Word: faron
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Into this demi-monde blunders Theodore Faron, Professor of History at Merton College, Oxford and cousin to the enigmatic Xan. A revolutionary cell, outraged by the injustices perpetrated by the Warden, approaches Faron to ask him to use his influence with his cousin. His mission comes to naught, but he falls gushingly in love with a soft-spoken revolutionary, and vows to help her change the world...
...frustration with an indifferent, self-satisfied, aging society is redolent of late-life crisis on the part of seventy-three-year-old James Faron's attempts to cope with his grief over his accidental killing of his baby daughter subtly evoke a personal crisis, perhaps reminiscent of the death of James' mentally ill husband forty years ago. She also addresses the corrupting attraction of power, even in a world without future generations to remember and admire the achievements of the powerful...
James weaves all these themes into a knuckle-whitening story which keeps the reader avidly turning the pages, right up to the fabulously ambiguous conclusion. Her capacity to astonish with an utterly unexpected twist shines forth on several occasions she characterizes Faron with detail and insight: he occupies a different league from her standard murder mystery suspects. Her projection of the future manages to be both darkly visionary and depressingly realistic...
...contrast, her descriptions of Faron's childhood in Nineties England seem slightly artificial. Her perception of British aristocratic life lurks regressively in the Seventies, resulting in a plastic tone during the scenes of youthful ebullience...
More importantly, James ultimately dodges the questions which she raises in the book. The issues which consume Faron's thoughts societal decay, the corruption of power, grief, and love-are resolved by a plot twist. A baby is born, and all the world's problems melt into insignificance...