20 SEPTEMBER 1986, page 31

Telling Stories, Telling Tales, Telling Fiction

Francis Kin g FOE J. M. Coetzee Secker & Warburg, £9.95 L ike the relationship between Prospero and Caliban, that between Robinson Cru- soe and Man Friday has, in recent years,......

A Civil Servant In A Civil War

Anita Brookner THE FREE FRENCHMAN by Piers Paul Read Seeker & Warburg (The Alison Press), £10.95 H ere is a marvellous novel. Its subject is nothing less than 40 years of recent......