poliphilo

So here's this a novel by a writer I'd never come across before who died in the 1950s.

nineweaving recommended it in her most recent post. She said there were ghosts in it and that was enough to get me started. And there are ghosts- excellent ghosts- but Ferguson is very good at lots of other things too: families, sibling relationships, female sexuality, actors, the theatre, London- oh, all sorts. She has a post-Einsteinian fascination with the peculiarities of time, a Jamesian ear and eye for the subtleties of human behaviour, a sardonic humour, and a love of the outre, bohemian and bizarre. The novel covers a period from the 1890s to the middle of the Great War and is very perceptive about the social and psychic changes that those who were children at the fag end of the Victorian era had to live through. The writing is rich, textured, full of lights and shadows- and the story-telling- with its deeply engaging narrator, lovable characters, hateable villain and mystery to unravel- is compelling.

OK, I kept thinking, why isn't Ferguson better known? This is a great book.