BOOKS & PUBLICATIONS

Notices and reviews of books, articles, plays and poetry dealing with homosexuality and the sex variant. Readers are invited to send in reviews or printed matter for review.

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THE LAST OF THE WINE..

by Mary Renault $4.50

Pantheon Books, Inc., New York, 1956. (Condensed from a book review by Luther Allen, published in DER KREIS for September, 1956.)

THE LAST OF THE WINE is the story of Athens during the last years of the Peloponnesian War as seen through the eyes of Alexias, a youth of good family who grows to manhood during that troubled period, Alexias is an admirer of Socrates, a school-mate of Plato and Xenophon and a friend of other members of the Socratic circle, including the unhappy Phaedo. In his teens. he is a celebrated but not TOO celebrated beauty with many suitors. He is a superior athlete. He becomes the beloved and comrade at arms of the noble Lysis and before he is out of his teens he fights beside Lysis in defense of Athens. His father is lost in the disaster at Syracuse and Alexias assumes the responsibilities of head of the family just as he reaches man's estate. He and Lysis serve several years as sea-warriors under the generalship of Alcibiades. They starve with the rest of Athens during its long siege by the Spartans. Alexias is an enemy of Kritias, the most ruthless of the Oligarchs who rule Athens for a time after her capitulation to Sparta, and he and Lysis become leaders of the democratic revolt which overthrows the tyrants. This young man, then, is no mere bystander. He is thoroughly engaged in the manifold life of Athens and in her struggles. Alexias is the hero of this novel, enamoured of another hero, Lysis, but the story does, nevertheless, possess a heroine: she is Athens.

It is good to read a book which, permeated through and through with homosexual emotion, yet far transcends a narrow preoccupation with sexual love to the exclusion of all other human values, issues and concerns. In the LAST OF THE WINE there is no question of a schizoid "homosexual way of life" existing in isolation from the culture in which it is embedded. Instead we are given a convincing picture of homosexual love integrated with and contributing to a highly developed civilization. . . . Mary Renault gives us (the) full, clear picture. . . . as it was lived in its day-to-day details, as it ripened over the years. She displays its nuances. She shows us how it all worked out in actual practice.

We envy the candor and liberty of the Greek lovers. We envy the spontaneity which was permitted them. Lovers did much of their courting in public and it was taken for granted that they should. Lovers walked the streets arm in arm if they felt like doing so and nobody objected. Lovers embraced in public places when they met and it was considered quite proper. When a youth announced to his family with sweet solemnity that he had accepted a lover the news was received with gravity and respect, his father's only concern being for the status and character of his son's friend. Nevertheless, partners in a young friendship seriously debated how much sexual liberty they ought to permit themselves, much as engaged heterosexual youngsters debate the same