CLOSER TO THE SUN

An increasingly seductive literary background- a Greek island- adds strong color values to a story which rather drags its feet- but for those with time on their hands it's a pleasant waystop. On Silenos, David and Kate Meredith join the small emigre and expatriate colony there- looking for a new way of life (escape from the pressure of the London newspaper world) and some less precarious, more prominent direction to their marriage, on the whole a satisfactory one but still the victim of the years and habit. They are part of the mixed group there: Arthur Sinclair, a retired naval officer, and his wife Beth; Conrad Fegel, a Czech, broken by the war years, and Janecek, his compatriot, who ""cashed his soul in"" in the same concentration camp; Suvora, an Armenian millionaire; the widowed Erica Barrington, who leads a very private life and whose highly subdued sophistication attracts David; Mouilet, a young Frenchman, with an overtly physical approach- to Kate; and finally David's brother Mark who comes to retrieve him from his ""visionary escapism"" on the island. While he fails, Kate's impulsive affair with Mouilet has a salutary effect on their marriage- and the island ambience, with its ""too much light"" and leisure does provide the right exposure- of themselves to each other... Shimmery, summery stuff- but no more.