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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
True love and rock climbing in a priggish world,
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This review is from: North Face (Hardcover)
Who but Mary Renault would choose to present a novel about the slow, cautious flowering of a love affair in the form of a rock-climber's notebook? From chapter 1 ("Approach from the North") to chapter 18 ("Rescue Party"), she sets the background - on the border of Devon and Cornwall - introduces a small but pungent dramatis personae, clearly shows why the two leading characters are too emotionally scarred to consider any kind of relationship, and then depicts the gradual, often frightfully painful, unfolding of the most intimate relationship in defiance of adverse circumstances. Published in 1948, this was Miss Renault's last novel until "The Charioteer" in 1955 - which was almost immediately followed by "The Last of the Wine", the first of her stream of tremendously popular books set in ancient Greece.As anyone familiar with Renault's books would expect, this is filigree work. Each character is depicted with loving care, from the priggish lecturer and the down-to-earth nurse to the self-consciously middle-class landlady and the predatory young blonde. Convincingly detailed and entirely believable as they are, the supporting characters appear almost two-dimensional, like a static backdrop against which the anguished lovers meet, are instantly attracted, and discover a myriad reasons why they can never find happiness, only to stumble across an almost miraculous redemption. There is a lot to learn in the process of following their story: the hardships of everyday life in austerity-cramped Britain, the rigid codes of behaviour and morals, the feeling that all values had been rendered meaningless by the hideous recent war... While superficially a romantic novel, this book is a whole lot more. If you are interested in what makes people tick, the intrinsic differences between man and woman, the interplay between social conventions and human needs, even what life is (or should be) about - you will find it fascinating and rewarding.
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