Temples of Delight - Barbara Trapido

Author's product rating:   

Would you read it again?	Yes
Story	Good
Characters	Good
Readability	Good
How does it compare to similar books?	Excellent
How does it compare to other works by the same author?	Excellent

Advantages:	Strangely dreamlike, unsentimental
Disadvantages:	A heroine who is occasinally rather too passive

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Well I don't particulary at least. This heroine certainly does though. I have to stress at the beginning of this review, that this book is certainly not the sort of thing I would usually read at all. I tend to steer clear of anything that could possibly go into the Modern novels section, having reached the status of crotchety old woman at 17 years old, and it was on a pure whim that I picked this up and flicked through. You may have noticed from other reviews (well I can dream can't I?) that I read older novels mostly, and a lot of science fiction/ fantasy, but be warned this book does not fit in the classic mould.
I won't say I was hooked, but certainly I was very much interested in it, and this woman has the beating of Marion Keyes any day, having been compared to the late and lamented writer Muriel Spark by a number of reviewers, an assessment I find myself oddly agreeing with. This novel has the same slightly surreal comedic edge, the rather bewildered and beleagured heroine, who you always get the impression that she is rather breathless.

The novel is narrated from the viewpoint of Alice a pretty, blond, Oxford undergraduate, who looks back on key events in her life, starting with her conflicting friendships with two strong characters while at school. We get a retelling of her friendship with Jem a hugely bright and inventive girl, who walks into Silent Reading and straight into Alice's affections. She teaches Alice all about books and music, to love the Magic Flute, to read decent literature, rather than the hogswash they are forced to read in the school, and charms her with stories about her massively unconventional homelife, and tales about her family- the French beautiful mother, the writer father and the brothers and sisters who each have interesting lives. Alice whose parents are very welloff working people with no interest in literature, or much else other than money is fascinated by these glimpses at a totally different lifestyle, and gradually through exposure to Jem she begins to change herself in many ways. Jem is a highly precocious child, who has written a novel with peculiar charm and spirit, which she entrusts into Alice's keeping, not wanting to leave it at home. And yet at sixteen Jem disappears and Alice hears nothing more from her.
Jem replaced Flora as Alice's friend, and it is Flora who is one of the keys to the novel. A child with a bitter and unhappy homelife, living with a family who are utter misers, and whose stern father dies in an accident caused indirectly by Alice's family, she is cold and unyielding with a twisted personality which later becomes clearly evident in her treatment of Alice. Flora declares instant war with Jem, with whom she is totally different, and even though Jem beats her in the scholarship exams, the scholarship to study art in Paris is awarded to Flora, as the teachers instinctively dislike the nonconformist Jem. This is what causes Jem to leave the school leaving Alice with only memories and a battered tin box containing a novel by a thirteen year old.

Alice shrinks into her shell, her stammer causing her huge embarassment, and thanks to Jems intervention to her reading and general interests, she unfurls hidden academic talents getting into Oxford to study Classics. Here she meets Roland who would appear to be the perfect man. He's upperclass, a teacher, loves Alice devotedly, is incredibly handsome, plans to propose and in almost every respect is absolutely perfect. And yet Alice is not only not attracted to him, but is repulsed by the thought of sleeping with him. She has issues with sexual intimacy, indeed can only imagine sleeping with three people- two of whom are dead, and the third imaginary. Roland bears patiently with her shyness, but finally attempts to make advances. Alice panicks and drives his car into a river. Roland revives and saves her, collapsing himself, leaving the credit for the heroic rescue to a passerby named Matthew. Alice's conformist parents who always felt uneasy in the presence of the upperclass Roland, love Matthew who is working class and help him in every way, encouraging his pursuit of Alice, who sleeps with him, experiencing no pleasure at all, and who in a state of dreamlike bemusement, merely allows him too.

Then her life changes. A letter arrives from a dying Jem- sick of cancer that cannot be cured, because she will not accept chemotherapy that will kill the child she carries. Overcome by anguish, she spots an article, in which Jem's novel has been plagarized entirely by Alice's landlord's daughter. Inflamed with fury she phones the Publisher- a man called Giovanni Angeletti and launchs a fierce diatribe against him. The same night, Flora back from France, seduces Matthew and takes him for her own, in revenge for all the years of feeling like the taker from Alice. Alice is bemused, and rather than protest merely offers the couple a pair of opera tickets- for the Magic Flute.

Angletti turns up, and together he and Alice burrow through rubbish until they find the missing proof. Angletti misreads the date on the letter Jem sent though, and thus Alice is too late to speak to her friend before she dies. However Jem has left a will that states she wishes Alice to be the carer of the child. Alice accepts the responsibility and reluctantly allows Angletti who appears smitten with the child to stay around. A romance blooms between them, that Alice fiercly denies, and when they have sex it is neither tender nor the way Alice imagined it- merely another boring experience. It turns out that Angletti though he exudes masculinity, is almost a brute because of his money, and Alice is determined to be a match for him. There is rather a funny twist at the end of the book which I shall not reveal.

Other all a very frothy, light little book, with rather darker themes than appears from the cover and the blurb. You'll enjoy it if you like witty writing and convoluted plots as well as descriptions. The heroine is likable enough, if a little passive at inopprotune moments- for example when Flora tells her that Matthew is going back to Paris with her, Alice has almost no reactions. This however is probably a parody of traditional scenes like this. The character Giovanni Angletti is an absolute monster to my way of thinking, but perhaps woman who like traditional brutish heros with dark hair will like him.

The themes of Catholicism, love, sex, class and education run through this book and to my thinking blend well. Certainly though not the book usually to my taste, it is passable and indeed very readable.

The cover is turquoise and yellow stripes, with the title and author in an informal font like handwriting and a positive uote from Time Out on the cover, along with a picture of a stylized octopus and wedding cake.

My edition appears to be on sale for £6.99 but I got it cheaper. It was published in1990 by Michael Joseph.

Reviews (from front of book)

'It makes you laugh and it moves you,' Nicolette Jones, Sunday Times

'Trapido is standing in for Miss Spark,' Financial Times

'Magical and addictive' She

Hope this was an informative review