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The Charioteer

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The Charioteer

By: Mary Renault
Narrated by: Joe Jameson
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About this listen

After surviving the Dunkirk retreat, Laurie Odell, a young homosexual, critically examines his unorthodox lifestyle and personal relationships, as he falls in love with a young conscientious objector and becomes involved with a circle of world-weary gay men.

©1955 Mary Renault (P)2014 Audible Studios Classics
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With such a well-written story as this, full of insight, of compassion, of understanding and of critical observation, it come hard to have reservations. But I do. First of all, that unnecessary over-didactic first chapter explaining that this is in some way, a novel with a Cause. The novel stands by itself, in its own right, and perhaps those who support "the Cause" should read it again and take note of its pertinent observations.

Secondly, the narration leaves much to be desired. As a narrator, the reader does well, but the register of the voices that he uses to depict the main characters – especially those of Laurie and of Ralph, and to a degree, of Andrew – ultimately irritate because of the curious strained tone that is apparent in all of them.

However, at the end, it remains a Mary Renaud novel: elegantly written, astutely observed and insightfully critical - surely a significant novel of the 20th century.

Almost.....

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An unforgivable mangling of a truly remarkable work. Agree with the reviewer below- the bit at the beginning, a completely inappropriate co-option of Renault's work to fit a contemporary 'Gay Rights' narrative, is insufferable and unnecessary, and contradicts completely the core messages of the book (I can only imagine they were too subtle for the writer of the foreword). The Charioteer is first and foremost a good novel, not even so much a Gay(!) novel, still less a didactic political screed.

The voices the narrator adopts for the different characters are stilted and overdone (not to mention badly done); bizarre, actually. They're like caricatures: the masculine voices are exaggeratedly deep and dense-sounding; the feminine (for which he adopts a falsetto), mean and shrill. It's excruciating to listen to. Laurie, Ralph and Andrew (who the narrator distinguishes by making him speak in a barely-audible whisper) deserve better. Mary Renault deserves better. Her peerless and singular style (of which the narrator has no discernible appreciation) deserves better. Renault's descriptions and especially dialogue perfectly and effortlessly evoke the period, but this narrator doesn't really seem to know how people in the first half of the 20th century talked. A more experienced reader would have been much better. My personal choice would be an older woman, perhaps a distinguished (theatre?) actress; someone literate enough to understand the beauty and power of what they are reading.

Awful. Just awful.

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