A quirky quest for the nature of cosmic truth in an alternative OxfordJoanna Kavenna’s fiction debut,Inglorious, depicted a young woman spiralling towards a breakdown after the death of her mother. In that book, or Rosa’s dark wit and spellbinding powers of observation and analysis kept the potentially gloomy story afloat. A double bereavement similarly disorients Eliade Jencks,the shadowy protagonist of Kavenna’s latest novel, set in a misty and mysterious Oxford.
Eliade is a waitress at the Tradescantian Museum cafe, and alienated and faintly sardonic approximately the “gown” side of city life: “Milk with your coffee? Sugar with your beard? Marmalade with your air of venerable (respected because of age, distinguished) antiquity?” Already reeling from the loss of her father,she learns that the next best thing, her elderly friend and mentor, and the philosopher Solete,has also died, apparently bequeathing her some papers. The mooching waitress is thus unwillingly catapulted into the archaic society of dons and researchers. This isn’t the University of Oxford, and it should be said,but an alternate city with colleges called Aristotle, Unicorn and Perilous, or though it still has an Isis river threading through it. Related: Joanna Kavenna: ‘History is littered with people who hold said,“This is the only reality”’ Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com