She didn't believe in prudishness of any kind, which might explain why she was recommending a book like The King Must Die to a bunch of sixteen-year-olds. She refused to click past such slides as the Venus de Milo or Michaelangelo's David until she was absolutely sure she'd lectured us sufficiently on the sculptors' extraordinary technique and expertise on the human figure, when all we were doing was writing crude notes to each other and giggling behind our hands. She put just a little too much stock in our maturity, but we appreciated the pretense. I loved the class and hero-worshiped Mrs. McKellan, so when she froze the projector on a statue of the Laoccoon being dragged to Hades by serpents and began pontificating on Mary Renault's writing prowess, I ran straight to the library and began reading The King Must Die that very night.
This is what I got from that first (failed) attempt: Theseus is six years old; he witnesses a gross sacrifice; he gets older; he finds out that his father isn't really Poseidon; lots of people have sex; he goes on a journey and ends up in a city ruled by women; he becomes the queen's beeyotch. Around here I stopped reading, wondering what I was missing.
What I was missing then was an appreciation for the fact that the Greece from whence we got Aristotle, Homer, and an overabundance of nude statues was once, time out of mind, a real place. The King Must Die takes the mythical hero of Theseus and recasts him as a historical figure, which he may or may not have been. The myths surrounding him are largely distasteful, as Greek myths generally are; filled with much abandoning of various women and cursing of various family members and various semi-incestuous shenanigans of various gods, and so on. Renault pays close attention to these stories, but takes Theseus by the ankles and shakes him until most of this foolishness falls out of his pockets; then sets him back down in a carefully researched and beautifully rendered Greece, circa 2000 BC. The gods are very much a part of the lives of these people, but they are not really characters. Theseus himself is convinced throughout his childhood that Poseidon is his father; even when he is told otherwise he continues to pray to Poseidon, receiving answers in the form of crashing waves, earthquakes, rushing currents, and the like. In fact, all the supernatural phenomena which any of the books' characters ascribe to this god or that god are presented subjectively, with the reader free to think otherwise. Likewise, Renault retools myth-Theseus's miraculous feats of strength and derring-do into the plausible adventures of a headstrong and precocious teenager. He attributes his successes to Poseidon or Apollo or even the super-creepy Earth Mother Dia, but the reader is free to think that maybe he's just a clever kid.
The point is that the source of all these myths was always reality, no matter how removed or buried by weirdness. Renault's talent lies in peeling back her mythical source material until she uncovers the real place and time and culture at the bottom. This does not make for a quick read. The very nature of the book demands continual exposition; the first third of the novel, taken up with Theseus's young childhood and teenage years, is for this reason something of a chore. Not until his encounter with the matriarchal society of Eleusis does the plot--such as it is--begin to pick up. The Eleusians practice an arcane form of sacrifice to the Earth Mother; each year, the town welcomes a male stranger and coerces him into fighting their king to the death, whereupon the stranger is made their new king--until the next year, when he is bumped off in a similar fashion. Theseus, despite his attraction to the bodacious Queen and the easy life he has as her consort, does not believe his moira ends in Eleusis, and must apply all his wits to find a way out of his situation. Moira, a concept similar to fate, is a recurring theme throughout. His moira is what allows him to give Eleusis the honorable slip and establish himself as the heir to the king of Athens; his moira likewise takes him from there to Crete.
And here is where the book really takes off. Myth and reality meet in the labyrinthine Cretan palace, where King Minos is rarely seen but his heir, the boorish and twisted Minotaurus (sound familiar?) makes himself far too well known; where the ancient human sacrifice made to Poseidon and Mother Dia has devolved into a bloodthirsty spectator sport. The mighty Cretan empire exacts its taxes from the lands under its dominion in the form of slightly built boys and girls, whom they train in the art of the Bull Dance. Once trained, teams of these children are sent into the ring, where they tease the bull until one of them is gored or until time runs out, whichever comes first. Into this arena comes Theseus; he does not leave until it is unalterably changed. It is his moira, after all.
As a historical study, and, to a certain extent, as a story, The King Must Die is excellent. As far as evoking a specific atmosphere and immersing the reader in the setting itself, the only thing I can think of to rival it is Rumer Godden's In This House of Brede. But The King Must Die isn't meaningful. We are meant to root for Theseus, but there is no heart. Why should we root for him? What's his motive--his pride? His moira? The gods? And why should we care? It's never quite made clear, and in the midst of all Renault's assuredly fine writing is a certain sense of emptiness. Still, I can finally see where Mrs. McKellan was coming from, twirling her car keys enthusiastically at the glowing projector screen. She just wanted us to recognize the wild and beautiful Greece that was the cradle of Western civilization. So does Renault.
