The Charioteer readthrough: Chapters 15 and 16
And here we are, finally, at the end! Thank you to everyone who has participated in discussions, particularly 
selenak and
legionseagle.
We can now talk about our feelings about the book as a whole, so I'm sure there's going to be a great deal to say, but I'll open by raising the question of how we can interpret the ending. It fascinates me that you can read it as anything from the "happily ever after" of a romance novel (which many fans do) to something approaching a tragedy.
I recently read Caroline Zilboorg's literary biography of Mary Renault and was struck by how far she goes towards the latter interpretation:
Renault herself emphasizes that Ralph is finally a pathetic character: 'What he feels is a perpetual need to justify himself and his life by being needed and depended on, and it is Laurie's sense of his pathos which causes Laurie to conceal the fact of having read the suicide note, so as not to wound his pride by the knowledge that he is being taken on out of pity.'
Self-betrayed, Laurie continues to be admirable as he succumbs to external forces he cannot control. He relinquishes his friendship with Andrew through an act of self-sacrifice and from a misguided impulse to do his friend good. Similarly he sacrifices himself in rekindling his relationship with Ralph, to whom he falsely confesses the romantic devotion Lanyon desires...
Finally, despite self-awareness and self-knowledge, Laurie has given up independence, autonomy, self-determination, loyalty to his ideals and truth.
While I won't say that I go quite this far myself, it's certainly food for thought, particularly the direct quote from Renault!
Other questions might include: what Laurie thought he was doing carrying on his relationship with Ralph while still intending to choose Andrew; the role of Bunny's intervention in the plot; whether you believed that it was really Ralph; Andrew's reaction to the confrontation; why Laurie went all the way to the East End and then left without seeing Andrew; Laurie's harsh words to Ralph in the hospital; the return of the "slash dragon" and the fate of Alec's relationship with Sandy; Ralph's letter and how much foreshadowing it has had, or hasn't; and of course Laurie's final choice.
When I first read the book myself, I assumed that Ralph had gone to see Andrew, though I was rather railing against the author for a choice that I didn't agree with! I thought on my first reading that she was trying to tip the scales towards an Andrew-and-Laurie ending, which intellectually I was in favor of, though all my heart was with Ralph. Needless to say the actual ending came as a surprise! Originally I found Ralph's suicide note both unexpected and a bit of a deus ex machina because there was no other way of getting the two of them together. I've since reconsidered the first of those at least: in retrospect you can see it foreshadowed all through the book that Ralph is not the strong, invulnerable figure that Laurie thinks (and personally I find him more interesting this way). But it is interesting how much the conclusion of the book relies on chance rather than a positive choice from Laurie...
This entry was originally posted at http://naraht.dreamwidth.org/525902.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
selenak and
legionseagle.
We can now talk about our feelings about the book as a whole, so I'm sure there's going to be a great deal to say, but I'll open by raising the question of how we can interpret the ending. It fascinates me that you can read it as anything from the "happily ever after" of a romance novel (which many fans do) to something approaching a tragedy.
I recently read Caroline Zilboorg's literary biography of Mary Renault and was struck by how far she goes towards the latter interpretation:
Renault herself emphasizes that Ralph is finally a pathetic character: 'What he feels is a perpetual need to justify himself and his life by being needed and depended on, and it is Laurie's sense of his pathos which causes Laurie to conceal the fact of having read the suicide note, so as not to wound his pride by the knowledge that he is being taken on out of pity.'
Self-betrayed, Laurie continues to be admirable as he succumbs to external forces he cannot control. He relinquishes his friendship with Andrew through an act of self-sacrifice and from a misguided impulse to do his friend good. Similarly he sacrifices himself in rekindling his relationship with Ralph, to whom he falsely confesses the romantic devotion Lanyon desires...
Finally, despite self-awareness and self-knowledge, Laurie has given up independence, autonomy, self-determination, loyalty to his ideals and truth.
While I won't say that I go quite this far myself, it's certainly food for thought, particularly the direct quote from Renault!
Other questions might include: what Laurie thought he was doing carrying on his relationship with Ralph while still intending to choose Andrew; the role of Bunny's intervention in the plot; whether you believed that it was really Ralph; Andrew's reaction to the confrontation; why Laurie went all the way to the East End and then left without seeing Andrew; Laurie's harsh words to Ralph in the hospital; the return of the "slash dragon" and the fate of Alec's relationship with Sandy; Ralph's letter and how much foreshadowing it has had, or hasn't; and of course Laurie's final choice.
When I first read the book myself, I assumed that Ralph had gone to see Andrew, though I was rather railing against the author for a choice that I didn't agree with! I thought on my first reading that she was trying to tip the scales towards an Andrew-and-Laurie ending, which intellectually I was in favor of, though all my heart was with Ralph. Needless to say the actual ending came as a surprise! Originally I found Ralph's suicide note both unexpected and a bit of a deus ex machina because there was no other way of getting the two of them together. I've since reconsidered the first of those at least: in retrospect you can see it foreshadowed all through the book that Ralph is not the strong, invulnerable figure that Laurie thinks (and personally I find him more interesting this way). But it is interesting how much the conclusion of the book relies on chance rather than a positive choice from Laurie...
This entry was originally posted at http://naraht.dreamwidth.org/525902.html. Please comment there using OpenID.