Short, perfect piece examining the nature of truth. A soldier returns from World War I with fifteen years of memory lost. The war, his wife and life are forgotten; instead he is a cheerful young man in his twenties, courting his first love and making her, as well as himself, very happy. So what should his wife and the soldier's cousin, the narrator, do? Leave him as he is or 'cure' him?
I sometimes think that Rebecca West could have written a novel on the squelchiness of turds and it would have read as blissful prose. There is no one quite like her - hmmm, possibly Rosamond Lehmann - for that gentle cut, the simple burn of skilful words. An exercise in good writing.

Either to a fellow bookcrosser at the meeting (join us! 10.30 in the pub) or in the wilds of central Manchester afterwards.

Picked up at the meeting this moring. It was recommended to me by both Angela and Cathy. Thakns!

Hmm...I don't really want to read this badly enough to cart it back to Baltimore with me at the end of the month. It is now reserved for wild release.