From: danny@cs.su.oz.au (Danny Yee)
Date: Tue, 24 Jan 1995 23:15:39 +1000
Subject: Book Review - The Charioteer

     title: The Charioteer
        by: Mary Renault
 publisher: Longmans 1953
  subjects: fiction, romance
     other: 400 pages

Mary Renault is best known for her Greek historical novels --
works such as _Fire From Heaven_, _The Last of the Wine_ and _The
King Must Die_.  _The Charioteer_ is conclusive evidence of what
was already obvious: Renault is a great novelist, not "just" one of
the outstanding historical novelists of all time.  Set in England
during World War Two, in the dark days after the retreat from Dunkirk,
_The Charioteer_ is a novel about love.  A "novel about love" rather
than a romance, because, although it is set in and around hospitals
(drawing on Renault's own wartime experience), it is certainly not
your typical hospital romance.  Though it is very obviously a post-war
English novel, _The Charioteer_ has a certain timeless feel to it;
the use of explicit links to Plato's Phaedrus, which would have
seemed contrived in weaker hands, doesn't seem at all inappropriate.
Those who appreciate Renault as a novelist, not just for her historical
settings, should definitely not pass this one by.

--

%T	The Charioteer
%A	Mary Renault
%I	Longmans
%C	London
%D	1953
%O	hardcover
%P	400pp
%K	fiction, romance

Danny Yee (danny@cs.su.oz.au)
24 January 1995

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 Copyright (C) Danny Yee 1995 : Comments and criticism welcome
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