Harriet Waugh
Novels this year have been curiously unin- spired. Usually it is a question of juggling four or five around in your head. This year only two novels strongly awakened my interest, and one of these, The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende, has not stood the test of a few months' time. The other, The Good Terrorist by Doris Lessing, seems to me to be the only one of this year's novels I will wish to re-read. Without being polemical, it makes frighteningly real an aspect of our society — the stunted, emotionally and politically immature ungrown-ups that huddle together for com- fort in squats and play isolated and danger- ous games of make-believe with the out- side world.
A talented newcomer to the fictional scene, whom I mention because he was overlooked by the Spectator, is James Lasdun. His short stories in The Silver Age about greed, the weight of materialism, corruption of the spirit and disappointment are written in elegiac prose and stretch your nerves with unsaid things.
The most fascinating and unexpectedly What's today's buzz word? enjoyable biography of the year is Robert Gray's Cardinal Manning. The fascination of the book lies in the complexity of Manning's character. A man of instinctive ambition, both spiritual and worldly, he converted from the Church of England, where he had excellent prospects of be- coming the Archbishop of Canterbury, to become a Catholic priest, only to lose his battle for holiness in the successful de- velopment of his remarkable organisation- al abilities. Robert Gray's keen enjoyment of his subject is infectious.
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