Book Review: Return to Night

[osprey_archer]

I don’t know if I’ve grown desensitized to Mary Renault, or if Return to Night is simply less agonizing than her other books, but I made it through the whole thing without screaming even once, although there were definitely moments when I went “Oh, Mary, you and your Oedipus complex kink.”

And by “moments” I mean the time that Julian recounts a dream where he kills his father - who died when he was a baby! Can you be Oedipal about a father you never met? I mean in the Freudian sense; obviously Oedipus DID kill a father he’d never met… And Julian’s entire relationship with his mother. And also the fact that I’m like 75% sure that we are meant to believe that when Julian was brought into the cottage hospital with a head injury, he mistook Dr. Hilary Mansel for his mother, or rather a nice version of his mother who actually loves him, and that’s why he fell in love with her.

There’s also a Portentous Cave which is symbolic of both The Womb and Death. Plus Mary Renault’s Thoughts about the Nature of Men and Women. (There might be a novel out there which is not diminished by its author’s theorizing about The Nature of Men and Women, but I haven’t met it yet.)

Okay, I’m making fun of it a bit, because how can you NOT when the author got their id all over the page like this. But actually I mostly enjoyed this book. The main romance between 23-year-old Julian Fleming and 34-year-old Dr. Hilary Mansel is sweeter than anything so laden with Oedipal overtones has any right to be. The book deals honestly with the possible difficulties of this relationship - people might think Hilary got her claws in Julian when he was briefly her patient; Hilary is concerned that Julian’s feelings for her will change as she ages - without cludging up the narrative with unhappiness. Yes, other people might think things (probably will think things, people being people), and yes, feelings do change over time sometimes, but overall Hilary and Julian just seem to make each other happy, and surely that’s the most important thing.

I also really liked Hilary’s friendship with her landlady, Lisa, and Lisa’s relationship with her husband Rupert; Lisa and Rupert adore each other but their natures are so at odds (Lisa is a homebody, Rupert a foreign correspondent with a powerful wanderlust) that it’s hard for them to live together. One of the joys of reading Mary Renault is that the side characters often feel as real as the mains: they are not there just as supporting props, but are people with lives and struggles of their own.

…and okay I did kind of want Hilary and Lisa to fall in love over their cozy evening cups of tea, even though I actually liked both Hilary/Julian and Lisa/Rupert just fine. But also COME ON Hilary and Lisa are RIGHT THERE and they get along SO WELL and they look after each other so sweetly.

Comments

[kore]

and okay I did kind of want Hilary and Lisa to fall in love over their cozy evening cups of tea

Damn, too late for Yuletide....

[osprey_archer]

I seem to be hitting a lot of "Damn, too late for Yuletide..." books these last few months! Next year I should plan better and find a spate of gay William Dean Howells books in, oh, August perhaps.

[regshoe]

I do love this book, ridiculous authorial iddiness and Portentous Cave and all. And I agree about Hilary/Julian—Renault is so determined on the idea that it's at once Fated to Be and Doomed, in much the same way as some of her other pairings, and yet I can't really accept that it is like that, I just think that Hilary and Julian go well together and they make each other happy and I hope they keep doing so, whatever the doom and caves and dodgy thoughts on gender have to say about it.

Oh dear, I think your 75% suspicion is probably correct.

Aah, I completely agree about Hilary/Lisa! So lovely. But far too sensible a pairing for a Renault novel, I'm afraid :D

(Although, mind you, Sam and James—who are in a scene cut from some editions of this book, did you get them?—are a good one).

[osprey_archer]

Renault loves her Fated yet Doomed pairings and I will just politely stand over here going "MAYBE NOT SO DOOMED AFTER ALL THO??" Hilary and Julian just really do seem to make each other happy! Why shouldn't they continue to be happy together? Aside from the fact that Hilary now has the mother-in-law from Hell, but I'm sure they can figure out a way to see as little of Mrs. Fleming as possible.

My edition didn't have the Sam scene but someone transcribed it over on troisoiseaux's entry about the book, so I have read it. I expect they are allowed to get along because they are such minor characters! If they had multiple appearances I'm sure Renault would have felt compelled to make their relationship dysfunctional.

[troisoiseaux]

I expect they are allowed to get along because they are such minor characters!

Now I want a Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead-style fic of Sam and James dodging the Author's efforts to make them bigger characters and thus having to have a dysfunctional relationship. ("But I don't want to have an Oedipus complex, thank you!")

[regshoe]

XD I would totally read that.

[osprey_archer]

"Think of the conflicts you could project onto your Aunt Hilary!" yells Mary Renault, chasing Sam with an Oedipus Complexifier Ray.

"I would rather not!" yells Sam.

But Renault is relentlessly, and in the end Sam and James grab hands and leap entirely out of the book to escape.

[regshoe]

I mean, there is also the war... but I'm sure they'll get through that. It'll certainly provide more opportunities for Hilary's career.

Oh, good! Sam and James are lovely, it's such a shame they were cut. Although, heh, that's very true.

[sovay]

Aside from the fact that Hilary now has the mother-in-law from Hell, but I'm sure they can figure out a way to see as little of Mrs. Fleming as possible.

"SO SORRY, WE DIED AND LEFT NO FORWARDING ADDRESS" has worked for decades! Especially pre-internet.

[osprey_archer]

There is about to be a Big War which would surely facilitate this process!

HOWEVER. If Julian DOES make a success of theater, it will be almost impossible to keep his mother from knowing that he is, at least, alive, as his photo may end up splashed all over the pages of magazines etc. I think their best hope is that she will be SO OFFENDED by his insistence on pursuing a theatrical career that she maintains an icy silence toward them.

...However if there do end up being grandchildren, they should do their dardnest to ensure she doesn't find out about it, because Mrs. Fleming strikes me as someone who would feel it was her DUTY to be around that grandchild as much as possible in order to set a "good example."

[asakiyume]

One of the joys of reading Mary Renault is that the side characters often feel as real as the mains: they are not there just as supporting props, but are people with lives and struggles of their own. --I was going to write about something completely else, and then I got to this part and felt such a powerful love, I had to make it the first thing I mentioned. Mary Renault mainly seems like an author who would make me anxious and unhappy --at least in theory--but this! I love this! And I love that husband and wife, love the possibility implicit in their being portrayed as a couple.

I also really liked this: The book deals honestly with the possible difficulties of this relationship ... without cludging up the narrative with unhappiness. AMEN.

[osprey_archer]

Mary Renault books probably would indeed make you anxious because as far as I can tell they make EVERYONE anxious. People continue screaming about The Friendly Young Ladies years after they first read it because the anxiety of the reading experience stuck with them for decades. ("This book isn't actually going to - no. NO. IT WENT SOMEWHERE WORSE!") It's like the grated horseradish of reading experiences. You keep going even as it sears parts of your sinuses you didn't know existed.

But anyway! In general, I do love authors who make their side characters feel like real people who exist outside of the protagonist's story. It's not just a matter of giving them their own backstory (although that certainly helps) but giving them thoughts and motivations that don't revolve around the protagonist.

[asakiyume]

but giving them thoughts and motivations that don't revolve around the protagonist. --Yeah, sort of a Bechdel test-type thing.

[osprey_archer]

A Bechdel test for protagonist-centered worldbuilding!

ETA: It occurs to me that part of the reason I struggled with The Blue Sword (hearkening to the other entry) is that the world-building is very centered on Harry. For instance, we get exactly one Hill myth (the story of Aerin) and it's the one that happens to have entangled Harry in its trammels. It would have added a lot if there was, IDK, a story about the naiad of an oasis or whatever, which was utterly unrelated to Harry in any way.

[asakiyume]

Yes! I agree wholeheartedly.

[sovay]

For instance, we get exactly one Hill myth (the story of Aerin) and it's the one that happens to have entangled Harry in its trammels.

Which is one thing if the story is, like Alan Garner's The Owl Service (1967), about the consuming and deforming pressures of myth on people, but another if it's just meant to be normal prophecy. (I happen to like The Blue Sword, but I agree that its world feels very much as though it was back-formed from the tropes its author liked best. There's more independent strangeness in The Hero and the Crown. I do like the folklore surrounding the filanon of The Blue Sword, the archers of the trees.)

[sovay]

Yes, other people might think things (probably will think things, people being people), and yes, feelings do change over time sometimes, but overall Hilary and Julian just seem to make each other happy, and surely that’s the most important thing.

I genuinely think they will be fine in the long run, deeply confusing Mary Renault when she checks back in in about ten years to make sure that they are miserable on schedule.

[osprey_archer]

Hilary may be a bit surprised that Julian has NOT, in fact, outgrown her, or gotten tired of her, or whatever it is exactly she expects him to do... and Julian will perhaps be equally surprised that Hilary has not discovered his Fatal Flaw and pushed him away. They continue to regard each other with stunned delight at their luck in finding such a love.

[littlerhymes]

This all sounds non-traumatic! Mary, I didn't know you had it in you!

[osprey_archer]

Even though I've finished the book and sent it back to the interlibrary loan office I am STILL waiting for the other shoe to drop, like Mary Renault is somehow going to download another chapter directly into my brain in order to ensure that the book has the correct trauma quotient.