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osprey_archerI’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."
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."
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Date: 2022-07-10 07:30 pm (UTC)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.
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Date: 2022-07-10 08:42 pm (UTC)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?
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Date: 2022-07-10 08:58 pm (UTC)Possibly it would have involved defining lesbian as an all-encompassing word including bisexuality? --Oh good! Men as lesbians, too!
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Date: 2022-07-11 12:53 am (UTC)Look, if Mary Renault *could* make men lesbians, she would probably do it. Possibly sincerely, but also possibly just to fuck with everyone.
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Date: 2022-07-11 02:28 am (UTC)She sort of had the chance with Hippolytos in The Bull from the Sea, but blew it as far as I'm concerned.
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Date: 2022-07-10 10:22 pm (UTC)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.
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Date: 2022-07-11 12:57 am (UTC)In a comment above
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Date: 2022-07-11 01:37 am (UTC)"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.)
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Date: 2022-07-11 08:37 pm (UTC)a floor wax and a dessert toppingfluid based on individual attraction and a general self-chosen identity! aghghghghno subject
Date: 2022-07-10 08:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-07-11 08:29 pm (UTC)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.
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Date: 2022-07-12 02:17 am (UTC)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.
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Date: 2022-07-13 02:46 pm (UTC)