The Charioteer (Vintage) Paperback – 11 Oct. 2003

Written by Mary Renault - well known for her books on Alexander the Great and Ancient Greece. It was written when she was over 50 and had moved to S Africa where she could live more freely with her lifelong female partner. It was pretty shocking to many in the UK at the time, being an exploration of what it is like to discover and then explore your homosexuality in an environment where it is outlawed. It contrasts deeply loving and caring relationships with the flamboyant and promiscuous lifestyle of 'the gay scene', and the many different ways people coped with finding that what they were was illegal and despised. It is all about men - lesbianism isn't mentioned. It explores the difference between primarily thinking of yourself as a homosexual and living in that labelled box, or primarily as a human being with a capacity for love who is attracted mainly to your own sex. I read it in the 50's when it helped me understand some of the men I worked with. Reading it again i find that much is still relevant.

Coming to this book from her Alexander trilogies and The Mask of Apollo I can hear Mary Renault's rich voice in her sensitive and compassionate telling of love that is of itself fraught by the culture of the 2nd world war era. A few months ago I read James Lord's autobiography, My Queer War, Renault's novel of one injured soldier's search for love amongst the men he love in war time Briton resonated with Lord's book. This is a book as much about dignity and integrity as it is about love that deserves to insist on saying it's name out loud.

I've always loved this book. However, this audio version is simply brilliant and the narrator is better than I've experienced before and you can get carried away thinking it was almost a full cast.I shall look out for this narrator again.

There's nothing that I can add to the many , far more eloquent reviews on this book- but- I've read and re-read it many times and each time found another layer revealed. It's a beautiful, slow moving and very tender portrayal of a man trying to lead a moral life and be true to himself. If you like multi layered, allegorical and complex writing than you’ll love this. I loved every word of Renault 's spare, elegant sometimes oblique writing and certainly count this as one of my favourite books ever.

Comparing the secretive comradeship of homosexuals to the brotherhood in arms of servicemen in the Second World War was a very daring thing to do in the 1950s, but Mary Renault does it in this book. All three main characters and some of the secondary ones (Reg, Dave and Alec) have a strong code of honour and a sense of comradeship which leads them to a desire to protect their fellows. Not everyone can live up to the ideals of their respective codes: the public schoolboy who 'rats' on his head of school, the soldier who kills his instructor and blows off his own hand in grenade training, the unfaithful wife of a war-wounded soldier, the superficial gay party-goers, the vicar lacking in empathy or charity. A few characters seem to have no code of honour or comradeship whatsoever, but they seem to show its existence even more strongly by their deviance from it. (Interestingly there are no cowardly conscientious objectors, it is taken as read that all were acting on a moral imperative, war and pacifism were not the targets here.)I borrowed Mary Renault's historical novels from the school library and enjoyed them very much. This one, possibly her greatest work, was not in the collection. I wish it had been, this is a masterpiece novel which must have been mind-changing for those who read it on first release. Did this novel help bring about the legalisation of male homosexuality? It would have done if enough people read it.There are no descriptions of sex in this novel. The reader knows when it happens, the omittance is not prudish. The only other concession to the public morality of the time is that characters are given childhood traumas as 'reasons' for their homosexuality. Mary Renault had studied Ancient Greece and knew the real world as well, she knew some people are just born 'that way', but this novel HAD to be published.It would help if the reader had a passing aquaintance with the works of Plato to understand the significance of that particular book and the various quotes, but it is not essential. The story of the charioteer soul is explained very well for the uninitiated. If any reader of "The Lord of the Flies" finds the choice of the name Ralph significant, it might also add to the understanding of this multi-layered magnificent novel.Wow! This book almost makes me want to remove a star from every other review I have written.

I've always loved Mary Renault's Ancient Greece novels, particularly her Alexander trilogy. She's such a wonderful writer - her portrayal of the relationship between Alexander and Hephaistion always particularly touches me - and now I have to add another masterpiece to that list.This novel is apparently quite a landmark in gay literature, published in the 1950s and being such an open and brave look at homosexual love in WW2. It's about Laurie, a wounded soldier, not quite at ease with his own homosexuality, and his choice between Andrew, a young conscientious objector, and Ralph, a sailor whom Laurie knew at school.It's such a delicate read, really quite subtle in places, and the tenderness that Ralph displays towards Laurie is very moving. It is a tad sexless in places; the romance and relationships seem very much on a higher plane, but no doubt part of that is a result of the 1950s, and it does lend the whole work a rather epic and dreamy tone.