TRISTAN

by Maria Kuncevicz ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 1973

An ornate monotone reprise of the Tristan legend, set in postwar England. The story is told in a series of confessional blips from the main characters, and leading off is Polish expatriate Wanda, mother of Michael, the ""Tristan."" Michael, who had seen his father killed by the Nazis, had witnessed an atrocity, perpetrated one himself (a dragon-slaying) comes out of the camps to rejoin his mother in England. Iseult is an Irish paramedical student, Kasia, introduced by Michael to her King Mark, Bradley -- an aging, benevolent, brilliant scholar -- and she marries Bradley. But then to the strains of Cesar Franck on Wanda's phonograph the two young people achieve a pristine unity. Via overlapping commentary and speculations, the doomed progress of Michael and Kasia is pegged with symbolic parallels to the myth. The two embrace and feverishly spar and then Kasia is brought back to Bradley. Michael sails to America where he marries that other Iseult, an American heiress who cures him -- at least he is dead to love. The author overloads her fragile characters with so many crown jewels of legend and so much pack rat incident that there's little room for reader receptivity to the light and seductive breath of romance or the dualities of war and love, death and youth. Simply exhausting.

Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1973

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Braziller

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1973

Categories: FICTION