One Last Note on The Friendly Young Ladies

[osprey_archer]

I’ve just discovered that the copy of The Friendly Young Ladies which I recently acquired has a second afterword (after Mary Renault’s first afterword), written by Lillian Faderman (author of Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America), from which I learned that horrible doctor Peter Bracknell who “cures” women by pretending to fall in love with them was in fact based on Mary Renault’s lover Dr. Robbie Wilson.

DEEPLY horrified to learn that this man was based on a real person, of whom Renault was presumably rather fond. I would love to believe that Mary Renault wrote Peter Bracknell in the spirit of “I bet you think this song is about you,” but in fact, knowing about Dr. Wilson furthers my suspicion that we’re meant to take Leo seriously when she muses of Peter, “Fundamentally he’s a far better human being than I am.”

In what possible sense? It’s not just that I disagree with this assessment (though I very much do!); I don’t understand what fundamental virtue we’re meant to believe he possesses. He’s vain, self-satisfied, and dishonest, not only to his patients but in his assessment of himself. Or are we supposed to believe that he attempts his “cures” out of genuine (if deeply misguided!) care for his patients, rather than to flatter his own vanity?

Faderman is also quite annoyed that till the end of their lives, Renault and her lover Julie Mullard “continued to conceive of themselves as ‘bisexual’ despite the fact that for the last thirty-five years of Mary’s life and of their domestic partnership, neither woman had erotic relations with men.” Really? Really? Voluntarily enduring a romantic relationship with the man who served as a model for Peter Bracknell didn’t establish Mary Renault’s bisexual bona fides for all time?

More seriously: I think Faderman thinks that if Renault had embraced the word lesbian she might have also embraced the gay liberation movement, but as that might have required a personality transplant, I feel... perhaps not? Renault is not radical in the way we, as later readers, perhaps WANT her to be radical, but on the other hand perhaps the mark of true radicalism is that decades after your death people are still reading your work and going "This is bonkers."

Comments

[troisoiseaux]

HUH. That's.................... a lot.

[osprey_archer]

Still reeling from the fact that Mary Renault based Peter Bracknell on her lover, when Peter Bracknell in the book attempts to seduce both Leo AND Helen to try to cure or at least understand their lesbian love affair. Is that part drawn from life?

On the bright (?) side, Faderman's afterword has pretty well moved Faderman's books off my TBR list. She seems to feel Renault's bisexuality is a personal affront, which suggests to me that her books probably won't deal too well with bisexuality as a whole.

[aurumcalendula]

I was so irritated with both of those afterwords!

[osprey_archer]

Somehow BOTH of the afterwords make the ending even more baffling, which is quite a feat.

[skygiants]

It would absolutely have required a personality transplant. One can say many things of Mary Renault but among those things is certainly the fact that she's always deeply, stubbornly, and absolutely incomprehensibly herself.

[osprey_archer]

Yes! In a way it's admirable that she is so herself even though sometimes one simply wishes to know WHY.

I suspect she would have gotten a kick of sheer contrarian joy out of the knowledge that people remain SO frustrated with her Opinions about the gay liberation movement that they're writing cranky afterwords about it decades later.

[tei]

...um. FASCINATING. (I have Sweetman's biography on my shelf waiting to be read, and now want to do so right now just to learn who this guy was and what might have been going on.)

[osprey_archer]

If you discover any relevant facts from the Sweetman biography PLEASE report back. Did Dr. Robbie Wilson actually pretend to fall in love with women or was this a slander that Renault perhaps intended, bafflingly, to be a good quality?

[tei]

khsadjfh okay looked him up: he showed up at their house because he read Purposes of Love and wanted to meet her. Julie was pretty sure he had, quote, "shown up with his toothbrush," but he was not at all put out to find that she was taken and apparently the three of them were all friends? despite, well, this:

He explained that with diseases like cancer, still largely inoperable, it might be possible to project love to the patient as a form of therapy. It was faith healing under another name, and it was soon clear to Julie that he had come to Bristol in the hope of trying out these theories on the author he so admired.

Which. What??? he didn't know in advance that she was living with a female partner, he just read Purposes of Love and was like "love it. also, I could fix her."

However, Sweetman's take on Robbie's role in TFYL is somewhat different-- that while she's fundamentally sympathetic to him as a friend, she's also pointing out his flaws:

As a junior, Mary had accepted the hospital's belief in its superior wisdom, governing the sick like helpless children, controlling their treatment, releasing them when the system decided. Now she was beginning to have doubts about this misplaced 'scientific' approach, especially when dressed up as 'doctor knows best.' it touched on her relationship with Robbie when he came to stay with her in Oxford. He was still full of enthusiasm and convinced that brotherly love in the form of Communism was the only solution to the world's ills. What she found harder to take was his increasing certainty that he had found in healing through love a way of curing people which set him apart from the rest of the medical profession. When he had first set out these ideas, they had seemed amusing foibles, a refreshing change from most doctors. Now she was no longer sure they were harmless. Far from liberating the patient, such psychological 'tricks' could only increase the doctor's control. it was beginning to look like dominance masquerading as love and freedom.

[osprey_archer]

Thank you for transcribing that! Fascinating.

There's a bit in Purposes of Love where Vivian says that she thinks that the causes of cancer are psychological - really just a brief exchange, but I wonder if Wilson read that and sat up, electrified, the sentences reverberating with his vision curing patients through love. "The cause is psychological and so is the cure!" he declared, clutching the book to his breast. "The author and I are clearly kindred spirits! Also, I could fix her."

Curious what he thought she needed to be fixed from before he knew that she had a female partner. Maybe just the generally grim view of love offered in Purposes of Love?

[tei]

Oh. YEP, that sounds very plausible.

...and I mean, this is a feature and not a bug for me and presumably most of her fans, but I do kind of understand how someone might pick up any one of her books and be like "damn, u okay????" about any number of things, hahaha

[osprey_archer]

Oh, absolutely! It's just that most of us would simply not have the moxie to show up on her doorstep and heal her through The Power of Love about it.

[tei]

That's for sure 😂

[asakiyume]

I don’t understand what fundamental virtue we’re meant to believe he possesses. He’s vain, self-satisfied, and dishonest, not only to his patients but in his assessment of himself. --He just seems breathtakingly awful, so ... yeah! I wonder!

[osprey_archer]

The thing about Peter is that, as bad as I'm sure he sounds in summary, he's absolutely even worse in the book. Mind-boggling that maybe we were meant to like him??

[asakiyume]

Honestly it makes me wonder what other things Mary Renault likes.

Teacher in 3rd grade: OK class, let's all list some of our favorite things

Timmy: new baseball gloves!
Alice: going fishing with my brother!
Mary: having hot tar dripped on my back while my dad looks on and laughs.

Everyone: O_o

[copperfyre]

…wow. On many levels! All of this somehow serves to make everything more baffling.

[osprey_archer]

RIGHT? I really wouldn't have thought it could get more baffling and YET!!! Here we are!!!

[regshoe]

o____O

...I think that's about all I have to say about that. Hmm, and Faderman's opinion of bisexual identity seems disappointingly-but-not-surprisingly in tune with some of the more questionably political things she says about lesbians in Surpassing the Love of Men, the one book of hers I've read.

perhaps the mark of true radicalism is that decades after your death people are still reading your work and going "This is bonkers."

It's certainly the mark of something!

[osprey_archer]

What does Faderman say about bisexuality and lesbians in Surpassing the Love of Men?

Upon reflection I think the word I wanted for Mary Renault was not "radicalism" but "unconventionality." Renault's opinions don't fit neatly into any category in her time or our own. Are they radical? Are they conservative? IDK, they're idiosyncratic.

[regshoe]

I don't remember any specific things about bisexuality, but in discussing twentieth-century lesbian history she seems to view lesbianism (defined as only having significant relationships with women) as a sort of morally praiseworthy choice which any woman can make (and hence be judged for making or not making), rather than just, people have sexual orientations and this in itself is a morally neutral thing. As a lesbian I think that sort of thing is all a bit silly.

Yes, idiosyncratically unconventional is about it!

[osprey_archer]

Oh, that makes sense. Yeah, I can see how that view would lead to a particularly disapproving take on Mary Renault's bisexuality. Here's a woman who is demonstrably capable of loving other women, and rather than make the morally praiseworthy choice of committing herself to having significant relationships only with other women, for the first fifteen? twenty? years of her relationship with Julie Mullard, they BOTH keep having male lovers!

[sovay]

Or are we supposed to believe that he attempts his “cures” out of genuine (if deeply misguided!) care for his patients, rather than to flatter his own vanity?

That at least would absolve him of the Renaultian sin of self-deception, although personally I think it's reading against the text.

Faderman is also quite annoyed that till the end of their lives, Renault and her lover Julie Mullard “continued to conceive of themselves as ‘bisexual’ despite the fact that for the last thirty-five years of Mary’s life and of their domestic partnership, neither woman had erotic relations with men.”

Oh, good, policing the sexual self-identification of the dead didn't start with Tumblr after all!

if Renault had embraced the word lesbian she might have also embraced the gay liberation movement

As far as I can tell, if Renault had embraced the word "lesbian," she would have been Not Like Those Other Lesbians and we would still be screaming at her forty years after her death.

[osprey_archer]

Yes, the self-deception angle is the one that really gets me re: Peter. He reads as incredibly self-deceiving: the keynote of his character is his ability to convince himself that whatever he happens to want is what is best for everyone: he's doing Elsie a favor by pretending to be in love with her, doing Helen and Leo a favor by seducing them, doing his girlfriend Norah a favor by introducing her to all the other women he's seducing, etc. etc. (I mean that last one WAS inadvertently a favor but only because Leo decided to teach Peter a lesson.) It's so vividly portrayed that it's hard to believe it's not intentional and yet... maybe... it is not?

Having said that, I'm pretty sure that we're meant to despise Elsie, who I thought was such a good and sympathetic portrayal of a shy unhappy child struggling to grow up, so I no longer trust that my emotional reaction to anything in this book bears any resemblance to the emotional reaction Renault wanted me to have.

I'm SURE that if Renault had embraced the word lesbian she would have done something with it that Faderman would not have approved. Possibly it would have involved defining lesbian as an all-encompassing word including bisexuality?

[asakiyume]

his ability to convince himself that whatever he happens to want is what is best for everyone --I can easily think of at least two people in my IRL life, interestingly both men, who do this *frequently*

Possibly it would have involved defining lesbian as an all-encompassing word including bisexuality? --Oh good! Men as lesbians, too!

[osprey_archer]

I'm sure it's not *just* men who are like this but I do think that it is perhaps *mostly* men.

Look, if Mary Renault *could* make men lesbians, she would probably do it. Possibly sincerely, but also possibly just to fuck with everyone.

[sovay]

Possibly sincerely, but also possibly just to fuck with everyone.

She sort of had the chance with Hippolytos in The Bull from the Sea, but blew it as far as I'm concerned.

[sovay]

the keynote of his character is his ability to convince himself that whatever he happens to want is what is best for everyone

I agree with that, which is why I find it hard to read him as an admirable character! Perhaps Leo is just wrong.

Possibly it would have involved defining lesbian as an all-encompassing word including bisexuality?

That's not that unusual! I know some people who identify as lesbian and do not sleep only with women. The term is still used colloquially to mean f/f, e.g. "a lesbian love scene" meaning "a love scene between two women regardless of their individually identified orientations." I am afraid I have come out of this interaction with a serious case of side-eye for Faderman.

[osprey_archer]

Mary Renault may have meant us to believe that Peter has good qualities but we are under no obligation to agree.

In a comment above regshoe says that the comment about Renault's bisexuality is in tune with other comments Faderman made about bisexuality in Surpassing the Love of Men, so probably the side-eye is warranted.

[sovay]

Mary Renault may have meant us to believe that Peter has good qualities but we are under no obligation to agree.

"But we are under no obligation to agree" is perhaps the healthiest attitude to take toward Renault in general.

In a comment above regshoe says that the comment about Renault's bisexuality is in tune with other comments Faderman made about bisexuality in Surpassing the Love of Men, so probably the side-eye is warranted.

Argh. (It's such a good title, too.)

[kore]

In college one of my best friends was a very gay guy and his best friend was a bisexual woman who hadn't dated a lot of men, and for a year they decided to enjoy each other physically (they were also both extremely gorgeous) and had a lot of fun and then went back to being BFFs. Many people were UTTERLY BAFFLED that here were two gay people, making out!! as if they were not gay?! but then they were gay again?!?! Jesus. Sexuality can be a floor wax and a dessert topping fluid based on individual attraction and a general self-chosen identity! aghghghgh

[asakiyume]

Oh, good, policing the sexual self-identification of the dead didn't start with Tumblr after all! ---insert cry-laughing emoji here

[kore]

Heh, there were so very many biographies of Virginia Woolf that kept insisting she was straight straight straight, despite her nephew (!) detailing a lot of her affairs in that first serious biography. Then the coin flipped and Virginia Woolf was queer queer queer, what do you mean she loved Leonard, he was obviously the reason she killed herself!! and so on.

Renault was so totally I Am Not Like Those Other X in many categories all her life and it explains a lot about her view of Alexander, I think.

[osprey_archer]

Aw, poor Leonard, I don't know that much about Virginia and Leonard Woolf's life but nothing suggests that he deserves to be blamed for her death! They both did the best they could...

Do you think Renault thought that Alexander was ALSO not Like Those Other X? A feeling of kinship? Clearly she thought he was the bee's knees.

[ethelmay]

People are still arguing about Langston Hughes.

[kore]

DEEPLY horrified to learn that this man was based on a real person, of whom Renault was presumably rather fond. I would love to believe that Mary Renault wrote Peter Bracknell in the spirit of “I bet you think this song is about you,” but in fact, knowing about Dr. Wilson furthers my suspicion that we’re meant to take Leo seriously when she muses of Peter, “Fundamentally he’s a far better human being than I am.”

Also DEEPLY horrified, WTF??

I have never read Renault's "present-day" novels other than the Charioteer but I have experienced so much vicarious horror via friends reading them. y i k e s.

[osprey_archer]

According to tei upthread, Dr. Wilson read Renault's first novel Purposes of Love and showed up at her home, wanting to meet her. (If only someone who was not like Dr. Wilson in any other way would have this reaction to MY first novel... so much less work than going out to meet people.) He was also possibly convinced that they were soulmates/he could fix her, possibly by means of his hot new theory that one could "project love onto the patient as a form of therapy"? (Not sure exactly what he wanted to fix based on Purposes of Love - it offers so many possibilities.)

I now have just two Renault contemporaries left and I'm thinking I may get them under my belt before I move onto the rest of the ancient Greek novels. Should soon have MUCH more yikes to report.

[ethelmay]

I think people did use to sometimes label themselves or others by behavior rather than orientation. I remember in one of Norma Klein's books a woman says of her ex-boyfriend "Also, he's homosexual, or was when he was younger." But in modern terms it's certainly bonkers to say that renewing your Bisexuality Card means you mustn't be monogamous, at least not for thirty-five years. (What's the necessary frequency of street-crossing, I wonder?)

[osprey_archer]

Gotta renew your Bisexuality Card every ten years, like a passport. Can't have people crossing borders without stopping at the checkpoint to get their visa stamped!