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4.0étoiles sur 5
Interesting character study, Sep 12 2002
This is an interesting mix of elements. Glittering Images starts out as if it is going to be a detective novel of sorts, with the main character as a well-meaning if somewhat naive amateur sleuth, forced into this role by an elderly mentor. However, the story quickly moves through this, and through a stage of being more like comedy of manners, to being a psychological study of the main character, as he loses his well-educated objectivity and has to confront himself and his personal demons. The male characters are many-layered and interesting, and theological arguments are nicely woven into the novel. I think the female characters are less perceptively done--I don't think Lyle is a sympathetic character, and I think Charles' choice to re-live part of his own personal legacy with her is fraught with future risks.I haven't read any more frm this series yet, but I will come back to it at some point.
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4.0étoiles sur 5
Interesting character study, Sep 12 2002
This is an interesting mix of elements. Glittering Images starts out as if it is going to be a detective novel of sorts, with the main character as a well-meaning if somewhat naive amateur sleuth, forced into this role by an elderly mentor. However, the story quickly moves through this, and through a stage of being more like comedy of manners, to being a psychological study of the main character, as he loses his well-educated objectivity and has to confront himself and his personal demons. The male characters are many-layered and interesting, and theological arguments are nicely woven into the novel. I think the female characters are less perceptively done--I don't think Lyle is a sympathetic character, and I think Charles' choice to re-live part of his own personal legacy with her is fraught with future risks.I haven't read any more frm this series yet, but I will come back to it at some point.
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5.0étoiles sur 5
In great Howatch tradition, Déc 4 2001
Just as Howatch's family sagas were written in a multi-person first-person narrator format, so was the Starbridge series, but this time each narrator gets a whole book instead of only a section of one.
Glittering Images is the first book in the series. I had already read all five of the family sagas before I had the courage to start on Starbridge; I was afraid that a whole series of books set in the Church of England could not help but be stuffy and priggish. But this of course is Susan Howatch, a master storyteller. And these books are considered by many to be an enormous development fromthe sagas.
In fact, I found the depth of character found in all the Starbridge even more impressive than in the sagas. She shows not only an extraordinarily deep understanding of the human condition, she also shows great compassion and warmth for all her characters so that even if they have weaknesses and make mistakes, we can nevertheless forgive and love them.
IN the first trilogy of books, set in the 1930's and 1940's, each of the three narrators is stripped down and turned inside out, so that the reader knows all there is to know about them.
In this first book we first meet Charles Ashworth, who will be a major player in the series. Charles has conservative leanings and a Middle Way churchmanship. As ever, Howatch succeeds in giving us an in-depth portrait of a very likeable and sincere man, and sets him in the middle of a story that simply pulls you through, unravelling secret after secret. A wonderful book, which made me immediately want to start on the next one in the series - Glamorous Powers!
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