re: the ending of Return to Night: when naraht did a readathon for it, I said not completely tongue-in-cheekly that given the Falstaff line, Julian better not put on any weight, or Hilary will fall out of love and dump him immediately.
Return to Night and The Charioteer are the only two non-historical Renaults I've read, both as part of a naraht organized reading group, and I found them fascinating to read and discuss - but in an emotionally distant way. (Re: The Charioteer, I also had expected something completely different than what it was due to what I had (mis-)osmosed through fandom. More about my reaction when I read it the first time here.)
re: Mary Renault as a person, having then read the Sweetman biography of her, in most case, I dislike "blame the parents" as a too easy excuse, but in this case: really, blame the parents. The mother was as horrible as all the mother figures in her various works make it easy to guess, and the father wasn't any good, either, though in a less abrasive way. It's a not so minor miracle she managed a live long good relationship with another woman at all, given the circumstances. This said, Renault if the biography is anything to go by was a complicated mix of good and bad, as are most people, but what really made me feel a bit warmer towards her than I used to when reading her books is that I wrote her as a character for a Yuletide story (that's what I had to read the biography for), Saving Mrs. Fleming, in which she encounters Alfred Hitchcock.
no subject
Return to Night and The Charioteer are the only two non-historical Renaults I've read, both as part of a
re: Mary Renault as a person, having then read the Sweetman biography of her, in most case, I dislike "blame the parents" as a too easy excuse, but in this case: really, blame the parents. The mother was as horrible as all the mother figures in her various works make it easy to guess, and the father wasn't any good, either, though in a less abrasive way. It's a not so minor miracle she managed a live long good relationship with another woman at all, given the circumstances. This said, Renault if the biography is anything to go by was a complicated mix of good and bad, as are most people, but what really made me feel a bit warmer towards her than I used to when reading her books is that I wrote her as a character for a Yuletide story (that's what I had to read the biography for), Saving Mrs. Fleming, in which she encounters Alfred Hitchcock.