Which I've just reread. I have a lot of affection for this series of novels while being entirely aware of their flawed, or, to use a more current term, problematic aspects. Here are some pros and cons:
What are they about? It's a series of novels, six in all, each designed to be read both on its own and in connection with the others, all but one with a different narrator (i.e. the first and the last have the same narrator), taking place over a few decades (1937 to 1968) in the fictional city of Starbridge. (Read: Salisbury, more or less.) If you're familiar with Anthony Trollope's Barchester novels, there are defnite similarities: most of the main characters are priests/clergymen in the Church of England, there's a lot of scheming and feuding not despite but because of this, and one novel's main characters can be reduced to cameos in the next or only be supporting characters, while another novel's supporting character get the spotlight in the next novel, and so on. Like I said, you can read them on their own, but then you're missing a part of what kept me hooked, which is a Susan Howatch speciality - making very different povs plausible by using different narrators, adding layers on layers to what's going on. (
She did this in her previous novels as well, only there the different narrators were within the same novel. ) Also, the first novel of the series,
Glittering Images, is my least favourite because on its own, the solution would have been utterly dissatisfying to me (I'll get to why later), but subsequent novels make a big difference there.
What's so great about them for you that you keep rereading them?: Aside from the above mentioned different narrators gimmick, Howatch has a gift for snappy, witty dialogue and messed up, intense relationship. Also, you can tell she started out as a mystery writer. Each of the novels' narrators harbors considerable delusions about himself and his past and/or present, and have to figure out the truth about themselves during the course of the novel while three of the narrators also have to solve a puzzle about another character. For two, it's "what's really going on with X?" and for one, it's the classic mystery per se: the truth about the death of a supporting character, complete with red herrings, suspects, and a demasking/showdown. Due to the jobs of the majority of main characters, there are a lot of entertaining arguments about theology (yes, theological arguments can be entertaining) and sex in between. Also, to me as a non-Anglican and non-Brit all this Church of England stuff feels faintly exotic.
About that problematic part you mentioned? As you may have guessed , not only are the narrators, with one exception, male, but the male characters in general tend to get more attention, more interesting relationships, and more layers. Which isn't to say there aren't interesting women around in this series - banter between the sexes is another Howatch speciality -, but it's typical that the one female narrator the series has tells more the story of the clergyman she's involved with than she does her own. Also, guess which gender the characters killed off to further other characters' developments have? And while there are sympathetic gay characters around, they're never the pov characters. And then there's the part where if you're familiar with other Howatch novels outside this series, you get the impression that when the most important gay character makes an observation to the effect that bisexuals are people who can't commit to either sex, can't commit, full stop, and are an unreliable menace, this isn't just the character speaking (which would have been understandable; he's just been cruelly dumped), but it's the author's opinion as well.
With this in mind, who are the main characters and most important relationships: With the reminder that when I say "main character", I mean of the decades long story in its entirety, not in each novel (see above how one novel's main character can only show up briefly in the next, etc), they are:
Charles Ashworth: narrator of the first novel,
Glittering Images, and the last one,
Absolute Truths. Starts the series as the Archbishop of Canterbury's ambitious sidekick, sent to investigate the private life of the rebellious Bishop of Starbridge, Alex Jardine, who has just been arguing with the Archbishop about the Church's take on divorce in public; proceeds with the investigation while having a nervous breakdown due to all manner of repressed issues coming to the fore, and becomes obsessed with the woman he suspects of being Jardine's secret mistress, Lyle Christie. Gets sorted out (for now) by the next main character, Jon Darrow, who becomes his spiritual director. Charles and Lyle show up in all subsequent novels as supporting characters but don't get the central spotlight again until the last one; Alex Jardine is in the next two novels briefly as well, but the impact he has continues. Since Howatch uses her main characters also to illustrate various theological branches within the Church of England, Charles is Broad Church.
Jon(athan) Darrow: An Anglo-Catholic, mystic, and spiritual director extraordinaire, who, however, has his own series of hang-ups. What ultimately sold me on the series was the second novel, because Jon is a bit of a deus ex machina in the first one, therapist and wise mentor rolled in one, whereas the second novel showcases his flaws and subjects him to the same "let's lay bare your self delusions" treatment he's just demonstrated, without his own previous skills being suddenly negated. The guy who does the laying bare is his arch rival Francis with whom he has an immensely entertaining frenemy relationship, and their duel of wits that forms the opening third of the second novel is just a treat. Also, Jon's gay son from his first marriage, Martin the actor, makes his debut in this book and later becomes one of my favourite supporting characters.
Neville Aygsgarth: Completing the three main branches of the CoA, he's Low Church, very Protestant, a former protegé of Alex Jardine's who is an Archdeacon when he's introduced and as such frequently clashes with Jon Darrow the mystic, which makes it very tricky indeed when he's in dire need of a spiritual director himself. He also develops an antagonistic relationship, due to various circumstances, with Charles Ashworth; they become each other's arch nemesis. Despite knowing Susan Howatch has a track record of modelling some of her characters on historical luminaries (like the Planatagenets or the Julians) and putting them in a different time frame, I didn't realise until two days ago when I googled soemthing else that Neville Aygsgarth is actually modelled quite closely on
early 20th century British Prime Minister H. H. Asquith, in a lot of details (poor son of Yorkshire trademan makes good, five brainy and partly doomed children from first wife, second wife excentric society girl becoming famous for cutting remarks and offending everyone in sight as a hostess later on, weakness for young women in older age).
Venetia Flaxton: One of the young women in question. Venetia is the sole female narrator and sole outside of the CoE pov, and as I found out two days ago is modelled on a real life person, too, Venetia Stanley. (Most famous for the many letters Asquith wrote to her, up to three times a day at the start of World War I.) This explains one problem I have, not while reading - while reading, I believe everything - but while thinking about it afterwards, to wit, Venetia's age - she's in her mid 20s in her novel - versus the effect her affair with Aygsgarth has on her; when I'm not reading the novel, I always think she's too old to get that messed up by what happens (and by what doesn't happen). Anyway. Lyle, who in the first novel was a messed up young woman herself, by now is in the cool middleaged lady stage and has the sole female & female mentor/protegé relationship in the saga with Venetia, which is one of my favourite things about the novel in question. The novel also introduces Venetia's beginning friendship with Nick Darrow, Jon's son, the next narrator.
Nicholas "Nick" Darrow: Jon's son from his second marriage. His novel has the investigating-a-mysterious-death plot I mentioned earlier; the death in question is that of Neville Aygsgarth's oldest son, Christian, but like Charles in the first novel when he's investigating the then alive Alex Jardine, Nick uses this investigation partly to avoid dealing with his own considerable problems, which, as every reader of the series can guess by now, only means he's going to have a spectacular breakdown later on. Despite the ongoing ensemble used, this due to the "What happened to Christian Aygsgarth?" plot is probably the one novel which really can be read on its own, but the context, see above, adds more layers.
Never pov characters, but major supporting in at least some of the books:
Lyle Christie, later Ashworth: starts out as a Howatch damaged young woman in distress, but later graduates to middle-aged fabulous wry wit and competence. In the later novels probably my favourite female in the series.
Dido Tallent, later Aygsgarth: The
Margot Asquith avatar, and unlike most women involved with clergymen in these novels, virtually indestructable, a true survivor. With a talent, as Venetia (no admirer of hers for obvious reasons) puts it, to offend everyone in any given room in minimum time.
Martin Darrow: actor, Jon's son from his first marriage, has an entertainingly bickering fraternal relationship with Nick and becomes Charles' unexpected helper in distress in the last novel.
Alex Jardine: modelled on
Herbert Henley Henson and probably the most important Anglican priest character who doesn't get a pov in the novels; is still talked about by the characters decades later, for good reason.
And in conclusion ?: Let me put it this way:
All I Know About the Church of England I Learned From The Starbridge Novels:
- Anglo-Catholics are like immediately post Vatican II Roman Catholics with a hang up about not wanting to spiritually ruled by "a foreigner" (i.e. the Pope)
- Protestants have a secret urge to at least inwardly shout "no Popery" when they spot pectoral crosses, statues of saints or incense; they insist on being called "clergymen" not "priests" (while with Anglo-Catholics it's the other way around)
- Archdeacons have a tendency to be at least a bit power mad
- Bishops are either Chairman-of-the-Board Bishops or Holy Bishops (the later variety direly needs power man Archdeacons to run the diocesis for them)
- even agnostic or atheist aristocrats meddle with the CoE hierarchy since they regard it as a tribal institution
- being a clergyman's/priest's first wife before the 1960s is a guaranteed death sentence; what's more, before dying young for your husband's character development you'll have found out you should have never married him in the first place as he was only looking for a morally acceptable way to have sex (if you're a second wife, your survival chances are still only 30/70, but at least you'll have had some happy years before your demise in the service of character growth)
- what a clergyman/priest needs most isn't a wife anyhow, it's a spiritual director (if he lives later than the 1960s, this can even be a woman, but not before)
- a spiritual director is like
Silence of the Lambs era Hannibal Lector without the cannibalism
- all priests/clergymen could adopt that Larkin quote ("they fuck you up, your mum and dad, they may not mean to, but they do...") for their own lives; it's true for their own parents or parental figures, and it's true for themselves as parents
- if you're a priest/clergyman or the son of one, the chances that you're going to drink too much are incredibly high (unless you're a psychic, in which case the dangerous addiction beckoning will be to abuse your powers of hypnosis instead)
- religion and psychotherapy are entirely compatible (which is why spiritual directors are light side Hannibal Lectors who can quote Jung and St. Augustine with the same ease)
- having a saviour complex about women usually means you need to be saved by them (or your spiritual director).
If I'm not frightened away by now, what are the titles of these novels?:
I. Glittering Images, II. Glamorous Powers, III. Ultimate Prizes, IV. Scandalous Risks, V. Mystical Paths, VI. Absolute Truths.
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