Mary Renault (1905–1983)
Author of The King Must Die
About the Author
Image credit: Mary Renault. (Photo from Wikipedia)
Series
Works by Mary Renault
Walk the Night 1 copy
Story of Archaeology, The 1 copy
Písní tě chválím 1 copy
Παράξενες φιλίες 1 copy
Associated Works
The Collected Classical Stories and Classic Who Dunnits/boxed Set (2 volume set) (1996) — Contributor — 27 copies
The Best of Both Worlds: An Anthology of Stories for All Ages (1968) — Contributor — 25 copies, 1 review
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Renault, Mary
- Legal name
- Challans, Eileen Mary
- Other names
- Challans, Mary
- Birthdate
- 1905-09-04
- Date of death
- 1983-12-13
- Gender
- female
- Education
- St. Hugh's College, Oxford (English | BA | 1928)
University of Oxford (Radcliffe Infirmary) - Occupations
- nurse
novelist
biographer
radio writer - Organizations
- Black Sash Movement
International PEN - Awards and honors
- Royal Society of Literature (Fellow, 1959)
Silver Pen Award (1971) - Agent
- Gordon Wise (Curtis Brown)
- Relationships
- Mullard, Julie (partner)
- Short biography
- Mary Renault received a degree in English from Oxford University in 1928. In 1933 she began training as a nurse at the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford. During her training, she met Julie Mullard, a fellow nurse, with whom she established a lifelong romantic relationship.
Renault worked as a nurse while beginning a writing career, publishing her first novel, Purposes of Love, in 1939. Her historical novels, set in ancient Greece, were popular throughout the English-speaking world. In 1948, after her novel Return to Night won a prize worth $150,000, Renault and Mullard emigrated to South Africa, where they lived together for the rest of their lives. They were critical of apartheid and participated in the Black Sash movement in the 1950s. - Cause of death
- cancer
- Nationality
- UK
- Birthplace
- Forest Gate, Essex, England, UK
- Places of residence
- Durban, South Africa
Cape Town, South Africa - Place of death
- Cape Town, South Africa
- Burial location
- Cremated
- Map Location
- England, UK
Members
Discussions
British Author Challenge February 2022: Mary Renault & Timothy Mo in 75 Books Challenge for 2022 (August 2022)
Mary Renault's Alexander Trilogy in Folio Society Devotees (December 2013)
Mary Renault in Book talk (July 2013)
Reviews
Simply beautiful. A great part of this book's magic stems from Renault's mastery of dialogue. Her characters' speech is lively, rich in undertones, and couched in the context of their relationships and historical space. A great deal is left unsaid, giving one the sense that each presented dialogue just skims the surface of the speakers' inner lives. The more introspective passages of the novel are stylistically distinct but just as well-crafted, replete with striking metaphors and beautiful show more lines. Psychoanalytic and Classicist influences are strong. It's not an easy book to read, but it is a reflective one--the reader is rewarded for rereading a sentence or section two or three times with a glimpse of understanding into a complex emotional landscape, and maybe something larger. It's not just a book about one man's experience with love, but about the nature of love itself--not a topic that ought to be approached in simple terms, especially at a time when gay love is not even supposed to be a topic of conversation at all. show less
Ha egy görögökről szóló jó történelmi regény ismérve, hogy az ember egy picit görög akar lenni utána, akkor ez egy jó történelmi regény. Mary Renault a műfaj klasszikus hagyományaiból építkezik – regénye egyfelől útikönyv egy eltűnt időről és helyről, gusztusos időutazás, másfelől pedig egy jelentős (bár nem feltétlenül közismert) történelmi esemény eredeti interpretációja. És nem mellesleg celebspotting, amiben a jelenkori olvasó show more belebámulhat bizonyos azóta elporladt hírességek sorsába is. E könyv fő celebje maga Platón, a cselekmény gócpontjában pedig az áll, ahogy a kaporszakállú bölcs megkísérli filozófiai elméletét az államról a valóságba integrálni, és a vajgerincű, gyenge jellemű szicíliai zsarnok, Dionüsziosz mentoraként kialakítani a tökéletes kormányzatot. Itt már tetten érhető a kötet első ellentétpárja: a letisztult filozófia meg a racionális ész áll szemben az egyéni gyarlósággal, no meg a politikai machinációk, a kétszínűség futóhomokjával. Akik vettek részt ókortörténeti vagy filozófiai szigorlaton, talán emlékeznek, sikeres volt-e a platóni nekifeszülés, a többieknek meg elspoilerezem: nem. Hihetetlenül érdekes téma, remek diktátor-arckép, sallangmentes ábrázolása annak, mit tesz a hatalom az ember lelkével, és hogy rágja le róla mindazt, amit a jó szándéknak addig sikerült felépítenie.
Mindez azonban csak egy lyukas garast érne (lyukatlant semmiképp), ha az elbeszélő személye nem lenne ilyen jól megcsinálva. Renault hőse Nikératosz, aki athéni és aki színész – ezzel a két jelzővel pedig a szerző újabb ellentéteket is beemel a szövegbe. Egyfelől Nikératosz athéniként demokrata, és ösztönösen ellenérzésekkel viseltetik a zsarnokság mindenféle megnyilvánulása iránt (igen, még Platón esetleges zsarnoksága iránt is), másfelől meg színész, ami azért is praktikus, mert így 1.) van ürügye végigturnézni az akkori ismert világot 2.) módot ad Renaultnak arra, hogy fitogtathassa széles körű tudását a korszak színművészetéről, amely színművészet baromi érdekes dolog ám. De ami a legfontosabb: Nikératosz emellett talpig becsületes is, mentes az irigységtől, elkötelezett mind barátai, mind hivatása iránt – és ha ez a két elköteleződés szembe kerül egymással, akkor nem rest bátor döntést hozni, olyat, ami ha kényelmetlen vagy veszedelmes is, de mindig felismerni benne a lelkiismeret parancsát. Minden ízében szimpatikus fazon, én nagyon bírtam.
Jól össze van rakva a könyv, számos olyan síkot futtat, amiben öröm volt elmerülni. Ahogy az egyszeri moly-értékelő mondaná: „fogok még a szerzőtől olvasni”. show less
Mindez azonban csak egy lyukas garast érne (lyukatlant semmiképp), ha az elbeszélő személye nem lenne ilyen jól megcsinálva. Renault hőse Nikératosz, aki athéni és aki színész – ezzel a két jelzővel pedig a szerző újabb ellentéteket is beemel a szövegbe. Egyfelől Nikératosz athéniként demokrata, és ösztönösen ellenérzésekkel viseltetik a zsarnokság mindenféle megnyilvánulása iránt (igen, még Platón esetleges zsarnoksága iránt is), másfelől meg színész, ami azért is praktikus, mert így 1.) van ürügye végigturnézni az akkori ismert világot 2.) módot ad Renaultnak arra, hogy fitogtathassa széles körű tudását a korszak színművészetéről, amely színművészet baromi érdekes dolog ám. De ami a legfontosabb: Nikératosz emellett talpig becsületes is, mentes az irigységtől, elkötelezett mind barátai, mind hivatása iránt – és ha ez a két elköteleződés szembe kerül egymással, akkor nem rest bátor döntést hozni, olyat, ami ha kényelmetlen vagy veszedelmes is, de mindig felismerni benne a lelkiismeret parancsát. Minden ízében szimpatikus fazon, én nagyon bírtam.
Jól össze van rakva a könyv, számos olyan síkot futtat, amiben öröm volt elmerülni. Ahogy az egyszeri moly-értékelő mondaná: „fogok még a szerzőtől olvasni”. show less
My introduction to Mary Renault was The King Must Die, the first of two novels about Theseus--it was actually assigned reading in high school. What impressed me so much there was how she took a figure out of myth and grounded him historically. After that I quickly gobbled up all of Renault's works of historical fiction set in Ancient Greece. The two novels about Theseus and the trilogy centered on Alexander the Great are undoubtedly her most famous of those eight novels.
The first book of show more that trilogy Fire from Heaven, is about the young Alexander of Macedon before his famous conquests, ending with his inheriting the Kingdom of Macedon. I was fascinated by the portrait drawn of him and his family--and his teacher--Aristotle. It also draws vivid portraits of his "Companions" who helped him conquer much of the civilized world surrounding the Mediterranean and divide it between them after his death. Hephaistion is his particular close friend and lover. That was probably a shock to me as a sheltered young teen, pre-AIDS when homosexuality just wasn't very visible. What was amazing was the picture of a society where this was not just tolerated but completely accepted, and this novel (and her novel The Last of the Wine also featuring a homosexual relationship) made an indelible impression on me--more than any kind of lecture on tolerance. The second book, The Persian Boy, is Alexander seen through the eyes of another of his lovers, Bagoas, covers the period of this conquest, and is every bit as remarkable. I thought Funeral Games a bit of a disappointment after those first two, but it missed a lot with Alexander's absence, dealing with the aftermath of his death.
And this was one of those books that cemented my love of historical fiction and fascination with Ancient Greece. If I have any criticism, it's that Renault's Alexander is too much the paragon. You get the feeling Renault was more than in love with her Alexander. But it's certainly not a criticism that occurred to me while I was reading this--given how fully I was under Renault's spell. Nor am I the only one entranced by these books--you can definitely see the influence of the Alexander trilogy on such books as Jo Graham's Stealing Fire about the wake of Alexander's death and Madeline Miller's Song of Achilles. show less
The first book of show more that trilogy Fire from Heaven, is about the young Alexander of Macedon before his famous conquests, ending with his inheriting the Kingdom of Macedon. I was fascinated by the portrait drawn of him and his family--and his teacher--Aristotle. It also draws vivid portraits of his "Companions" who helped him conquer much of the civilized world surrounding the Mediterranean and divide it between them after his death. Hephaistion is his particular close friend and lover. That was probably a shock to me as a sheltered young teen, pre-AIDS when homosexuality just wasn't very visible. What was amazing was the picture of a society where this was not just tolerated but completely accepted, and this novel (and her novel The Last of the Wine also featuring a homosexual relationship) made an indelible impression on me--more than any kind of lecture on tolerance. The second book, The Persian Boy, is Alexander seen through the eyes of another of his lovers, Bagoas, covers the period of this conquest, and is every bit as remarkable. I thought Funeral Games a bit of a disappointment after those first two, but it missed a lot with Alexander's absence, dealing with the aftermath of his death.
And this was one of those books that cemented my love of historical fiction and fascination with Ancient Greece. If I have any criticism, it's that Renault's Alexander is too much the paragon. You get the feeling Renault was more than in love with her Alexander. But it's certainly not a criticism that occurred to me while I was reading this--given how fully I was under Renault's spell. Nor am I the only one entranced by these books--you can definitely see the influence of the Alexander trilogy on such books as Jo Graham's Stealing Fire about the wake of Alexander's death and Madeline Miller's Song of Achilles. show less
Theseus grows up in Troizen, though to his mind he doesn't actually grow anywhere near enough, believing himself to be the son of Poseidon. This turns out to not be literally true, but Theseus is a devout and sincere matter-of-fact believer, and he hears the voice of the god, so he has two fathers, one a god and one the beleaguered king of Athens. On the way to join his father, he becomes part of a yearly ceremony where an old king dies and a new one marries the queen. Theseus knows that he show more himself will die when the year is out, but submits to the logic of the rites and sacrifices. Avoiding his fate, he eventually joins his father, only to find himself, for similar reasons of rite and sacrifice and obligation, to volunteer himself as part of the annual tribute to Crete. There as a slave he is made into a bull dancer, and because of his pride and confidence and inner certainty, he becomes a supreme bull dancer while remaining true to himself and his sea-god father.
This is told in the voice of Theseus, tough, matter-of-fact and generally straightforward except when he tries to deduce the reasoning of the gods and obey their will and do them honour. He is proud and fierce and pragmatic, but also clear-sighted and sensible. An unusual hero for his grounded sense of his own importance and the profound responsibilities that go with it, particularly his acceptance of the probability that at some point he will have to be made into a human sacrifice. This is a theme that recurs through the book, and the inherent corruption rotting the heart of Crete and bringing down the wrath of the gods is their failure to make this due observance.
A strong, sturdy, sensuous, earthy book, this is an amazingly vivid and fascinating retelling of the old myth as a series of historical events that are nonetheless drenched in the everyday reality of belief on the gods. Brilliant. show less
This is told in the voice of Theseus, tough, matter-of-fact and generally straightforward except when he tries to deduce the reasoning of the gods and obey their will and do them honour. He is proud and fierce and pragmatic, but also clear-sighted and sensible. An unusual hero for his grounded sense of his own importance and the profound responsibilities that go with it, particularly his acceptance of the probability that at some point he will have to be made into a human sacrifice. This is a theme that recurs through the book, and the inherent corruption rotting the heart of Crete and bringing down the wrath of the gods is their failure to make this due observance.
A strong, sturdy, sensuous, earthy book, this is an amazingly vivid and fascinating retelling of the old myth as a series of historical events that are nonetheless drenched in the everyday reality of belief on the gods. Brilliant. show less
Lists
SFFCat 2015 (1)
Asia (1)
Five star books (1)
1970s (1)
Lost Gay Novels (1)
Booker Prize (1)
Ancient Crete (2)
Nifty Fifties (2)
Female Author (2)
1950s (2)
THE WAR ROOM (5)
Read This Next (1)
Wish List (1)
Fiction For Men (1)
1970 Club (1)
Overdue Podcast (1)
War Literature (1)
Awards
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Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 25
- Also by
- 5
- Members
- 18,952
- Popularity
- #1,153
- Rating
- 3.9
- Reviews
- 333
- ISBNs
- 445
- Languages
- 17
- Favorited
- 107
