A WORLD ELSEWHERE
By
John Bowen (The Centre of the Green; The Birdcage) is a lesser English writer of considerable competence and intelligence; perhaps the trouble here is that even though there are two stories, the narrative itself is a little uninvolving so that his world elsewhere seems remote. Still one can admire the way he has synchronized, contrapuntally (a) the story of Philoctetes, from Greek myth, who was abandoned by Odysseus during the Trojan war for larger interests and (b) Gareth Payne, The Old Man, The Honest Man of British politics, whose finicking conscience and rather prim political morality had led him to resign some three years previously. Now Payne is on the small Greek island of Lemnos, writing the story of Philoctetes, annotating it marginally with parallels to his own career, as he now, like his subject, is recalled to service...The niceties of style, detail and discernment throughout augment a rather minor story.