North - Couverture rigide

Martin, Brian

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0230000002 ISBN 13 : 9780230000001

Editeur : Macmillan New Writing, 2003

Synopsis

It exposes the lives of six people who attend a school in Oxford either as student or teacher. The narrator of the story, a middle-aged man of means, is almost as enigmatic as his subject, North, a strange, elegant, charismatic Anglo-American youth.

The handsome, precocious North begins a three-way relationship between himself, a beautiful 27 year-old woman teacher, and a young married, but bisexual, head of Physics who is good-looking, athletic and evangelically Christian. As the novel proceeds in various settings, Oxford, London, Ravello, Washington DC, a confidential intimacy evolves between the narrator and North and the suspense mounts as North reveals his plans for systematic seduction.

The players in the game of love become entangled in sexual anarchy that accelerates the novel towards its decisive, cataclysmic climax.

At the end there is an abiding mystery and an acute sense of potent evil. The reader is left wondering if there have been certain moral imperatives that have made the narrator tell less than the whole truth.

Soon after arriving at his Oxford school, the enigmatic North has invited his female history teacher, Bernie, to lunch – and not, as she had thought, to discuss history. When Monty, North’s married physics teacher, makes it clear that he wants Bernie for himself, North seeks to mollify him in his own particular way: by seducing him. As North and his bizarre cohort travel across Oxford, London, Ravello, and Washington, the sexual anarchy grows ever more devastating, until eventually North’s farcical menage-a-trois results in death and tragedy.

But what is the real story – and is the English master’s version to be trusted? A dazzling psychological thriller, North is by turns erudite, audacious and brilliantly witty. An utterly assured and wholly original debut.

'Brian Martin's North spins a ripe, Fowlesian tale of sexual and spiritual intrigue . . . ' – The Independent

A propos du livre

À propos de l'auteur

Brian Martin closely rivals Mary Wesley in that he is publishing his first novel at the age of 68. Previously he has written and edited academic books. His main career has been teaching literature for 40 years both at school in Oxford and at Oxford University. He has reviewed contemporary novels for more than thirty years for the national press, including the Spectator, The Times Literary Supplement, the Financial Times and the Literary Review. He was appointed MBE for services to English literature.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Macmillan New Writing
• Date d'édition: 2003
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0230000002
• ISBN 13: 9780230000001
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 99
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: Koch-Chemie GmbH; https://www.koch-chemie.com ; ; Einsteinstr. 42; Unna; 59423; Allemagne