Re: "Da Vinci" Debunking

On Thursday, April 29, 2004, James Spinti wrote of Mary Renault

: Agreed she is not tree-hugging, but all of her novels (yes
: the Theseus series is part of them) have the underlying
: Mother Goddess is primal theme to them.

Granted, I have not read *all* of her novels, but I do not see how this is
true even of all the classical ones I *have* read.  I recall no "Mother
Goddess" at all - let alone as a "primal theme" - in *Mask of Apollo* or the
Alexander sequence, for instance;  nor do I see any trace of it in *The
Charioteer* or her other modern-setting work.  Indeed, it seems to me that
it is a strong theme *only* in the Theseus novels, and especially in the
first of those, where it is connected to the titular theme.


Terrence Lockyer
Johannesburg, South Africa