Mysterious Characterisation
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Susan Howatch's stories are very weird. Her characters have tempestuous spiritual lives. I mentioned that I had read her novels to a man who was an assistant to former Archbishop Runcie. Runcie supposedly said they were good stories, but nonsense. Having known Runcie a tiny bit, I found that quite disappointing. Surely he should know if some of his priests have psychic powers? Howatch's world of demons, exorcisms, hypnosis, visions and healings is thrilling. She makes religious experience intensely dramatic. She expresses something of the inner turmoil and confusion we all feel but it is not practical or possible often to communicate to others. The fact that a marriage or a family life can have one narrative, but look under the surface and there are many different narratives, is certainly true. That we have to revise our interpretation of events in our lives when we acquire self-knowledge is also absolutely spot on. Are the bits about resurrecting cats from the dead and premonitions of the future, literary devices that just bring out those facts with more clarity? I'm not sure. In our own minds we can identify strange inklings, but of course we tend to forget the inklings which turned to be absurd. Howatch is actually good at showing that we can fulfil our own premonitions by literally creating them through our own efforts. I'm glad the Archbishop of Canterbury isn't infallible. I'm glad too that Susan Howatch writes such complex and stimulating fiction.
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Full of insight
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The second in the series of Starbridge books - Glamorous Powers - is the one I liked the best. IN this book we get to know Jon Darrow, who figured in the first volume Glittering Images as Charles Ashworth's spiritual director, more intimately. Whereas in Glamorous powers, seen through Charles Ashworth's eyes, he was the perfect super priest who knew everything, here we actually get under Jon's skin and see him as he sees himself: as a flawed, confused man with many problems, in particular concerning his relationship with women. Jon had spent several years in a monastery as a monk, but now, in his sixties, he receives a calling from God to leave the monastery and fulfil a mission in the world - but he doesn't know what. Nor is he certain if that mission includes marriage.
For anyone with an interest in Gnosticism and mysticism, this is a particularly interesting book - but such an interest is definitely not a pre-condition for reading and enjoying it! I'm not the only Howatch reader to have this as their favourite in the series. I've opened an online discussion and reading group based on the Howatch novels; if you are interested in joining please mail me!
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A sense of deja vu
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For those who have read the first of the Starbridge sequence, "Glittering Images", this novel will be a bit of a disappointment. Far from being a "new direction" for Ms Howatch, as the advertising blurb on the back of the book claims, this is very much a re-write of the first book: priest gets himself into a spiritual mess, gets counselling from another priest, and gradually discovers, with sub-Freudian inevitability, that his problems lie in his hang-ups about his parents and sex. It is a pity, since there is a massive void in novels about (or even referring to) the Church of England in the twentieth century, and "Glittering Images" showed a lot of promise. It is a shame that this second book failed to draw the reader further into the political and spritual complexities of a church in decline.
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A taste of something different
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Like GLITTERING IMAGES, the first of the Starbridge novels, GLAMOROUS POWERS is compulsive reading for anyone with an interest in the Church of England during the mid-twentieth century. It illustrates well how supernatural gifts can be misused but also, how by the grace of God, situations can be redeemed and transformed. I liked the idea of a monk who, at sixty, didn't consider himself to be a young man but, released from his vows, nevertheless managed to find love and happiness. Susan Howatch is a much better author than I am, and her subject matter had obvoiusly been well researched. The only criticsm that might be ventured is the lack of reference to the constraints imposed by wartime conditions. More in the way of refrence to those circumstances would make a book set in 1940 rather more authentic.
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