“An arabesque of rare beauty may be found in the persona of this novel by the author of A Glastonbury Romance and Wolf Solent. Set in an English seaside town, saturated in the mists and salt breezes, it is a strange, perverse sort of story, depending on the interplay of characters. Most of these are abnormal or drawn out of line, but as such they take precedence over the rather obscure, indirect arabesque that masquerades as a story. A few of the characters are unforgettable: the elderly clown, married to a half crazy wife and in love with a girl in his own troupe; an evangelist who courts disaster by preaching on the Esplanade instead of the sands, and who captures the worship of a young girl, the daughter of a Punch and Judy man; a seaman, obsessed with hate for the town capitalist who has wronged him; several girls, thwarted in their emotional life, and seeking adventure, -- a strange group. I would recommend Wolf Solent as a better introduction to the charms of Powys, but this novel, with passages of rare beauty, is worth turning to if you have already tasted the fine wine of the prose of John Cowper Powys.”
jwhenderson wrote this review Tuesday, February 12, 2013.
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