Catherine Fox: Love For the Lost (2000)

Edition: Penguin, 2000
Review number: 854

Catherine Fox's third novel takes a minor character from The Benefits of Passion and puts her centre stage. Isobel was one of the ordinands in the same class as Annie Brown, and now she is a curate herself. The novel follows her through two years at this post, as she learns a lot about herself and those around her.

The tone of Love For the Lost is darker than Fox's earlier novels; it continues to combine humour and drama, but the balance is rather further toward the dramatic. The novel is also more theological in character, in keeping with a central character professionally involved in Christian ministry rather than studying. This would probably make it less likely to appeal to non-Christians who haven't read the earlier novels, but it is well worth seeking out.

The main criticism I would have of this novel is that there is too much coincidence in the characters' relationships. Previously unacquainted people turn out to have several friends in common, something which is very unlikely (even if a friend of my wife's is married to someone I knew as a student). It is a bit annoying that this keeps on happening, and in most cases it is not at all necessary. Other than momentary irritation, it doesn't greatly detract from an enjoyable novel.

Michael Pearce: The Mamur Zapt and the Camel of Destruction (1993)

Edition: Collins, 1993 (Buy from Amazon)
Review number: 853

The camel of destruction is apparently a figure from Arab legend, which has an aptly descriptive name. In this novel, more serious in tone than most of the Mamur Zapt stories, a plan to build new roads right through ancient parts of the city of Cairo is likened to the camel.

The case which Owen, as Mamur Zapt in charge of order in the city of Cairo in the early part of the twentieth century, investigates is the suicide of a civil servant, trying to find out what put him under so much pressure that he killed himself and who paid for the improvements recently carried out on his family house. It seems to be connected with the murky and complicated world of Egyptian finance, including schemes to attract foreign investment (and make vast amounts of money on the side) like the road.

It is the complex political machinations which take up the space generally occupied by humour in this series, but that doesn't stop The Camel of Destruction being an entertaining detective story with an atmospheric historical background.

Edith Wharton: The House of Mirth (1905)

Edition: Everyman, 1991
Review number: 852

There are many novels about breaking into high society; fewer about falling out of it. Wharton's tragic story is about how Lily Bart gradually loses her place in the New York smart set, sliding lower and lower until her death in a common boarding house. The basic problem is money; Lily's family are not really rich enough any more to maintain their position, and it is her beauty and social graces which have let her continue to be accepted even until the beginning of the novel.

The obvious solution to Lily's problems is marriage to a rich man, and she seems to have plenty of opportunities, even if at twenty nine she is considered a bit old to do so. The problem is that she can never quite bring herself up to scratch, so that she schemes and works to entrap a man only to pull out at the wrong moment, put off by a vision of a lifetime of boring conversation or whatever the bad points about him happen to be. She also has a tendency to get into completely innocent situations which are then disastrously misunderstood, for example alienating two of her closest friends who think she is having affairs with their husbands. (In one case, this is particularly unjust; Bertha Dorset invites her on a trip to Europe on the understanding that she will distract Bertha's husband from her own affair, only for Bertha to turn neurotically suspicious and jealous.)

The interest of the novel is in its inversion of the typical romantic society plotline, and it is the characterisation of Lily which makes it successful and tragic. It is not full of mirth by any stretch of the imagination. (The title sounds like it is a quotation, but the nearest I could find, which reflects the spirit of the novel, is from an anonymous poem, On the Life of Man: "What is our life? a play of passion, / Our mirth the music of derision, / Our mothers' wombs the tiring houses be, / Where we are dressed for this short comedy".)

Fletcher Pratt: The Well of the Unicorn (1948)

Edition: Ballantine, 1976 (Buy from Amazon)
Review number: 851

Lester del Rey considered this forgotten novel "the best piece of epic fantasy ever written". This is overstating things, particularly given the way in which the genre has evolved in sophistication since it was published, but there is certainly something more to it than most of its contemporaries.

The basic plot is fairly typical of the genre. After an invasion of his native country of Dalarna, Airar Alvarson is unable to pay the increased taxes demanded of him by the new Vulking overlords, and loses his family's farmstead. Refusing to work for the Vulkings as a serf, he ends up joining a resistance movement. Through this, he meets three women who play a large part in his increasing good fortune, a fisher girl, a woman who dresses as a man to be a mercenary captain, and finally the one he really falls for, a princess of the Empire who is way beyond his social reach.

One of the interesting aspects of the novel is the spring from which it is named. This is the centre of the Empire's authority, and one of the most sacred sites of Pratt's world. It has magical properties, and if the parties to a dispute travel to the Well and drink of its water, it will bring peace to them. This should resolve the dispute, but it does not erase the personality of the drinker, and one of the stories about the Well recounted in the novel is of a Vulking count who defies the water's properties to attack his enemies again.

The Well of the Unicorn also has philosophical concerns unusual in the genre at the time. These centre around two main issues: free will (can it exist if the future can be foreseen magically?) and social organisation (how can people be free yet society still exist in an meaningful way?). No conclusions are reached, but the way that the ideas are incorporated into the novel is interesting.

Perhaps now seeming rather old-fashioned in style, The Well of the Unicorn has a bit more to it than many fantasy novels.

Michael Innes: The Daffodil Affair (1942)

Edition: Penguin, 1983
Review number: 850

Michael Innes' novels are frequently silly, as they combine parody of the absurdities of crime and thriller novels with a sure grasp of how to write an excellent story in one of these genres. The Daffodil Affair may well be the silliest of the lot.

The crime Appleby is set to investigate is not the sort of thing that Scotland Yard would generally bother with, particularly during the War - the theft of a broken down cab horse named Daffodil in Harrogate - except that the Assistant Commissioner has a sister whose favourite cab horse is Daffodil. This crime is linked to several other bizarre disappearances, including the theft of a reputedly haunted hose in Bloomsbury (demolished bit by bit, it is at first assumed to be a victim of the Blitz). The search leads to a trip to South America, which in the story's wartime context is extremely unlikely, while Appleby tries to work out what links the missing items and people.

Rather unusually for Innes, there are problems with the construction of the plot of The Daffodil Affair. The climax comes with a bizarre fake birthday party in Appleby's honour, which takes place one night on the ship on the way to South America. Even though we do not then know the whole of what is going on, the rest of the novel feels like a bit of an afterthought.

The ludicrous nature of the crime is what makes The Daffodil Affair different from the run of crime fiction, and it brings in the humour important in so many of Innes' novels. It also makes it more memorable than some of his more accomplished stories.

Ursula K. Le Guin: A Wizard of Earthsea (1968)

Edition: Puffin, 1971

I enjoy Le Guin's writing much more when it is not being used to promote a particular agenda; this is not because of disagreement with what she is trying to say, but because the serious nature of her intention tends to overshadow the story itself. Even after more than twenty years since I first read this novel, and despite it being aimed at (older) children, A Wizard of Earthsea still holds my imagination more than any of her other stories.

Le Guin's story seems at first to be a retelling of one of the stock scenarios of young adult fantasy, the story of a young magician coming into his power. However, at least two things make the novel stand out. The first is the use which is made of the contrast between the noble, courtly and lettered, and the simple, folky and illiterate. Sparrowhawk, born in a poor village, yearns for the nobility that his magic gifts could bring; but as he grows he takes knowledge from the noble but must learn wisdom - in particular, patience, humility and self-control - from those closer to his own background. Even today, and despite Tolkien's example, most fantasy almost exclusively concentrates on the very highest levels of feudal society, at the expense of the less glamourous commoners.

The other important element is the nature of Sparrowhawk's struggle. This is not a story of a battle against evil in the world or of other men's devising (though he does fight dragons). In a foolish, forbidden duel with another student wizard, Sparrowhawk sets free a shadow, an evil presence from the world of the dead; he himself has to overcome it. It is against the consequences of his own pride that he fights, and le Guin gives the shadow an evil spirituality which is quite frightening. more so than purely phsyical dangers would be.

Through the battle with the shadow le Guin is trying to make a point, but it is kept more in check than usual and is sufficiently general that it doesn't overwhelm the story. This point is that it is often ourselves who are our own greatest enemies when it comes to growing up, to becoming who we could be at our best.

When this slightly deeper than usual storyline is presented in a well imagined and realised background with good characterisation, the result is a classic, and that is what A Wizard of Earthsea and its sequels have become.

Michael Moorcock: Gloriana: Or, The Unfulfill'd Queen (1978)

Edition: Flamingo, 1986
Review number: 848

Gloriana marks something of a new departure for Moorcock. It is more removed from the swqord-and-sorcery epics which were the inspiration for (say) the Runestaff series and is a longer novel not part of a series. It shows clear traces of its influences, but these are in the most part more literary than before.

It is possible that one of the immediate influences on Moorcock was Queen ELizabeth's Silver Jubilee, but I find it difficult to see him being inspired by this. The novel is set in an alternated England, ruled by Gloriana, who is clearly based on the myth of Elizabeth I, if a little more advanced in technology. When she inherited the throne of the Empire of Albion from her tyrannical father, her benevolent rule brought a golden age of peace and tranquility. She remains unfulfilled privately - not the Virgin Queen (sexual promiscuity is the rule here, as in much seventies literature), but unable to experience orgasm - and this makes her unhappy.

Onto this scene arrives the disreputable Captain Quire, a one-time spy, formerly employed by Gloriana's Chancellor, Lord Montfallcon. He runs a campaign to destabilise the Court for the benefit of his new employers, the Arabians, but then begins a love affair with the Queen of his own accord. The novel is about how he affects Gloriana, and how his intrigues undermine the Golden Age which seems more and more a superficial cloak over the vicious terror of the previous reign.

The two very obvious literary influences on Gloriana are Spenser's The Faery Queen and other Elizabethan allegorical poetry; and Peake's Titus Groan and Gormenghast. The first is more superficial in its relationship to the novel; Gloriana is not an epic poem nor is it a consistent allegory as far as I can see. (It does contain poetry, mainly from court occasions and written in a style rather like Dryden's.) From this source come the names Gloriana and Albion, and that is about all; the mythologised ideas we tend to have about the Elizabethan court are more important.

The Gormenghast connection is more profound. (The novel is dedicated to Peake's memory.) The most obvious parallel is between Gloriana's palace and the castle in Peake's novel; both have the same huge complexity (a fair amount of the action of both takes place in hidden passages in the walls and lost, forgotten rooms). There are also links between the characters; Gloriana is in part Fuschia, Quire (in larger part) Steerpike. Then there is the ceremonial; Gloriana is full of descriptions of masques. There are also, however, important differences between the imagined worlds of the two authors. There is an empty purposelessness about Gormenghast's rituals, reduced as they are to conformance to the letter with ancient texts; Albion has a purpose (replacing tyranny with peace) which is the reason for the crowd-pleasing masques. The subtext is not Chinese Imperial but Spenserian allegorical.

There are also, as usual in Moorcock's novels, cross references to his other works. These include names shared (Wheldrake, Pyat, Una, Li Pao), characters shared with different names (Tallow) and names of gods used as oaths (Arioch, Xiombarg). These connections are more superficial than usual, and Gloriana is much freer than earlier novels from Moorcock's ideas about the Eternal Champion. In fact, it is quite different, and displays a more original kind of imagination, making it a most interesting read.