The Dark Twin, by Marion Campbell, Reviewed.

Hailed, on the front cover, as ‘An adult fantasy in the great Tolkien tradition’, this novel disappointed on a number of levels. So much so, that I couldn’t be bothered to get past page 67 of 249 pages. It was clearly much applauded at the time of publication in the 1970s; described variously as ‘beautiful’, ‘fascinating’ and ‘a harsh elemental poetry’, by reviewers in the major newspapers. Either they read a different book, or I failed to find the elements they drew from the pages.

The language is ‘beautiful’ and there are undoubtedly ‘fascinating’ elements in the tale and some of the events are harsh and poetically presented. But the parts do not seem to add up to a ‘whole’. In fact, I found the narrative tedious, the attempt to weave a mystery out of the incomprehensible lacking in enough intrigue to make me want to read on. Fantasy, of this type, is traditionally a depiction of life in an invented or imagined landscape and is generally built on ancient and well understood themes. Tolkien, with whom this author was compared, dealt quite obviously with the battle between good and evil and set his tale in a land similar to our own Earth, peopled by humans, hobbits, elves and dwarves along with all those mystical and fabulous creatures he borrowed from the myths of Northern Europe. But I was at a loss to understand where this tale was leading and what themes drove it. Had there been some indication that I was, at least, being taken somewhere of interest, I would probably have stayed with it. But I felt I was in an endless exposition describing the arcane customs and rites of some civilisation I found difficult to comprehend and that I was being led into a maze with little hope of discovering the whys and wherefores before being abandoned without any solution.

The nature of the story, such as it is, told in the form of a narrative, initially with dialogue only sparsely used to relieve the monotony of the first person narrator’s description of his life of harsh instruction, quickly began to bore me. I didn’t need endless hints about the corruption, bullying and deception of the ruling individuals; so much was clear. I would have liked a little more indication of the motivations that drove the protagonists, beyond the evident ambition of the priesthood. I would have liked a spark of rebellion or, at least, questioning, from the two young boys who were being raised for positions of rule; something to make them interesting. The ‘gift’ of foretelling and farseeing seemed small reward for the level of deprivation visited on the victims.

In short, I was waiting for something to ‘happen’. I think the main problem with the narrative was that I was ‘told’ so much and ‘shown’ so little, that I felt ever the observer, the voyeur, and never a participant, never even an involved bystander. Only the singer, Felim, brought any contrast to the otherwise unmitigated misery of the tale. A touch of lightness, some hope, an indication of something better to come, might have kept me turning the pages. But, in the end, I felt unwilling to spend any more of my precious time on this depressing story that seemed to be going nowhere.

No doubt fans of the author, of which there may well be many, will castigate me for a fool and a dullard for failing to recognise the magic they have found. But I can judge only on my own terms and, as a reading experience, I found this disappointing, dull and lifeless. Sorry, but there you are.

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Stuarts' Daily Word Spot: Allegory

Allegory: noun - a narrative written under the guise of another and sharing points of correspondence with it; symbolic representation; an extended metaphor; an emblem; a picture where meaning is represented symbolically.

Allegory in the visual arts is almost as old as the art form itself. I could list hundreds of examples, but will make do with just three representatives of the form: Sandro Botticelli' s Primavera, also known as Allegory of Spring, Johann Vermeer's Allegory of the Catholic Faith and Il Bronzino's Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time

In literature, there is the famous case of the 'mistaken' allegory as exemplified by JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, which many critics assumed to be an allegory of WWII, in spite of Tolkien's emphatic denial of such and his assertion that he loathed the very idea of allegory.

Amongst those works that are recognised as allegory, of which there are many, a few are as follows:

Jonathan Swift's political allegory, Gulliver's Travels, William Golding's Lord of the Flies, an allegory about the conflicting forces that apply to civilisation and power, and, of course, the famously allegorical work by George Orwell. In Animal Farm the author skilfully caricatures the rise of Stalin and the follies of the communist state.

Many works of fiction contain elements of allegory and some have said that my own Breaking Faith is an allegory of good and evil. I'd argue that 'good and evil' is too wide a topic to be the subject of allegory and, in any case, is more a theme than a subject for allegory. But it is nevertheless true that many novels that are not specifically allegorical do carry an element or elements of allegory within them. Often, however, these are interpretations made by readers and critics, rather than intentional designs of the authors.

1696 - A window tax was imposed in England, causing many shopkeepers to brick up their windows to avoid the tax. It was repealed on the 24th July 1851, following much lobbying. A similar tax was imposed in France from 1798 and lasted until 1926. A real example of the wealthy law-makers being oblivious to the harm caused by thoughtless legislation on those less well-off, it was responsible for serious deterioration in living conditions for many of those who lived in poverty. The lack of light and air caused innumerable illnesses and deaths amongst the poor. Walking around England's historical urban areas it is easy to mistake some architectural devices for examples of attempts to defeat the window tax. Many windows were, or course, bricked up as a result of the imposition, but the habit of designing 'mock' windows continued long after the tax had been repealed and goes on today, with the decorative elements now used to harmonise and bring symmetry into the design of some buildings.