The Impossibility Of Neutrality

The Gustav Sonata is the story of a friendship between the mild-mannered and self-effacing Gustav Perle and the highly talented but volatile Anton Zweibel. It begins in Switzerland in the nineteen thirties with the courtship and marriage of Gustav's parents, the looming threat of invasion by Nazi Germany, and the dilemma of Anton's father, the deputy police chief of the small town of Matzlinger who is ordered to deport Jewish refugees but cannot bring himself to do so.

Gustav's father's decision will ultimately precipitate the collapse of his marriage, a catastrophe from which Gustav's mother will never truly recover and the blame for which she will unreasonably project onto her son.

Unloved at home, Gustav finds solace with the family of his school friend, Anton, whose comfortable bourgeois life offers so many more possibilities than his mother's constricted world. Ironically, the Zweibels are Jewish and in Gustav's mother's eyes, they are the very people who have caused her so much trouble.

Despite Gustav's mothers hostility, Gustav and Anton remain friends. When they grow up Gustav becomes the owner of a hotel and Anton, a precociously talented pianist as a child, becomes a dis-satisfied music teacher. Then, late in life, an opportunity for Anton to find success as a performer beckons and he leaves Matzlinger in search of fame It is a decision that provokes a crisis in both their lives.

At a micro-level the focus of this novel is on the particular, the tiny details that acquire significance over the course of a life. At a macro-level it is concerned with the choices that confront both individuals and institutions, and the consequences that attend those choices That's all interesting fictional territory without a doubt, but the plot meanders too much for my money and the narrative seems to lack any real centre. I have enjoyed many of Rose Tremaine's novels but this one did not hit the spot for me.

The End Of Empire

The final years of the Western Roman Empire are a fascinating period: a world that has lasted for centuries suddenly begins to crumble as the landscape shifts in a kind of cultural earthquake. Out of a few biographical fragments sifted from the disintegrating record, John Henry Clay has built a compelling narrative full of complex, multi-faceted characters struggling to hold their place as all the assumptions on which they have come to depend are swept away.

It is the story of Ecdicius, son of Avitus, one of the last Western emperors, his sister, Attica and his friend, Arvandus, minister at the court of the Gothic king Theodoric. In an ingenious piece of storytelling Clay winds the narratives of these characters together against a backdrop of murderous generals, imperial pretenders and barbarian kings, all of whom hover greedily over the decaying body of the empire.

This is proper historical fiction, not the fetishistic battle-porn into which novels set in the world of Ancient Roman can sometimes descend. The focus is on the characters, not the hardware, and, in particular, the interaction between individuals and the great sweep of history. As with all the best historical fiction, the fact that we know it is going to end badly for characters whose hopes and dreams we have come to share, only makes the tale all the more poignant.

Rich in historical detail, populated by flawed but recognisably human characters, At The Ruin Of The World is an immensely enjoyable novel.

Theatre Of Endurance

Set in the early days of polar exploration, Under A Pole Star is the story of Flora, the a celebrated female explorer and of Jacob de Beyn, an American geologist with whom she has a relationship. Like The Tenderness Of Wolves, this novel is a celebration of frozen wilderness and of solitude.

It is also a detailed depiction of the difficulties encountered by women, however determined resourceful and brave, in making their way against the fiercely competitive masculine culture of early and mid twentieth century exploration.

As compelling as Penney's evocation of the natural world is her exploration of the territory of passion, a landscape at first less familiar to Flora than the frozen north which has presided over her childhood.

The love affair between Flora and Jacob ignites when their rival expeditions are thrown together. Thereafter, all its twists and turns, celebrations and misunderstandings are as carefully and bravely examined as the ice-bound coastline the explorers have set out to map.

This is a novel about survival – physical survival and the survival of passion. Out of the hostile arctic landscape Penney creates a theatre of endurance and against this backdrop her characters play out an intense and murderous drama of ambition, love and loss.