P. J. Kavanagh
To mock wittily is fairly easy, but to be wittily serious, allowing the seriousness to show under the gloss of the wit, is more difficult, and is delightful in Hilary Man- tel's Fludd (Penguin, £4.99). The trendy bishop wants the flock of the whisky-priest brought into the no-nonsense Christianity of the 20th century. 'But', says the priest, 'my parishioners are not Christians. They're pagan Catholics.'
Catholicism again, in John McGahern's Amongst Women (Faber, £12.99, £4.99). The ways of the family he describes in post-war rural Ireland can seem as distant as those of pueblo Indians, yet, such is McGahern's power, we know that things were, perhaps are, exactly as he says. It is a book about the politics of family life, as much as anything.
Among new young poets I would put my money on Simon Armitage. In his first book, Zoom! (Bloodaxe Books, £5.95), he sees things that we see too, but perhaps do not notice (the oily half tennis-ball on the tow bar of a truck) and mentions them in words we actually speak, also perhaps without noticing.
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