I read The friendly young ladies, the only Mary Renault published as a Virago Modern Classic, at the beginning of last year, shortly before I embarked on this challenge. But I remember greatly enjoying it.The story of Elsie, a young Cornish girl who is stifled by living in a small village with her parents, it relates what happens, when on the advice of a man who she has fallen in love with, she runs away to London to live with her sister. Her sister's life bears a huge contrast to Elsie's convention existence - Leo lives on a houseboat with another woman and writes Westerns for a living. The book reveals what happens when Elsie encounters this bohemian lifestyle and how it changes her and in turn she changes Leo. Apparently Renault wrote this in part as a response to Radclyffe Hall's The well of loneliness which is a much more intense and depressing book about lesbianism, and I think she succeeded in showing a different side to it.
The edition I had from the library was the most recent one, which I feel really evokes the charming, holiday-like nature of the book. Do check this one out! 3.5*
I read The Friendly Young Ladies a few years ago and I really like it. Living on a barge and writing western novels for a living sounds great!
ReplyDeleteEven if I didn't already have All-Things-Virago on my TBR list, the cover of this one (the newest) is so completely delightful that I'd be tempted all the same!
ReplyDeleteHave you read any other Renault? The Friendly Young Ladies was good, but some of her other books are better to a power of ten. She's a favorite author of mine. :)
ReplyDeleteVintage - I think it sounds like a wonderful life too!
ReplyDeleteBIP - it fits in with a lot of the more recent Virago book covers doesn't it - I'm thinking of the Muriel Sparks and Barbara Pyms especially.
Jenny - I hadn't come across any other Mary Renault books, mainly because this is the only one published as a VMC; I see you bought several in your recent bookbuying haul, so you'll have to let me know which ones are good!
I wish I hadn't come here because now I'll have to buy a copy of Friendly Young Ladies. :)
ReplyDeleteI've read Renault's historical novels but had no idea she'd written anything else.
Frisbee - historical novels, how interesting!
ReplyDeleteOh, I can tell you now. I love Mary Renault from way back. Read The Charioteer. I started my book blog, seriously, because I wanted to talk about The Charioteer and nobody else I knew had read it (still the case, sadly). I have some problems with it, but it's a very good book. That's the only one of her present-day (present to her) novels that I really like. Her other good ones are historical. The Mask of Apollo, which I read recently, was superb.
ReplyDeleteJenny - I shall look out for it - it sounds intriguing. And what a good reason to start a book blog!
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