BOOK REVIEW: 3 Edition 5

• Published in: Independent (London, England : 1986) England : 1986), 1994
• Main Author: Blake, Robin
• Format: Review
• Language: English
• Subjects: Ackroyd, Peter; Afkhami, Mahnaz; Alighieri, Dante; Amis, Kingsley; Bailey, Paul; Bogarde, Dirk; Brady, Joan; Brown, George Mackay; Brown, Rosellen; Callan, Michael Feeney; Charnwood, Diana; Charnwood, Fabian; Chutkow, Paul; Coe, Jonathan; Cornish, Tim; Crawford, Robert; D Aguiar, Fred; Davies, Robin; Davies, Russell; Depardieu, Gerard; Derbyshire, Leonard; Donougher, Christine; Duffy, Carol Ann; Duras, Marguerite; Einstein, Albert; Ellis, Steve; Fish, Stanley; Forte, Guido; French, Albert; Gill, Anton; Gissing, George; Goddard, Robert; Godel, Kurt; Goodwin, Brian; Hamilton, Ian (1938-2001); Herbert, W N (1961- ); Hopkins, Anthony; Horton, Guy; Howatch, Susan; Jacobs, Michael; Johnstone, Mary; Kalms, Stanley; Keates, Jonathan; Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; Kumar, Radha; Landry, Judith; Larkin, Philip (1922-1985); Leno, Dan; Lewis, Sara; MacKinnon, Catharine; Mallarme, Stephane; Massie, Alan; Maxwell, Glyn; McDowell, Colin; Millan, Gordon; Mosley, Nicholas; Muir, Helen; Munro, Alice; Murdoch, Brian; Nixon, Richard M; O Malley, Mary; O Rourke, Ed Daniel; Olivier, Laurence; Owen, Michael; Pasko, Lori; Penrose, Roger; Petit, Christopher; Pitt-Kethley, Fiona; Plath, Sylvia; Plotkin, Henry; Portinari, Beatrice; Reeves, Richard; Rendell, Ruth; Robb, Graham; Sayers, Dorothy; Scruton, Roger; Sennett, Richard; Sepulveda, Luis; Shields, Carol (1935-2003); Steiner, Andrea; Turner, Billy Lee; Urquhart, Jane; Vine, Barbara; Wesker, Arnold; Williams, Kenneth; Wingate, Max; Woolf, Virginia
• ISSN: 0951-9467

[Federica]'s withdrawal from speech reflects [Guido Forte]'s own detachment from feeling: understanding "what can't be understood by thought alone" is a new concept for him. Yet they both have fantasies of relatedness; Federica dreams of an idealised life among indigenous peoples, governed by instinct; Guido has a vision of a silent boy which he misinterprets as a longing for a son. Both need a child to show them a new way of seeing things: Federica finds her own baby son, Guido takes hallucinatory journeys with his dream-child. But there is no easy resolution, all the same. Guido must fall ill and die, Federica will never be able to confront the memory that sparked her illness: the sordid death of her drug-dealing boyfriend.