I cannot remember how I discovered Mary Renault’s novels, but most likely at my local library which I haunted. Although I read them all as a teenager, many years ago, their beauty and humanity are still a strong influence. While The King Must Die and the Alexandrian books may have had a stronger impact, it is the delicacy of the relationship between the young lovers portrayed in The Last of the Wine that remains with me. Because of her empathetic portrayal of love between men, many of Mary Renault’s fans, including myself, suspected the author was actually a man. But her empathy goes even further. Even classicists have found her depiction of the physical and spiritual ambiance of Ancient Greece so accurate as to be uncanny.It says a lot about a book that you feel a terrible sadness as you approach the final pages. It was a sense of loss not only of the characters but for the characters, for The Last of the Wine is a novel about loss, not only of youth and love, but of something much more profound, of honour.The story is narrated by Alexias and tells of his growth into manhood in Athens during the Peloponnesian Wars. As a boy he meets Sokrates (Renault’s preferred spelling) whose disciple he later becomes, grows up with Plato and Xenophon and, together with his lover, Lysis, serves under Alkibiades. Through the novel we learn about the ins and outs of the wars, but, more importantly, we learn about the lives and beliefs of the Athenians. Speaking through her narrator, Renault enters deep into their world view, taking for granted, as her narrator does, their spiritual beliefs, their lore and their laws. From the very first chapter we are thrust into a world totally foreign to our own, but portrayed entirely on its own terms. Alexias is born, small and puny, during a disastrous plague. His father, known as Myron the Beautiful, is on the verge of exposing him when he learns that his younger brother has died. Alexias’ uncle, on hearing that the boy he was in love with was ill, has gone to him, and seeing that the boy was dying, has taken hemlock so that they can make the journey together. Myron is distressed that he is not able to retrieve their bodies so as to bury them together. On returning home he sees that his wife has taken to the baby and does not have the heart to take it from her.A whole world is displayed in this story – a father’s right to condemn a child to death, his relationship with a wife he considers as little more than a child, an acceptance, nay a celebration, of love between men, and in particular an older man for a younger, and the narrator’s respect for his father despite knowing that his father does not value him.Renault was often criticised for her portrayal of women in her Greek novels, but she is only showing their actual position in Athenian society. Women are bound to the house and the household. Their honour resides in remaining invisible and nameless. Indeed, it is considered disrespectful of a woman even to talk about her. If a woman is seen in public, she is either a slave or a courtesan. Men in their thirties marry teenage girls, girls that they think of as children, and that they expect to train as their ideal housekeeper. It is no wonder that in such a world, men would look to other men for their emotional and sexual relationships. It is such an accepted and normalised part of life that Alexias pities his friend Xenophon because he seems incapable of loving a man. But these relationships are heavily circumscribed. Boys are expected to be courted by older suitors from an early age, but their honour resides in choosing a friend who is honourable and will be a fitting mentor, for this relationship is meant to prepare the boy for manhood. The beautiful, thoughtful and brave Lysis is just such an ideal suitor.However, their sexual relationship is portrayed in coy, elliptical terms, reflecting, I assume, the narrator’s reticence on these matters, (or is it Renault’s own reticence? After all she was writing in the 1950s), that verge on the frustrating. I was also interested to note that although Alexias and Lysis become friends when Alexias is sixteen, they do not become lovers until he is eighteen. According to Alexias, this restraint is due to Sokrates’ influence, but I wonder how much it was due to Renault’s own twentieth-century sensibilities.Yet, at the same time, I cannot remember being so frustrated when I first read this so many years ago. Perhaps to a sheltered girl, these hints were enough, for I have a clear memory of the moment they become lovers. And as a romantic teenager, I probably saw that preliminary time of passion and restraint as an expected prelude to a sexual relationship. What is it saying about me, my age and my times that, on this reading, I kept wondering what was taking them so long? But this story is not only about sexual politics. Mary Renault was writing in a time of political turmoil and this is reflected in The Last of the Wine. The Athens Alexias is born into is a city of high ideals – a city of beauty, honour, the search for truth and democracy. But through the course of the war, all of these ideals are slowly lost or corrupted. Respect for the law and the person are eroded. The democracy Alexias values is undermined and overturned. The victorious Spartans establish an oligarchic government which turns into a ruthless tyranny. Alexias feels this decay deeply as his own honour is bound up in his city. Disillusioned, he and Lysis leave Athens to join a rebellion against its rulers. The oligarchy is defeated, but the democracy that replaces it sadly promises to become a tyranny of the banal. The novel ends with a foreshadowing of Sokrates’ fate.The Last of the Wine was Mary Renault’s first novel of Ancient Greece and it established her as one of the greatest historical novelists of all time. Her empathy for the times and people she portrays, her poetic use of language and her vision can only be emulated by other writers, but, I fear, rarely equalled.
This is an extraordinary piece of work. Renault has a command of the era she writes about that is as strong if not stronger than any period author I have encountered, and in her case that accomplishment is all the more powerful as the period and culture that she is portraying is further afield than that of the vast majority of other authors, even those who tackle period pieces as their major area of effort.In Renault's case, that expertise is clearly from a deep and extensive reading of history. What we might call a "classical education" was when she was doing it probably just called "education" and that's a real shame. People these days will not be as familiar with the major historical characters she describes, let alone some of the less obvious ones. Most people will have heard of Socrates (she uses the Greek spelling Sokrates for his as well as several other names--an interesting and flavourful choice) and Plato, though even having heard of them I'm sorry to say most folks won't know much other than their names. Fewer people will have heard of Lysander, Alkibiades (Alcibiades) or Xenophon. Having read this book, I'm more convinced than ever that we are worse off for that ignorance.Renault ticks all the boxes when it comes to the major aspects of Greek culture that we might expect to encounter in a book about classical Greece: sports, politics, war (both on land an naval combat) love and marriage. All these dynamics--and more--are addressed with surprising believability and humanity. It is sometimes difficult to comprehend the ancient Greek attitude towards women, for instance, and their role in society, but Renault manages to present the occasional female character in a way that fits into the historical facts without jamming those facts into our faces. The age at which women (I should say girls) are married, for example, is difficult for modern people to understand, but when we encounter such a pairing in this book we are able to comprehend--if not embrace--how it was understood by the ancients, and though we still have our modern reservations we are in less of a position to judge.Similarly, the concepts of honor and justice presented in the book are sometimes difficult to grasp when encountered in the philosophical writing or historical descriptions of the time. Renault embodies those ideas in characters and by giving them to us in flesh and blood we see how they relate to each and the culture in which they developed.Woven into and out of that presentation are real world historical facts that are brought to life in Renault's description of the characters. For example, her physical description of Plato gives that historical figure a presence that I, for one, had never firmly grasped. Historically, he is described as having been a successful wrestler, and there is a hint about his appearance in his name, but we don't fully know what that might mean for him as a man until Renault describes his body specifically, and in doing so we see that he is not the Greek ideal of male beauty. It isn't until we get that image in our minds and we begin to get a feeling for what physical beauty meant to the Greeks through the eyes of our protagonist that we get a sense of how that might have influenced Plato as a thinker. We see how his appearance might be associated not just with his role in society, but how he thinks of society itself. By breathing life into Plato as a person, warts and all, we get a view of him as a human, and the ideas that we know from his work and reputation, particularly in his political writings, start to have an emotional quality that one just doesn't get from reading Republic alone. The historical aspects of her work aside, where this book really shines is in how Renault presents characters and culture in a way that not only makes them live, but puts us in their time and place. We're right there with them when they love and hate, fight and kill, speak and debate. Their rationalizations and failures aren't just comprehensible when described with such skill, but believable. When our fictional lead character, Alexias, does and says things that a modern person might balk at in any other context, we accept them without question, such is Renault's talent at presenting them.This ability to present character in a profound and believable way starts with the first paragraph.When I was a young boy, if I was sick or in trouble, or had been beaten at school, I used to remember that on the day I was born my father had wanted to kill me. That's a pretty powerful opening line, but she ratchets it up from there, foreshadowing the rest of the novel, tying it in with a recurrent thematic leitmotif that also forms the book's title.... In short, if you're not sucked into this book on a literary level in the first nine paragraphs (seriously, the first nine paragraphs--check them out) then it might not be the book for you.If, on the other hand, you're interested in an exceptionally well crafted story in which the author consistently makes the bold decision when it comes to both plot and character, then I can wholeheartedly recommend this one.
What do You think about The Last Of The Wine (2001)?
The best evocation of the ancient world I've ever read--or at least a small part of the ancient world for a particular 25 years. The story is told by Alexias, who grows from a small boy in Athens to a very mature and experienced man of about 30, who at the close of the book is about to see his well-loved Socrates put to death. As far as I can tell, Renault gets everything right, every prejudice, every detail of geography, every detail of history. She has reconstructed Athenian life, reflecting one way or another almost every aspect from the role of women, to the attitudes towards slaves and metics, to the treatment of children by their parents. She even convincingly rehearses the life of philosophical inquiry and the attitude of the young Plato towards his mentor Socrates. Almost the whole book lies in the last half of the Peloponnesian War, and the battles and skirmishes are convincing. She depicts (or suggests--the book was written in 1956) homosexual love that never brings in anachronistic modern associations with being gay. My only quibbles with the book would be first that it lacks a real plot--it simply traces the events of a life, with only brief episodes in which one action brings about another. This lack of forward momentum makes it very easy to put down and not pick back up. Her writing is also sometimes awkward. Example: "If I had myself to choose someone who should find me out in a lie, Plato would come very low upon my list." It was the "myself" that threw me and left me confused for several seconds. And choosing someone is different from making a list. But as I say, only quibbles over what is an amazing book.
—Jon
Raggedy original faded brick buckram, Pantheon (sic!) publisher, boy with horse like black figure pottery on cover, and with annoying tape on the spine.I'm beginning to wonder if we should reread all of the books which blew our minds when we were young. Especially books that include sex, when this is a subject you're most curious about.Having a 19th century education, I cut my teeth on Greek myths, Greek plays, historical fiction featuring Greeks, and even a bit of Greek language. I recall reading this novel with awe and prurience--a coming of age story set in Athens, with (gasp) Greek sex! Now, of course, history looks very different us than it did 50 years ago. Back then, I accepted without quibble that hetaira were either disgusting trollops or cheerful trulls, while the bath boy Phaedo is Scarred For Life. Curious how a woman writer never questions her own gender's roles and feelings.Renault is so busy name dropping--philosophers, famous soldiers, heros, events, packing as much into each chapter as possible--that she shows little regard for plot, structure or theme. The pacing is clunky at best. And yet, I thought this was a brilliant book.
—Nina
2.5 stars, really. Rounding up because I can't give it a half. It's not what I expected or wanted, it's more of a history lesson of sorts, more than anything, with a bit of philosophy. If you're looking into it because you're interested in m/m romance like I was, this is not the book for you. Instead of depicting a homosexual relationship as the genres may imply, you could say it's better defined as biromantic heterosexuality, if we're getting technical, seeing as the narrator Alexias suggests that being sexual with Lysis is vulgar, and that that's why they have women. (The deeply rooted ancient Greek misogyny is quite apparent as well.) I don't recommend this unless you're looking specifically for a historical painting of Ancient Greece. The focus isn't on the relationship but more on war, politics, and philosophy.
—Wigs
