A review by ladybird4prez
The Charioteer by Mary Renault

5.0

Such gorgeous writing, but really dense. I suspect part of that has to do with the fact that this is a book published in the 1950s about queer people during World War II, and it’s not like you could explicitly say everything you wanted to. Because of this, much of the meaning is hidden behind several layers, and I had to read many passages multiple times to try to parse out the implications. I’m sure there was still a lot of meaning I missed anyway. While this could’ve disengaged me in other cases, I could not put this book down. I liked Laurie, Ralph, and Andrew so I was eager to see how everything would play out. 

I won’t lie, there is quite a bit of homophobia and definitely internalized homophobia that I believe was reflective of Renault’s own views. However, I always love a queer classic where the characters aren’t completely miserable and can actually end up together. Dare I say this was peak romance at some points?? Just stunning, heart-wrenching quotes encompassing love and longing.

Honestly, I only picked this up because of We Could Be So Good by Cat Sebastian but that had me thinking of this in a whole other way, too. The characters in that book are pleasantly surprised to see explicit queer characters with a non tragic ending and it just makes me appreciate the existence of non tragic queer classics and what it means to see yourself in literature, especially what it would’ve meant back then. It also applies to these characters and the way they pass Phaedrus around as a sort of first step to self discovery. Speaking of Phaedrus, I thought the chariot allegory was woven in so beautifully.