Page 28 - Phonebox Magazine February 2014

Book Review
By Oxfam Bookshop, Olney
Tel: 01234 714592
When widowed Margarethe arrives in Holland with her daughters, she is fleeing persecution in England and is penniless. She inveigles her way, first into the household of artist Master Schoonmaker and then into that of rich merchant Heer van den Meer, whom she eventually marries. Iris, Margarethe’s plain, clever and headstrong younger daughter who relates the story, is appalled by her mother’s machinations, yet understands the desperation which drives her. Van den Meer’s beautiful, but obviously disturbed, daughter Clara, is the Cinderella figure of this book, as Iris is one of the ugly stepsisters, but don’t expect everything to be as it seems in a story about the nature of seeing and of understanding what we see – be it paintings, beauty, or truth. This is because Maguire’s story is not so much an interpretation of the Cinderella story, but more a novel with a historical setting – the rise and collapse of the tulip trade in 17th century Holland - through which the traditional tale weaves like a ribbon. The reader is shown connections to the old story at various points, but then the perspective and the narrative shift, and with them the reader’s expectations, so that we don’t know if we are in Cinderella’s story or not. This is subtly done, Maguire’s writing is full of texture and a relish for words and their associations. His characters are colourful and rounded - the sort you love to hate and hate to love. His themes question common assumptions about good and evil and about the value placed on physical beauty. His story is mysterious, fascinating and superbly crafted, delivering sudden mental jolts whenever you have settled into thinking that you know a character’s motivations or where the narrative is going next – including one enormous surprise in the closing pages, the sort that makes you think you need to go back to the beginning and read it again as a different book. So no cheating and reading the end first – you will only be sorry if you do! Sandra Metcalf
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language it contains. The title itself is a play on words, and the chapter headings are in a style reminiscent of that previous age. The charactersaresardonicallydrawn,revealing themselves both in the letters they write and in what is written about them. Roland – or Orlando – Gibbons is himself not exempt from the savage humour with which they are all portrayed, and the reader might feel that they have strayed into an adult equivalent of ‘Alice in Wonderland’.
It is a clever and witty portrayal of middle class suburbia, with its defects exaggerated, and of marriages which have not worn well with time. Under the biting wit there is a feeling of grim reality and a certain sadness that life should be mere existence, lacking in purpose and depth. Although we may chuckle at the situations presented and the ridiculous posturing of the characters, we are also aware of what lies beneath the surface. It is that contrast which reveals the true skill of the author and makes his novel memorable. Thelma Shacklady
lizabeth Price suspects that her husband is having an affair, and hires Roland Gibbons, a private detective, to provide the proof she requires. His
investigation takes him beyond marital infidelity into the realm of the more serious question of the suspected murder of Pamela Larner. Over several months he makes contact with the various members of a middle class group – who can scarcely be called friends, but who had spent holidays together in the past in a villa in Corsica. During this time he falls in love with one of them; Mary Dimmock, married to a man who is actually gay. Throughout the novel various members of this group change partners, and make discoveries about their true sexual
orientation.
This epistolary novel is a comic pastiche of the style enjoyed particularly by the Victorians, significant because the prudish approach to sex associated with that era is in sharp contrast to the subject matter and