ye_olde_renault | Recent Entries

This is an open forum for fan-work and meta-work about Mary Renault's Ancient Greece novels. Membership is open, ditto posting access, though mods reserve the right to delete spam. Posting guidelines can be found here.

We're going to try and have a chapter-by-chapter discussion of the Theseus duology starting in March with The King Must Die, if there's enough interest. A sign-up post should be up soon and will be linked here.

For all your Moderns needs, please go to

renaultx, which is a general Renault community slanting heavily towards her contemporary novels, and which evolved out of a Renault Exchange (hence the name) that'll happen again soon, this time including Ancients alongside last year's Moderns. We'll link when sign-ups start.

All relevant prompts from the Yuletide Prompts File (of doooooom) have been posted here.

We're running a Drabble/Drawble Comment Fest: prompt, write, sketch!

renaultx starts a CbC of Mask of Apollo on 16th January. Their schedule and sign-ups post is here.

minoanmiss

This was too good not to share, and besides October is a good month for raising the dead.

https://www.thechatner.com/p/how-to-tell-if-you-are-in-a-mary-renault-novel

"Your hair is tousled, your will is iron, your shoulder is bronzed, and your name has a K in it. "

Current Mood: amused

jendrula

Dear ye_olde_renault
My name is Marvin Gaye Chetwynd and I am an artist, this Summer I am wading into a big project as part of Edinburgh Arts Festival. I have the use of 4 rooms that are in a Neo-Clasical building that is known as the Old Royal High School, Waterloo place, Edinburgh. I will work in my studio (making the costumes,props and set) for 3 months up to the opening date July 30th 2015. The performance will take place 5 times, July 30th, August 1st, August 13th, August 22 and August 29th. It will last approx. 40 minutes each time. There are 10 performers who will bring to life a big puppet of a turtle and then sacrifice the turtle, we will dance with the entrails and the smear them onto huge petals of flowers and leaves in a room that was converted for parliament. There are seats arranged in tired circles and there is balcony floor. I will hang up to 40 giant flowers to make a lighting installation that will seem a magical forest. the light will be a mixture of pink and red and purples. I want to make a sumptuous installation and a sense of scale that is operatic. I hope that the readings form The King Must Die will suit this. I imagine it to be exciting. I will work very hard to make it come to life, the passed 15 years I have spent time doing similar projects and I have faith that this will pull together.
I would like to find someone who loves the ancient novels of Mary Renault to read as part of the performances. I can read the text myself however I will be involved with the puppetry and the mime already, so it would be great to find someone who would enjoy helping me with the project. I can pay travel and a fee of £50 each performance. I cannot cover accommodation, ideally I would like to meet some one who is based in Scotland. I guess one idea for accommodation could be finding a base in Glasgow near us and the commuting over by train - this is how we will be traveling.

marthaquest_72

Hi there- As part of the previous post I made about Marvin Gaye Chetwynd's performace piece for 'The King Must Die' can I ask any of you to say which is your favourite/ inspiring Renault book and perhaps why? It doesn't have to be TKMD! Thanks marthaquest_72

marthaquest_72

Hi everyone- I'm a new member and have been in contact with some of the administrators to make sure it's ok for me to post this. My sister-in-law, the artist Marvin Gaye Chetwynd is producing a performance piece called 'The King Must Die' in Edinburgh this summer. She wondered if any members of the Renault community in the UK would be interested in taking part. Below is the message she sent me and her mobile number for anyone interested.
Thanks
marthquest_72

Dates this Summer 2015
July 29
August 1, 13, 22, 29

Would anyone like to join Marvin Gaye Chetwynd's troupe to perform this Summer as part of the Edinburgh Arts Festival, travel and a fee would be paid. Please contact Marvin 07501277971, spartacuschetwynd@googlemail.com

Working across performance, sculpture, installation and painting, Marvin Gaye Chetwynd draws on a disparate array of cultural reference points (high-brow and popular, historic and contemporary) to construct her exuberant, anarchic and distinctly handmade worlds. Mediaeval Mummers, Starship Troopers, 60s happenings, contemporary cinema – all of these have provided inspiration for her work over the years.
If there is a unifying thread, it is an interest in the folk, the pagan – those outlets throughout history for the licensed collective outpouring of emotion – whether in archaic ritual, Greek tragedy, Medieval masquerade, puppetry or political demonstration. A sense of spontaneity and urgency permeates her work, nowhere more visibly than in her celebration of the lo-fi and ad hoc. With no attempt at disguise, her works visibly lay bare their artifice, requiring a conscious suspension of disbelief as we encounter her surreal and humorous reflections on life’s very real problems.
In a new performative installation for the The Improbable City, Chetwynd draws inspiration from the rich world of Mary Renault’s historical novels and their fan groups. Her sumptuous and theatrical installation places the epic action from Renault’s novel The King Must Die within an operatic setting referencing the legendary Czech stage scenographer, Josef Svoboda. Immersive and sumptuous, Chetwynd’s installation invites us to lose ourselves in an exuberant celebration of the pagan.

Supported by Scottish Government Edinburgh Festivals Fund.
Old Royal High School Regent Road, New Parliament Ho

greerwatson

Someone has just started a Fanlore page for Alexander/Hephaistion. Which sounds perfectly lovely—until you actually have a look at it and realize that almost the only thing there is actually Star Trek. (Specifically, Star Trek fans comparing A/H with K/S.)

At the very bottom is a section for A/H in Renault fandom. However, it is labelled as a stub. In fact, it is so stubby that there's nothing there but the title.

I was wondering if maybe some folks from hereabouts might feel inclined to go and and plump things out a bit?

toujours_nigel

Follow-up to this post. Now that nominations are open, are we doing the usual horse-trading to decide who does what? They're allowing five fandoms, each with five characters.

selket531

Title: UnHeralded Strength, Book I.2

Author: Lysis (August 2014 to January 2015)

Fandom: Alexander Trilogy

Pairing(s): Alexander/Bagoas; Alexander/Hephaistion

Rating: M

Content: Alexander flashes back a few months regarding Hephaistion’s initial reaction to Bagoas.

*** Alexander’s Lovers, by Andrew Chugg is interesting reading on the historical Bagoas.

( Read more... )

selket531

Title: UnHeralded Strength, Book I.I

Author: Lysis (August 2015 to January 2015)

Fandom: Alexander/Bagoas; Alexander/Hephaistion

Rating: M

Content: About two days following the events in Book I. Alexander, is very busy, as usual, his mind on many things, one being, Bagoas.

( Read more... )

toujours_nigel

The Rare Women Exchange returns this year as

rarelywritten, and has now been thrown open to all characters who fall outside the rubric of cis-male. Announcement, FAQ and Important Dates are up.

Please consider nominating/requesting/offering your favourite under-represented characters from marginalised sexes and genders. Given the hit count requirements, all non-cis-male characters among the Ancients should more than qualify.

selket531

Earlier I posted the first chapter of a series on Bagoas. I hope it posted correctly, but I am not certain. Am a bit confused with this Dreamwidth site. If it did not show correctly, as being posted to ye_old_Renault would someone let me know and possibly help. I read the HELP section, but am still befuddled. Merci, Lysis

selket531

The glorious youth turned from the basket seller,

forgetten, the violets wet with dew scattered,

left behind upon the white marble steps

as he heard heaven's doors open
at the sound of the burnished voice,
that spoke and thus smote his past
freeing him thereon from all restraint.

*********************

I have always been fascinated by Phadeo, and wrote this poem to honor him.
Lysis.
1/13/15

selket531

Many thanks for accepting me into your community. I am a longtime admirer of Ms. Renault. I was introduced to her writing back in my college days, the mid 1970's. The head of the Art History dept. under which I was studying was a big fan and friend of hers and her books were required reading in the department, esp. re Hellenistic art history. As a writer myself, still trying to get published, I owe so much to her studying her style, technique and lyricism. I just love her writing! She has the ability to transport the reader back into that other time to sit beside them while they listen to Sokrates lecture Alexis and Lysis. The Last of the Wine is my favorite book.

Anyway, thanks again.

Lysis

filia_noctis

Hullo!

We are fascinated by and more than a little invested in Mary Renault's Ancient Greece novels, but for various reasons have found ourselves side-tracked, distracted, not looking enough, definitely not as much as we want. We assume everyone here shares the love if not the distractions. Above all, we hoped (are hoping) for an open-access space for like-minds to meet. And this is one of the handful of things we have lined up to kick-start the conversation.

So, to cut the ribbons on this comm, we thought of a Drabble/Drawble Prompt Fest. Anonymous comments are enabled, come in your guise or in disguise and leave a prompt. Responses come in the form of drabbles, ficlets or quick sketches (we love stick figures! We swear by them!). Responders can also stay anonymous if they choose, obviously. Do as you will, we are too lazy to screen anything. *g*

One request: leave the fandom of your prompt and the title of your fill in the comment-header so we can figure out where to click if the threads roll up (oh thrilling thought!).

Hope the responses leave you presently-surprised-to-flabbergasted, in all the nice ways!

toujours_nigel

These have been extracted from the text file of prompts. I don't think I missed out on any, but please do tell if you think otherwise.

Unfulfilled Prompts:

( The Last of the Wine )

( King Must Die series (Theseus Duology) )

( The Praise Singer )

Fulfilled Prompts:

( The Mask of Apollo )

( Alexander trilogy )

toujours_nigel

General Guidelines:

Have fun.

Don't have fun at the cost of others. Make your point with as much vehemence and rhetorical flourish as you choose and at whatever length you choose, but do not descend to name-calling or bashing. You might love or detest a particular character or novel, or how one member behaves might be irritating you no end, but it's petty to resort to personal attacks, and awfully uncreative. For personal reasons, mods are sensitive to misogyny, homophobia, and racism, and may not immediately recognise other forms of attack, but please tell us if you feel unsafe or targeted. That said, please don't confuse what characters say for the belief-system of any member; conversely, don't use the characters as sock-puppets for your own bigotry.

Renault's novels are not always easily accessible, and this is especially the case with her Ancient Greece novels. Linking to scholarly (or other) articles and essays dealing with the period under discussion (whether in a fic or meta post) or simply talking about the same is encouraged. If you know a lot about Alexander the Great, or the Athens Socrates lived in, or exactly what Ariadne was holding that morning, please do share. However, we know archaeology and anthropology have moved on from where they were in Renault's time, and have left her historical novels (particularly the Theseus duology, but also much that informs divinity and magic in her other texts) resembling fantasy rather more than they did when published. Consequently, the fanfic based on the same novels might not fall in line with current anthropological or archaeological knowledge.

When posting fiction:

Put the fic-title and fandom in your header.

Use content notes. If you're writing underage sex or incest or BDSM, sign-post that. If you're writing canon-compliant fluff, sign-post that as well. Do not call it a warning in either case: some of us avoid stories based on content and others look for it on the same grounds.

Tag. Tag for fandom, characters, pairings, era, content, style, canon compliance and divergence, character death, injury, PTSD, AUs of all kinds, gods, magic, deus ex machinae, anything you can think of. Do try and avoid Tumblr-style chatty tags; gush in the Authors Note instead. You can also leave posts untagged if unsure, in which case the mods will do the tagging for you, or contact the mods to find out what tags to use.

Use a cut-tag when posting fic above 100 words in length. While you can choose what to put above the cut, please mention fandom, character(s), pairing(s), rating, and content notes; a summary would be nice but is optional.

toujours_nigel

Quite sparse this year; two for the Alexander trilogy (well, actually Fire from Heaven) and one for The Mask of Apollo.

Alexander Trilogy:

Parrhesia (679 words), gifted to

fawatson. A Madness treat centred around Pausanias' last moments, featuring rather interesting musings about pharmakoi and Oedipous.

Foster-child of Silence and Slow Time (1124 words), also gifted to

fawatson. A full-length story about Pausanias' wife preparing for Olympias, Alexander, and their companions on the latter's flight to Epiros.

The Mask of Apollo:

A Room of One's Own (3274 words), with

fawatson as the recipient yet again. *g* A lovely AU where Axiothea becomes pregnant with Nikeratos' child, and settles into staying with him and Thettalos. The last section has fake-history for this 'verse mentioning her child and her later career.

The full list of relevant requests will be posted to the comm. in January after reveals.

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Renault's Ancients

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"How to Tell That You Are In A Mary Renault Novel"

The King Must Die

Favourite Renault book

The King Must Die

Alex/Heph on LiveJournal

rarelywritten nominations

UnHeralded Strength, Book I.2

UnHeralded Strength, Book I.I

Rarely Written 2015

Ah...question..

Poem: Phadeo

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Drabble/Drawble: Conversation Starters 101

Yuletide 2014 Prompts

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