In Glittering Images Susan Howatch unvciled the ele-
gant, complcx, dcceptivc world bchmd the dazzling
facadc of a great English cathedral...in ; ~ amorous
Powers she told the remarkable story of a clergyman
whose psychic powcrs werc both a magnificent gift
anti a dangerous affliction.., and now, with Ultimate
Prizes, she gives us the third and most enthrall-
ing book yct in her extraordinary new sequence
of novels.
The narrator is Neville Aysgarth: witty, intelli-
gent, powcrfully ambitious. Drivcn by mcmories of
his impoverished childhood, a drive tcmpercd by
his ardcnt faith, he has learned to seek worldly suc-
cess inits more subtle forms. And, by his forty-first
year--as the novel opens, in 1942 --he has captured
many of life s prizes: the "perfect" wile, the "per-
fect" family and the "perfect" future in his beloved
Chnrch of England. Already an archdeacon (a rank
usually held by mcn ten or twenty years his senior)
and privilegcd aide to the Bishop of Starbridgc,
Aysgarth is sure to attain a great place in the
Church s hicrarchy.
But he has not anticipatcd thc effect on his
picture-pcrfect world of a woman like Dido Tallent.
This former dcb of the year, this darling of the soci-
ety gossip columists, movcs into his ficld of vision
as a fellow gucst at one of the Bishop s wartime din-
nor parties. Dresscd in her simple Navy uniform,
she nonethcless appears to Aysgarth "a diamond,
glittering wickedly among a prim collection of
pearls) When she asks him to bccomc her spiritual
adviscr, he constructs a masterfully rational reason
why hc should agrce ("Who was I to regard her with
such un-Christian cynicism because she had spcnt
too many ycars as a mindlcss society girl?...Jesus
would ncver have walked past her with his nose in
the air, and since I was onc of his followers neither
should 1"). But it only masks his true motive: Dido,
"so clevcr, so stimulating, so attractive, so rich, so
發表於2024-12-26
Ultimate prizes 2024 pdf epub mobi 電子書 下載
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Ultimate prizes 2024 pdf epub mobi 電子書 下載