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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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Has anyone read it and can you recall the plot? I need to know how homoerotic or homamorous it was, and I don't want to have top go and find it and read it again
Amazon is no real help here
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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It's probably 25 years since I read it. I remember it as being very matter-of-fact about same-sex relationships, not going into any great physical detail, but just accepting same-sex relationships and infatuations in much the same way as heterosexual ones.
To be honest, I think I was more interested in the link between music and healing, and the theory that great gifts have to paid for and impose obligations, than I was in the amorous aspects.
However, I wouldn't put too much weight on my memory of the book ... as I said, it was a while ago.
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
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I just love those three old characters from Yorkshire. I think Alvin is my favourite in the present series, but I miss Compo and Foggy. Odd, I've never thought of them in a homerotic way, but now you come to mention it…
Hugs
N
I dream of boys with big bulges in their trousers,
Never of girls with big bulges in their blouses.
…and look forward to meeting you in Cóito.
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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I just did NOT mean three old men going down hill in a bath!
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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I have read the book a couple of times. It is about a young man reaching adolescence and adulthood in Athens during the Peloponesian War between Athens and Sparta. The courtship and romance between Alexis and Lysis is carefully and lovingly drawn. Both are students of Socrates, who initiates the liaison between them. While, of course, there are no explicit sex scences Renault leaves no doubt in the mind of the reader that the relationship is homoerotic. Homosexual relationships in Athens (and other parts of Greece) are treated as natural and part of life and the code of respectable society. (In his teens Alexis is anxious that he hasn't yet found a boyfriend while all his friends have. There is also a delicious scene in which a suitor whom he despises tries to win his affections.)
I would very strongly recommend the book to anyone who has not yet read it. While, in retrospect, it may not be quite as good as "The Charioteer" it is very good indeed.
(Timmy, I still have my old and battered copy. I can post it to you if you like.)
J F R
The paradox has often been noted that the United States, founded in secularism, is now the most religiose country in Christendom, while England, with an established church headed by its constitutional monarch, is among the least. (Richard Dawkins, 2006)
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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The plot synopsis sounds excellent, thank you. Old and battered copies should be treasured and re-read. Treasure it and re-read it. I needed a passing reference 
I'd appreciate synopses of any of her classical novels published in or before 1970
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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timmy wrote:
I'd appreciate synopses of any of her classical novels published in or before 1970
IMHO the very best novel that she wrote is "The Charioteer" (1953). I am not going to re-invent the wheel: here are a couple of links to excellent reviews and critiques.
http://www.galha.org/glh/224/renault.html (I agree with most of this)
http://www.rambles.net/renault_chariot59.html
Enjoy the reading - and enjoy reading the book if you haven't yet; and enjoy re-reading it if you have already read it.
I'll see what I can do for other books of hers in a couple of days.
J F R
[Updated on: Thu, 02 August 2007 08:50]
The paradox has often been noted that the United States, founded in secularism, is now the most religiose country in Christendom, while England, with an established church headed by its constitutional monarch, is among the least. (Richard Dawkins, 2006)
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