extra interesting, valuable to me.
Fantastic but flawed, and I now need a break by reading something very easy and fluffy...
October 29, 2008
This is my all-time favorite book, for many reasons that are hard to explain. In the simplest terms, it's a love story set in England during WWII. I'd recommend it for anybody who a) enjoys literary fiction b) is socially open-minded and c) doesn't need to be hit over the head with plot developments.
Some people have said that Mary Renault is too reserved, or too subtle in her descriptions of a scene. But I think she was a genius at capturing the real, honest essence of people and relationships. She's a master at communicating all those things that go unspoken, which can mean everything to a relationship.
If Renault has any flaw, it's almost that her characters are TOO good. It's hard not to fall in love with all of them...
Some people have said that Mary Renault is too reserved, or too subtle in her descriptions of a scene. But I think she was a genius at capturing the real, honest essence of people and relationships. She's a master at communicating all those things that go unspoken, which can mean everything to a relationship.
If Renault has any flaw, it's almost that her characters are TOO good. It's hard not to fall in love with all of them...
April 27, 2016
Today, the social justice movement it is ever so chic to belong to is that of same sex marriage. Whether this will continue past the vanilla white male couple with a couple of white male kids, whether success on this front means a tackling of the trans panic (genocide) defense law in 49 of my 50 states, whether this sensationalized narrowing of all the discrimination, the dehumanization, and the murder of all those beyond the pale of hetero/cis/etc-normativity will go the way of eradication of US slavery and granting of US white women suffrage, remains to be seen. Should this movement putter out as the non-intersectional fad it has been form fitted to be, the fearful tightrope of living portrayed in this novel will never end. The fact that this book has already incorporated itself so far into the reading community attests to how society likes to consider the issue of homosexuality and co.
Much as the subtle touch and go of a socially forbidden romance proves an indulgence to read, even more so when soaked in warfare, ancient literary influence, and the bildungsroman of a double life, I wouldn't wish it on anyone. Ongoing class discussions of a true "core" become rather superfluous in the face of what the realization of certain has historically afforded some. A span of time ago, this work's Laurie would have been considered fit to burn, but not at the stake. Later, it was anything from denial to disdain to incarceration, and it is only through an exhausting amount of acting that this work has scenes of peace, stability, and happiness. The more one has to balance the self to not be torn apart, the less one can trust inherent motivations, or know when it is necessary to bend in order to avoid the snap.
In many ways, this work plays on the stereotypes of the Euro/Neo-Euro male homosexual community, what with the beard and affiliation for Ancient Greece and the congregated promise of sexual rapacity. In others, it works through in that part-posed, part-admitted, always integrated negotiation of the self with society's response to such, one that happens to be English, classically educated, male, disabled, a veteran of war, a lover of men, and ever, ever so young. From this, one can see same sex marriage is only a grain in the sand.
Love, even under the most encouraged of circumstances, can be a nasty business. One may enjoy reading the narratives of yesteryear, but it's time for the multifarious social inhibitions to be holistically reevaluated. Too much life is caught up and cut for any argument of resulting benefit to hold.
Much as the subtle touch and go of a socially forbidden romance proves an indulgence to read, even more so when soaked in warfare, ancient literary influence, and the bildungsroman of a double life, I wouldn't wish it on anyone. Ongoing class discussions of a true "core" become rather superfluous in the face of what the realization of certain has historically afforded some. A span of time ago, this work's Laurie would have been considered fit to burn, but not at the stake. Later, it was anything from denial to disdain to incarceration, and it is only through an exhausting amount of acting that this work has scenes of peace, stability, and happiness. The more one has to balance the self to not be torn apart, the less one can trust inherent motivations, or know when it is necessary to bend in order to avoid the snap.
In many ways, this work plays on the stereotypes of the Euro/Neo-Euro male homosexual community, what with the beard and affiliation for Ancient Greece and the congregated promise of sexual rapacity. In others, it works through in that part-posed, part-admitted, always integrated negotiation of the self with society's response to such, one that happens to be English, classically educated, male, disabled, a veteran of war, a lover of men, and ever, ever so young. From this, one can see same sex marriage is only a grain in the sand.
Love, even under the most encouraged of circumstances, can be a nasty business. One may enjoy reading the narratives of yesteryear, but it's time for the multifarious social inhibitions to be holistically reevaluated. Too much life is caught up and cut for any argument of resulting benefit to hold.
September 2, 2017
It's official, I worship Mary Renault.
If there ever was a novel that explored homo-romantic (platonic) love this is it.
Laurie was severely wounded at Dunkirk and is in convalescence, being treated in a military hospital. The setting is one Renault knew well and it is apparent in all of the details and characters that make up the backbone of the story. Laurie knows he's gay but of course back then you wouldn't call it that. He carries with him Plato's Phadrus which has a passage where Socrates explains the myth/analogy of The Charioteer who holds the reigns on two horses that each equal in strength pull in opposite directions. This is the theme of the book. Laurie's painful struggle to reign in his nature while his heart pulls the other way.
His object of desire is Andrew a Quaker and conscious objector who has newly been hired as an orderly at the hospital. Andrew is shy, kind, devoted and sure of his ideals. He's a pacifist but not a coward. Soon Laurie and he begin a friendship that could with one touch or kiss turn into a love affair.
But Laurie is convinced that Andrew doesn't know his own nature yet. That Andrew hasn't realized that he is gay and because Laurie still believes one can change and marry and all that jazz, he holds back from Andrew to save him the terrible discovery of his nature.
Of course you have to forgive Laurie, this is 1940.
Now the other horse enters and he is Ralph, a handsome, reserved and generous naval officer also injured at Dunkirk. Actually Laurie knows him...
Ralph was house master back at school and Laurie had a crush on him though he didn't know to call it that. Now as he gets to spend time with Ralph while he has his evening passes, Laurie understands that it's possible to love and touch.
Yet he still longs for Andrew who represents innocence lost.
In the end I won't tell you which horse wins but it's a serene ending with an undertone of loss as well.
It is a subtle, poignant, extremely honest portrayal of gay love in the time when it was still a crime.
I loved every line.
If there ever was a novel that explored homo-romantic (platonic) love this is it.
Laurie was severely wounded at Dunkirk and is in convalescence, being treated in a military hospital. The setting is one Renault knew well and it is apparent in all of the details and characters that make up the backbone of the story. Laurie knows he's gay but of course back then you wouldn't call it that. He carries with him Plato's Phadrus which has a passage where Socrates explains the myth/analogy of The Charioteer who holds the reigns on two horses that each equal in strength pull in opposite directions. This is the theme of the book. Laurie's painful struggle to reign in his nature while his heart pulls the other way.
His object of desire is Andrew a Quaker and conscious objector who has newly been hired as an orderly at the hospital. Andrew is shy, kind, devoted and sure of his ideals. He's a pacifist but not a coward. Soon Laurie and he begin a friendship that could with one touch or kiss turn into a love affair.
But Laurie is convinced that Andrew doesn't know his own nature yet. That Andrew hasn't realized that he is gay and because Laurie still believes one can change and marry and all that jazz, he holds back from Andrew to save him the terrible discovery of his nature.
Of course you have to forgive Laurie, this is 1940.
Now the other horse enters and he is Ralph, a handsome, reserved and generous naval officer also injured at Dunkirk. Actually Laurie knows him...
Ralph was house master back at school and Laurie had a crush on him though he didn't know to call it that. Now as he gets to spend time with Ralph while he has his evening passes, Laurie understands that it's possible to love and touch.
Yet he still longs for Andrew who represents innocence lost.
In the end I won't tell you which horse wins but it's a serene ending with an undertone of loss as well.
It is a subtle, poignant, extremely honest portrayal of gay love in the time when it was still a crime.
I loved every line.
May 31, 2012
It's impossible for me to rate certain books objectively, because of the life-changing impact they had on me.
I read The Charioteer in 1976, when I was 13. I knew I was different, but not in a way that bore mentioning or even secret acknowledgement in the ulta-macho Greece of that time. The only gay man I was aware of was a guy, who sold feather dusters around the centre of Athens; he was campy, outspoken, mocked, and it scared me that I might be like him.
Even though I didn't understand all the subtext until years later, reading The Charioteer led me to understand what I am and what I might become. These aren't heroic characters, though they can be that, too. They're sometimes decent, sometimes petty. They drink too much, hide their fears behind rigid ideologies and codes of behavior, and in their effort to define their own place in the world, spend a lot of time judging others. And against the backdrop of war, it's easy to forget how very young they all are. But they remain deeply, incontestably human, a depiction of gay men I'd never seen until that time.
I don't know if first-time readers today would have the same reaction. It can be a slow book, with a lot of introspection about issues, which have, in many societies, been resolved today. I liked the pace, because at the time I was working through some of the same issues, and I still like it today, because I still don't know if I have answers to some of the questions The Charioteer helped me formulate back then. It's a romance, of sorts, but not really; rather the backdrop of loving and being loved serves to bring all the other emotions and feelings to the surface and to make them especially sharp.
I read The Charioteer in 1976, when I was 13. I knew I was different, but not in a way that bore mentioning or even secret acknowledgement in the ulta-macho Greece of that time. The only gay man I was aware of was a guy, who sold feather dusters around the centre of Athens; he was campy, outspoken, mocked, and it scared me that I might be like him.
Even though I didn't understand all the subtext until years later, reading The Charioteer led me to understand what I am and what I might become. These aren't heroic characters, though they can be that, too. They're sometimes decent, sometimes petty. They drink too much, hide their fears behind rigid ideologies and codes of behavior, and in their effort to define their own place in the world, spend a lot of time judging others. And against the backdrop of war, it's easy to forget how very young they all are. But they remain deeply, incontestably human, a depiction of gay men I'd never seen until that time.
I don't know if first-time readers today would have the same reaction. It can be a slow book, with a lot of introspection about issues, which have, in many societies, been resolved today. I liked the pace, because at the time I was working through some of the same issues, and I still like it today, because I still don't know if I have answers to some of the questions The Charioteer helped me formulate back then. It's a romance, of sorts, but not really; rather the backdrop of loving and being loved serves to bring all the other emotions and feelings to the surface and to make them especially sharp.
June 11, 2010
It’s hard for me to do a review of this book for many reasons. It seems a bit cheeky for me to even try – and it’s been around for so long I would imagine that just about everyone I know has read it, but if this review tempts one person who hasn’t to give it a whirl, then I’ll have achieved something. So perhaps it’s less of a review and more of a personal rave. That I love it, is a given.
It’s a simple enough story on the surface. Laurie, young idealistic, attempts to defend Ralph, the head boy at his school, when he is about to be sent down for “misbehaving with a younger boy.” Ralph finds out before Laurie can act and warns him off. During the discussion Ralph gives Laurie a copy of Plato’s Phaedrus which he keeps with him and uses as a model for his life. Time moves on – World War 2 happens and we next catch up with Laurie in hospital where he’s developing a heavy crush on a concientious objector, Andrew – and then he meets Ralph again.
The Charioteer is the thread and metaphor which runs throughout the book. The Charioteer of Phaedrus handles two horses, one runs smoothly and obediently, the other fights against the control – it is up to the charioteer to make them run as a pair. The parallels for the charioteer are myriad – the comparison between “normal” sexual behaviour and the homosexual – the love that Laurie feels for Andrew and the relationship he eventually forms with Ralph to name just two.
I’m sure there are tons of themes that the more intellectual have found/discussed to the skies, but the best thing for me is that it’s a lesson in how to write – without actually writing. The book is sparse to the extreme, it’s like she wrote a much longer book and then cut huge hunks out of the middles of each scene. Conversations are handled in real time, characters don’t finish sentences, and there are utterly intriguing gaps where the reader “loses time” – where something may have happened, a look, a kiss or a sex scene. It’s amazingly skilful and all I could do was smash my keyboard to pieces in frustration that I’ll never come close to that.
The characters are indelibly imprinted on my mind, all except perhaps Andrew, which is probably deliberate because we see him only through Laurie’s eyes and Laurie isn’t objective. I found him too remote to be interesting, whereas the characters that Laurie meets at the queer party he attends are stronger – and my heart broke over the young airman who comes over brash and unbearable until you think about what he’s doing, for his job. Ralph is irresistable – as Laurie finds him to be, and I really felt the attraction, he’s quite my favourite character – but all of them are amazingly well done, complex, contrary, stupid and real.
One of the best books I’ve ever read – regardless of theme – and one of the Essential Reads for anyone interested in the genre, in my opinion.
It’s a simple enough story on the surface. Laurie, young idealistic, attempts to defend Ralph, the head boy at his school, when he is about to be sent down for “misbehaving with a younger boy.” Ralph finds out before Laurie can act and warns him off. During the discussion Ralph gives Laurie a copy of Plato’s Phaedrus which he keeps with him and uses as a model for his life. Time moves on – World War 2 happens and we next catch up with Laurie in hospital where he’s developing a heavy crush on a concientious objector, Andrew – and then he meets Ralph again.
The Charioteer is the thread and metaphor which runs throughout the book. The Charioteer of Phaedrus handles two horses, one runs smoothly and obediently, the other fights against the control – it is up to the charioteer to make them run as a pair. The parallels for the charioteer are myriad – the comparison between “normal” sexual behaviour and the homosexual – the love that Laurie feels for Andrew and the relationship he eventually forms with Ralph to name just two.
I’m sure there are tons of themes that the more intellectual have found/discussed to the skies, but the best thing for me is that it’s a lesson in how to write – without actually writing. The book is sparse to the extreme, it’s like she wrote a much longer book and then cut huge hunks out of the middles of each scene. Conversations are handled in real time, characters don’t finish sentences, and there are utterly intriguing gaps where the reader “loses time” – where something may have happened, a look, a kiss or a sex scene. It’s amazingly skilful and all I could do was smash my keyboard to pieces in frustration that I’ll never come close to that.
The characters are indelibly imprinted on my mind, all except perhaps Andrew, which is probably deliberate because we see him only through Laurie’s eyes and Laurie isn’t objective. I found him too remote to be interesting, whereas the characters that Laurie meets at the queer party he attends are stronger – and my heart broke over the young airman who comes over brash and unbearable until you think about what he’s doing, for his job. Ralph is irresistable – as Laurie finds him to be, and I really felt the attraction, he’s quite my favourite character – but all of them are amazingly well done, complex, contrary, stupid and real.
One of the best books I’ve ever read – regardless of theme – and one of the Essential Reads for anyone interested in the genre, in my opinion.
September 4, 2020
First read of September and it was a good one!
Set among war torn Britain during the blitz, the story centers around a gay soldier (Laurie, or Spud/Spuddy to those who know him) and his struggle with his affections for a sweet, mild conchie man who works at the hospital and his ex school fellow whom he runs into while recovering from a nasty leg injury incurred at Dunkirk.
There's a lot to absolutely love here - beautifully woven relationships, gorgeous prose, characters with a great psychological depth to them - the whole scenario is very real. Some reviewers have stated that the supporting cast of gay men are all bitchy queens and this is offensive, but to me I think that's not necessarily the case - anyone will know that people with this sort of personality do exist, but even so, characters such as Bunny had a certain depth to them - a sad inability to keep up with the Plato-spewing glorified main gay characters which manifested in petty actions. It all seemed very authentic.
Renault also has a fabulous way of writing a paragraph full of meaning that you really need to knuckle down with and reread a couple of times to fully understand. In a more ordinary story this would be frustrating, but here it echoes the secrecy of the gay characters and their need to remain hidden. Things are kept on the down low even to the reader, and in a way where you have to strip back the layers to really understand what's going on. Masterful stuff. There is an argument that this makes the story feel antiseptic and without sexual desire, but I disagree here too - it's a sort of closed desire, a pure kind of attraction - it's subtle but powerful.
My only real problem with this novel is that it didn't end how I wanted it to - although the ending is definitely on the more positive side. I think I too was suckered in by the other candidate of the love triangle and felt that Laurie deserved better, but I see how this ending does make more sense in the grand scheme of things and, perhaps, is more romantic in some ways.
A landmark piece of gay literature that deserves more attention.
4.5 - 5 stars
Set among war torn Britain during the blitz, the story centers around a gay soldier (Laurie, or Spud/Spuddy to those who know him) and his struggle with his affections for a sweet, mild conchie man who works at the hospital and his ex school fellow whom he runs into while recovering from a nasty leg injury incurred at Dunkirk.
There's a lot to absolutely love here - beautifully woven relationships, gorgeous prose, characters with a great psychological depth to them - the whole scenario is very real. Some reviewers have stated that the supporting cast of gay men are all bitchy queens and this is offensive, but to me I think that's not necessarily the case - anyone will know that people with this sort of personality do exist, but even so, characters such as Bunny had a certain depth to them - a sad inability to keep up with the Plato-spewing glorified main gay characters which manifested in petty actions. It all seemed very authentic.
Renault also has a fabulous way of writing a paragraph full of meaning that you really need to knuckle down with and reread a couple of times to fully understand. In a more ordinary story this would be frustrating, but here it echoes the secrecy of the gay characters and their need to remain hidden. Things are kept on the down low even to the reader, and in a way where you have to strip back the layers to really understand what's going on. Masterful stuff. There is an argument that this makes the story feel antiseptic and without sexual desire, but I disagree here too - it's a sort of closed desire, a pure kind of attraction - it's subtle but powerful.
My only real problem with this novel is that it didn't end how I wanted it to - although the ending is definitely on the more positive side. I think I too was suckered in by the other candidate of the love triangle and felt that Laurie deserved better, but I see how this ending does make more sense in the grand scheme of things and, perhaps, is more romantic in some ways.
A landmark piece of gay literature that deserves more attention.
4.5 - 5 stars
January 18, 2025
Brb, unpacking all of the symbolism of a festering wound for the next 3-5 business days.
Man, this book wrecked me. It wouldn't be a Renault book without me begging for a 200 page epilogue and wishing for a line-by-line explanation from the author herself. The surface-level detail is so sparse that you cling to it and the story forces you to dig deeper because you need to know exactly why these characters made these decisions.
And the characters are so imperfect and flawed that 90% of the time you're feeling unmoored and wishing they just said something different or they acted in a slightly different manner.
Reading about wartime masculinity is good fun though - half of the time you're like 'oh I wonder what this character is feeling/thinking', but the best part is that they're repressing so much, that they don't even know! So when they say something extra hurtful in a fight, it's a surprise to them too! And this is why Laurie is such a fascinating narrator. He's oblivious, yes, but he wilfully refuses to recognise truths about himself and others.
The parallels between the couples is just so painful. Renault plays with your allegiances so well that it's only at the end of the book that you can see the full picture and what and who the book was always about.
Need to read this a few more times. I bought the unedited 1953 version which contains a bit more detail and I will cling to those missing sentences with all of my strength.
Altogether: significantly less dense than Renault's Greek works (though that may partially be because you're not trying to remember the ins and outs of the Macedonian army ranks), beautifully written. Renault would 100% be a classic author if it weren't for being a queer woman writing about the gays and all that.
(Also recommending the audiobook!)
Man, this book wrecked me. It wouldn't be a Renault book without me begging for a 200 page epilogue and wishing for a line-by-line explanation from the author herself. The surface-level detail is so sparse that you cling to it and the story forces you to dig deeper because you need to know exactly why these characters made these decisions.
And the characters are so imperfect and flawed that 90% of the time you're feeling unmoored and wishing they just said something different or they acted in a slightly different manner.
Reading about wartime masculinity is good fun though - half of the time you're like 'oh I wonder what this character is feeling/thinking', but the best part is that they're repressing so much, that they don't even know! So when they say something extra hurtful in a fight, it's a surprise to them too! And this is why Laurie is such a fascinating narrator. He's oblivious, yes, but he wilfully refuses to recognise truths about himself and others.
The parallels between the couples is just so painful. Renault plays with your allegiances so well that it's only at the end of the book that you can see the full picture and what and who the book was always about.
Need to read this a few more times. I bought the unedited 1953 version which contains a bit more detail and I will cling to those missing sentences with all of my strength.
Altogether: significantly less dense than Renault's Greek works (though that may partially be because you're not trying to remember the ins and outs of the Macedonian army ranks), beautifully written. Renault would 100% be a classic author if it weren't for being a queer woman writing about the gays and all that.
(Also recommending the audiobook!)
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