Book Review: Mary Renault: A Biography
Aug. 11th, 2023 07:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerI knew the vague outlines of Mary Renault’s life before I read David Sweetman’s Mary Renault: A Biography, but this book answered a number of questions for me and was also so intensely readable that I stayed up long past my bedtime finishing it, which is especially impressive as you always know how a biography ends.
First, I am happy to report that Robbie Wilson, the original of horrible doctor Peter from The Friendly Young Ladies (the one who thinks he can cure women by pretending to be in love with them) apparently was not Mary Renault’s lover, although he wanted to be (he “had come with his toothbrush,” in the words of Renault’s life partner Julie Mullard), but merely a friend, and before too long Renault decided Wilson’s own theories about healing through love were claptrap, so probably we are in fact supposed to think Peter’s completely full of it too.
(Sweetman doesn’t seem to quite get The Friendly Young Ladies: he complains that Leo and Helen’s relationship is never fully explained, and I realize there is never a “Harold, they’re lesbians” moment, but nonetheless I thought it was pretty plain, all things considered. Sweetman also says that after her night with Joe, Leo “knows she must leave him too.” OH IF ONLY. I wish I could read that copy of the book.)
Second, I’ve always been puzzled why Renault emigrated to South Africa after winning the MGM prize in 1947. Apparently, income tax in Great Britain was still nineteen shillings on the pound (!!), and British citizens weren’t allowed to move outside the Commonwealth (!!!!!) (okay I know that rich people were apt to exaggerate when complaining about the Post-War Tyranny of the Labour Party, but “you can’t move outside the Commonwealth” genuinely seems pretty bad), so she picked South Africa more or less on a whim so she could keep at least some of her prize money. And then the first apartheid laws to be passed the very week that she arrived in the country.
Sweetman notes that in South Africa, Renault was largely isolated from the feminist and gay rights movements, and I do wonder if she might have had a different relationship to them if she had seen them up close and in person. Of course, different might mean even more disapproving! But conversely, familiarity might have changed her mind over time.
Finally, just before she died, Renault was doing final edits on a medieval novel. She didn’t quite finish it, and as per Renault’s wishes, Mullard burned all her unfinished work after she died… And I get it, but also OH what I wouldn’t give to be able to read that novel!
First, I am happy to report that Robbie Wilson, the original of horrible doctor Peter from The Friendly Young Ladies (the one who thinks he can cure women by pretending to be in love with them) apparently was not Mary Renault’s lover, although he wanted to be (he “had come with his toothbrush,” in the words of Renault’s life partner Julie Mullard), but merely a friend, and before too long Renault decided Wilson’s own theories about healing through love were claptrap, so probably we are in fact supposed to think Peter’s completely full of it too.
(Sweetman doesn’t seem to quite get The Friendly Young Ladies: he complains that Leo and Helen’s relationship is never fully explained, and I realize there is never a “Harold, they’re lesbians” moment, but nonetheless I thought it was pretty plain, all things considered. Sweetman also says that after her night with Joe, Leo “knows she must leave him too.” OH IF ONLY. I wish I could read that copy of the book.)
Second, I’ve always been puzzled why Renault emigrated to South Africa after winning the MGM prize in 1947. Apparently, income tax in Great Britain was still nineteen shillings on the pound (!!), and British citizens weren’t allowed to move outside the Commonwealth (!!!!!) (okay I know that rich people were apt to exaggerate when complaining about the Post-War Tyranny of the Labour Party, but “you can’t move outside the Commonwealth” genuinely seems pretty bad), so she picked South Africa more or less on a whim so she could keep at least some of her prize money. And then the first apartheid laws to be passed the very week that she arrived in the country.
Sweetman notes that in South Africa, Renault was largely isolated from the feminist and gay rights movements, and I do wonder if she might have had a different relationship to them if she had seen them up close and in person. Of course, different might mean even more disapproving! But conversely, familiarity might have changed her mind over time.
Finally, just before she died, Renault was doing final edits on a medieval novel. She didn’t quite finish it, and as per Renault’s wishes, Mullard burned all her unfinished work after she died… And I get it, but also OH what I wouldn’t give to be able to read that novel!
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Date: 2023-08-12 05:25 pm (UTC)Huh, I'd never heard of that law about not moving outside the Commonwealth—that can't have lasted very long, surely.
A medieval novel! Intriguing. Do we know anything about what it was going to be, or were the details all burned?
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Date: 2023-08-12 07:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-08-14 06:27 am (UTC)