Brilliant Review of A Man Against a Background of Flames in this weeks issue of The Tablet!!: Collage of Tragedy – Novel of the Week A Man Against a Background of Flames, Paul Hoggart Review by Lynn Roberts Paul Hoggart has himself suggested that this book, his first novel, was written partly in irritation at The Da Vinci Code, and certainly, if Dan Brown knew any factual history, were able to conceive rounded, realistic characters who develop and grow, and could vary his tone from comic to chilling, via satirical, poignant and profound – in short, if he were able to write, he might possibly have come up with a pale shadow of this book. It begins with a telephone call and ends with revelations. Its hero is an unheroic historian – Dr James Appleby, whose academic career began in a fiery savaging of Elizabeth I’s treatment of her sailors but has since drifted, along with his once happy marriage, into a dull and monotonous cul-de-sac. His story is played out through various threads of narrative at different points in his life, so that we see how he first becomes interested in the figure of Sir Nicholas Harker, an Elizabethan landowner who appears to have been holding secret Catholic Masses in defiance of the law, and how evidence gradually emerges of the massacre of Harker and his whole village. In the more contemporary threads of the tale, the publications of Sir Nicholas’ actual agnostic, humanist form of worship has generated a modern cult. This arouses the ire of fundamentalists to such a degree that Appleby, his friends and allies become the target of terrorist assassins, while they struggle to preserve the papers documenting Harker’s philosophy and the massacre of his village. Hoggart’s is a rare skill, to present his material so that it never seems anything but completely plausible and utterly terrifying that a quirk of history should lead to such focused hatred. His historical background is vividly recreated; the quotations from Harker’s writings have as authentic a tone as A.S. Byatt’s Browningesque poetry in Possession, and the fragments of other voices from the past combine in an utterly convincing collage of hidden tragedy. This is much more than a tense historical thriller, however; it’s the portrait of a marriage becalmed in a backwater, and of different kinds of love, friendship and working relationships, all of which flux and change according to the outward events of the novel and the interior lives of the characters. One of these is a great comic creation: Appleby’s colleague Van Stumpe is not only genuinely funny but also brave, tragic and admirable. It’s extremely refreshing to read a novel which encompasses this wide range of tone and characterisation within such a densely plotted, violent and breath-stoppingly exciting story, so that the hints here and there of a possible sequel are especially welcome. Go out and buy it now as Christmas presents for all your friends and relatives, and you’ll reap a huge debt of gratitude at the New Year!
Posted on: Mon, 11 Nov 2013 12:57:34 +0000
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