Renault's The King Must Die

Just finished Mary Renault's historical fantasy The King Must Die. I say historical fantasy because it is rooted in history, and in fact Renault did a hefty amount of research of Ancient Greece for this novel (according to Amazon and Wikipedia) but it's a retelling of the myth of Theseus, hence the fantasy.

But what a retelling it is. I will say the best parts of the book are the very first chapter and the very last. She starts off describing the sacrifice of a great white stallion, told though the eyes of a four-year-old Theseus. "It was a good clean killing..." she writes. "...Yet, even now, I still remember. How he reared up like a tower, feeling his death, dragging the men like children; the scarlet cleft in the white throat, the rank hot smell; the ruin of beauty, the fall of strength, the ebb of valor; and the grief, the burning pity as he sank upon his knees and laid his brighthead in the dust. That blood seemed to tear the soul out of mybreast, as if my own heart had shed it."

By the end of it I was trembling.

Renault's Theseus is at once an asshole, a cocky youth, and a man striving to be a just and honorable leader. But above all else, he is believable. And I don't know how she does it, but her prose so vividly conveys the sense of the time that you are certain this is indeed how people must have thought and spoken in those days. Most notably I was impressed by how fluidly and naturally she weaves in humanities ties with the gods. I am inspired, and deepy awed, by her writing.

So, too, am I struck by her imaginative power in creating a world of which only fragments remain. Included in those relicts are the ruins of Knossos and the ancient Labyrinth of Messara, which she mentions in her author's notes. For those who know and love the myth, there's a certain thrill in experiencing her rendition of myth into a believable reality.

At times, though, she's a bit too subtle for me. Especially when it comes to the subject of sex she writes with an exceptionally light touch and I'm left wondering, did they, or didn't they? There were several passages where I was sure something profound had passed but it went clear over my head.

At any rate, her book as a power that lingers on the mind. I'll be reading this one's sequel, The Bull from the Sea, next.

This book also made me rethink writing in the first person, which I had previously dismissed. Too often the "I" in books feel too weakly characterized - I felt this most recently in Kostova's The Historian. The third person allows for a more robust protagonist. Not so with The King Must Die. Reading this was almost like being possessed by another person, so strong were his thoughts and emotions.

A fact I did not know about Mary Renault, who was born in England in 1905 and died in 1983: She and her life-long partner Jullie Mullard went to live in South Africa, a place more tolerant to gays. South Africa? Really? Apparently she participated in anti-apartheid demonstrations.