THE THEMES OF THE QUINTET.
There are certain men and women upon whose hearts and souls the world leaves the deepest scars, people who carry the memory of those happenings upon them like a cloud of invisible dust. And on their paths through life, unknown to them, that dust spreads into the eyes and ears and souls of some of those whose lives they pass through, others whose journeys then often take a different course. These paths may be long or short, passing belief and the void, between redemption and nothingness.... but in the end there is either only oblivion or a place of peace, a cold stone that belies the truth of life and memory beneath it.
These five novels tell the story of such a life and such a memory, of its consequences, of the strange refractions and reflections as it passes in its many forms through the violent years of 1915 - 1960, the years when history and freedom collided and good and evil coalesced. In this turbulence the dust of the memory swirls its way between, carried on the fate of strangers and friends.
BOOK II: 1925 -1940
Through the cities of Liege and Paris and Berlin and Helsinki and Stockholm, the prisons of Germany and Vichy, the battlefields of Spain and Russia and the sanctuaries of France and Switzerland the lives of Thomas (Julien) and Mary (Theresa), Quiang and Father Fairweather and so many others cross over and disappear and reappear as they are pushed forward by the memory or the unseen hand of Lieve and the hillside in Scotland.
These men and women, their vertiginous lives balanced on half hidden pasts, are inescapably caught in the accelerating, fate of a self-destructive continent. A world consuming itself in a collision of belief and thought, of men's will and power. A world where the old certainties dissolve as the boundaries of good and bad break down, and philosophical and political and even existential ways of being lose all sense. And for those who cling to their most precious memories or their most certain faith survival becomes as much a moral and spiritual torture, as a physical and mental one, amidst a fracturing of love and courage and redemption. While those whose certainty is unbreakable drive the world and all those in it to a point of final horror.
Among the poets and the artists, the Holy Sisters and the warriors, the child and the priest the dust of Lieve's story blows forward in time, swirling and settling unseen upon the edges of judgments, lingering on the sleeves of the living and the dying and the dead, mixing with the blood that discolours the lips and the snow... and amongst it all Thomas and Mary move forward into their past.
"Lieve was so different, she touched us all so deeply.... But I think you will suffer longest, Thomas."
'... and his fingers began to gently roll the ring... back and forth... back and forth... and as he did so the faint flecks on the surface became clear in the light.
Father Rameau watched for some time until the sad sight seemed about to overwhelm him and he looked away. His gaze came to rest on the crucifix on the wall nearby but as he looked it was not Christ he saw but the terrible mountainside, her arms outstretched in despair as she screamed silently into the empty sky. He clenched his teeth and closed his eyes for a long bitter moment and then turned back to watch the tiny flicks of light as the broken man across from him rolled a little silver ring back and forth, back and forth....
There are certain men and women upon whose hearts and souls the world leaves the deepest scars, people who carry the memory of those happenings upon them like a cloud of invisible dust. And on their paths through life, unknown to them, that dust spreads into the eyes and ears and souls of some of those whose lives they pass through, others whose journeys then often take a different course. These paths may be long or short, passing belief and the void, between redemption and nothingness.... but in the end there is either only oblivion or a place of peace, a cold stone that belies the truth of life and memory beneath it.
These five novels tell the story of such a life and such a memory, of its consequences, of the strange refractions and reflections as it passes in its many forms through the violent years of 1915 - 1960, the years when history and freedom collided and good and evil coalesced. In this turbulence the dust of the memory swirls its way between, carried on the fate of strangers and friends.
BOOK II: 1925 -1940
Through the cities of Liege and Paris and Berlin and Helsinki and Stockholm, the prisons of Germany and Vichy, the battlefields of Spain and Russia and the sanctuaries of France and Switzerland the lives of Thomas (Julien) and Mary (Theresa), Quiang and Father Fairweather and so many others cross over and disappear and reappear as they are pushed forward by the memory or the unseen hand of Lieve and the hillside in Scotland.
These men and women, their vertiginous lives balanced on half hidden pasts, are inescapably caught in the accelerating, fate of a self-destructive continent. A world consuming itself in a collision of belief and thought, of men's will and power. A world where the old certainties dissolve as the boundaries of good and bad break down, and philosophical and political and even existential ways of being lose all sense. And for those who cling to their most precious memories or their most certain faith survival becomes as much a moral and spiritual torture, as a physical and mental one, amidst a fracturing of love and courage and redemption. While those whose certainty is unbreakable drive the world and all those in it to a point of final horror.
Among the poets and the artists, the Holy Sisters and the warriors, the child and the priest the dust of Lieve's story blows forward in time, swirling and settling unseen upon the edges of judgments, lingering on the sleeves of the living and the dying and the dead, mixing with the blood that discolours the lips and the snow... and amongst it all Thomas and Mary move forward into their past.
"Lieve was so different, she touched us all so deeply.... But I think you will suffer longest, Thomas."
'... and his fingers began to gently roll the ring... back and forth... back and forth... and as he did so the faint flecks on the surface became clear in the light.
Father Rameau watched for some time until the sad sight seemed about to overwhelm him and he looked away. His gaze came to rest on the crucifix on the wall nearby but as he looked it was not Christ he saw but the terrible mountainside, her arms outstretched in despair as she screamed silently into the empty sky. He clenched his teeth and closed his eyes for a long bitter moment and then turned back to watch the tiny flicks of light as the broken man across from him rolled a little silver ring back and forth, back and forth....
