Patrick Marnham
Once again Eland Books' list of reprints has been outstanding. John Hatt has offered fiction for the first time with The Law by Roger Vailland. This is a marvel- lous novel which has been out of print in this country for over 20 years. It is set in Apulia, the heel of Italy, and concerns events in a small town whose citizens are obsessed with 'the Law', a cruel card game played in taverns, the rules of which allow the winner, however humble, to expose the truth about the loser, however powerful. As the story progresses, the town and its people come to such vivid life that you feel as though you have lived there yourself. It is the best novel I have read for several years.
Other memorable books were also pub- lished by Eland, but in order to display the width of my scholarship I will mention instead Blood for Blood by Julian Gloag, a novelist who must now be recognised as among the finest writing today. This one concerns a reclusive man investigating the brutal murder of his best friend, and appropriate adjectives would be 'moving', `humorous' and 'exciting'. Also Foreign Land by Jonathan Raban, an excellent novel, incidentally a first novel, about a crusty old exile returned from too long in West Africa, trying to understand his feminist daughter and the West Country seaport he has been stranded in. The characters are strongly drawn and just the right side of parody.
The choice of worst books gets richer every year. Let's forget them all at once.
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