The Charioteer (1953/59)

   

After enduring an injury at Dunkirk during World War II, Laurie Odell is sent to a rural veterans’ hospital in England to convalesce. There he befriends the young, bright Andrew, a conscientious objector serving as an orderly. As they find solace and companionship together in the idyllic surroundings of the hospital, their friendship blooms into a discreet, chaste romance. Then one day, Ralph Lanyon, a mentor from Laurie’s schoolboy days, suddenly reappears in Laurie’s life, and draws him into a tight-knit social circle of world-weary gay men. Laurie is forced to choose between the sweet ideals of innocence and the distinct pleasures of experience.

Originally published in the United States in 1959, The Charioteer is a bold, unapologetic portrayal of male homosexuality during World War II that stands with Gore Vidal’s The City and the Pillar and Christopher Isherwood’s Berlin Stories as a monumental work in gay literature. 

Quotes:
Laurie went through the gate, out into the lane. Two great horses, ringing with idle brass, were being led home, their coats steaming in the cool. He felt absolute, filled; he could have died then content, empty-handed and free. All gifts he had ever wished for seemed only traps, now, to dim him and make him less. This, he thought with perfect certainty, this after all is to be young, it is for this. Now we have the strength to make our memories, out of hard stuff, out of steel and crystal; now we can be run through and remember for ever the flash and temper of the blade.
The steam of the horses, a good strong russet smell , hung on the air. Sailing in a deep inlet of sky off the black coast of an elm-tree, the first star appeared, flickering like a riding-light in a fresh wind. Andrew walked beside him silently. An eddy of air in the quiet lane brought back like an echo the stamp and jingle of the horses, a shake of the bridle and a snort.
...Let us, say, then, that the soul resembles the joined powers of a pair of winged horses and a charioteer. Now the horses and drivers of the gods are of equal temper and breed, but with men it is otherwise...(page 79)


"What subject?"
"Love." Laurie skimmed as lightly as he could over the most treacherous word in the language. "The first speech sets out to prove that a lover who isn't in love is preferable to one who is. Being less jealous, easier to live with, and generally more civilised."
"It sounds," said Andrew with the maddening intolerance of youth, "hardly worth stating the first time, let alone re-doing it."
"Well , maybe, but Socrates' version is quite amusing. And, as a matter of fact, perfectly true. Only as the whole thing hangs on the definition of love, he's able to turn it inside out in the refutation, which is the highlight of the piece. It--"
"Read it to me."
"What? Oh, no. No, I--" It was a moment before he recovered the presence of mind to add, "It's far too long."
"Read as much as you can, then." Andrew lay down on the grass. It could be seen that he was very tired. His voice had the edgy insistence one hears in a child's who has sat up too long.
"No, I should spoil it." It and much more, he thought. To keep Andrew quiet he went on, "It's the speech which contains the famous myth of the charioteer."
"I don't know it. Go on."  
"Well ..." He paused. It had been part of his mind's furniture for years, but he had never spoken of it to anyone before. "He likens the soul to a charioteer, driving two winged horses harnessed abreast."
"Yes, don't stop."
"Each of the gods has a pair of divine white horses, but the soul only has one. The other" (he smiled to himself; he always remembered this part best) "is black and scruffy, with a thick neck, a flat face, hairy fetlocks, grey bloodshot eyes and shaggy ears. He's hard of hearing, thick-skinned and given to bolting whenever he sees something he wants. So the two beast rarely see eye to eye, but the charioteer has to keep them on the road together. The god driving his well -matched greys is ahead setting the pace; he drives up to a track which encircles the heavens, and is carried round with eternity as it spins, like--"
Andrew, interrupting, said, "Like a great ring of pure and endless light."
"Yes. Yes, that will be where Vaughan got it, I suppose." Both found themselves with nothing to say. And now, thought Laurie, he will ask at any moment, "But what has all this to do with love?"
In fact, however, he said nothing, but picked up the book itself from the grass, where Laurie had forgotten it. (page 103)


Quietly, as night shuts down the uncertain prospect of the road ahead, the wheels sink to stillness in the dust of the halting-place, and the reins drop from the driver's loosened hands. Staying each his hunger on what pasture the place affords them, neither the white horse nor the black reproaches his fellow for drawing their master out of the way. They are far, both of them, from home, and lonely, and lengthened by their strife the way has been hard.