My Goodreads review: The Bull from the Sea

[ankh_hpl]

The Bull from the Sea by Mary Renault

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This immediate sequel to The King Must Die is another full-immersion experience of heroic Greece, with a lyrical first-person narrative to match. In retelling the rest of Theseus’s life (i.e., his post-bull-dancing days), Renault again tackles the problem of making her protagonist sympathetic while keeping him true to his time.

For the most part, she succeeds brilliantly. Reading the latter part of Theseus’s life is like attending a Greek tragedy: you know what’s going to happen, you know on some level that the character deserves it, but you can’t help but feel pity. And you can’t look away. Theseus’s years with the Amazon Hippolyta produce some of the novel’s loveliest prose, though readers familiar with the story know that it’s all downhill from here. All the way down, with a few plot twists that work just as well in the 21st century A.D. as they ever have.

My occasional frustrations as a reader came from some of Theseus’s career decisions post-Hippolyta -- and his inevitable “excuses” involving the gods. It took me a while to remember that tragic flaws are an integral part of a Classical hero’s makeup, and Renault gives her protagonist a full helping. She also nails the difficult task of making the gods fully real in her world without producing a full-blown fantasy.

Readers curious about her sources (circa 1962) and plotting choices are again given a generous Author’s Note. She is very clear about where what elements came from, and what she crafted on her own – which I appreciated. A concise version of the legend is also included.





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