Harriet Waugh
I have read very little non-fiction this year but a great many entertaining novels. Out of these, Beryl Bainbridge's Watson's Apology gave me greatest pleasure. It is a recreation of the domestic life of a Victo- rian clergyman called Mr Watson who in old age bludgeoned his wife to death. Mr Watson is an entirely new figure in fiction — an awkward, self-absorbed, good man with an unexpected, violent emotional imagination. It would have been very easy for Miss Bainbridge to caricature him in the manner of one of Dickens's grotesques. Instead, through the prism of her vision he engages the reader's sympathies, and with- out distancing him from us, she infuses his ghastly domestic life with humour.
Nadine Gordimer's short stories, Some- thing Out There have the kind of emotional punch that makes it impossible to read more than one at a go. With the exception of the title story, which I found disappoint- ing, they are all of outstanding quality. About five are set in Africa, while the others could have happened anywhere. Nearly all of them are moving and make their points obliquely.
Another novel that is worth mentioning is The Princes of Q by Virginia Moriconi. This work is flawed, but the first two thirds is so good and enjoyable that it should not be missed. The narrator, a writer staying near Venice, is told a folk tale about the ruling, noble family of Q. The tale goes that a century earlier, the ruling heir took as bride a beautiful chilly girl called Matil- da, whose evil doings culminate in the murder of her daughter-in-law. Later, the narrator meets a profesgor who is writing the family history of Q. Through the family
correspondence, with many tantalising gaps, the real story gradually emerges. The ending is too gothic, but until then it is a beautifully crafted piece of writing and very entertaining.
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