LOVE IS LIKE THAT

The stories of some English (""who have forgotten how to die"") on the Italian Riviera are sparked off when the chaplain, by an embarrassing mistake, reads The Song of Solomon for the lesson. Sir Aubrey Wellington, after two unfortunate marriages, finds love in his sixties: Mrs. Callender has killed her retarded son; nonagenarian Crackenthorpe had eloped with a nun and known marriage built on her serenity; a spinater takes a dreamed-of trip to Italy- to be caught up in her niece's romantic marriage to Sir Aubrey. Here, along with the distaste for ""high powered ears conveying low-mannered people"", is a network of gossip, a gallant stand of these too old or too poor to go home, of autumn's rebellion against wintry death...through the happenings of the youth that led to age. Lingering and fond, this banks its sentimentality high.