Ultimate Prizes

The book came very quickly and was exactly described, in very good condition. Very happy with this transaction.

This is the first Susan Howatch book I've read. I really enjoyed it and the plot twists and plan to read more since some of the characters that appeared are also characters in some of her other books. An interesting study on how we can put up barriers/deceive ourselves and the trouble you can run into on a slippery slope.

In the third of the Starbridge series we get a closer look at Neville Ayesgarth, who was at loggerheads with Jon Darrow in the second book. Here it is Ayesgarth’s turn to be stripped apart and laid bare by Howatch’s expert scalpel! I have to admit that though I didn’t dislike this book, I didn’t like it as much as others in the series. It began promisingly enough, with Neville falling under the spell of the young flibbertigibbet Dido. Dido – who later becomes famous in the series as a loose cannon - resists his advances until… well, that would be giving things away. I felt though that the second part of the book gets bogged down in the dissection of Neville’s past. I found it not so interesting to read about his background as he tells it to his spiritual director; as such the characters who are so important to Neville - his mother, his father, Uncle Willoughby – never came alive for me and his recounting of them felt rather slow. However, it is still a great book and indispensable to the series - but it should be read in the right order, after its two predecessors. I have started an online discussion and reading group around Susan Howatch’s novels (...).

For all that the plots of her novels tend to cross the border to melodrama, Susan Howatch's gift for characterisation, and for the integration of superb spiritual insight (into the dialogue, if not the lives of the individuals depicted!) is impeccable. Neville Aysgarth, whose commitment and faith are unquestionable, is an odd but interesting blend of hard sense and the ability to create a personal world of his own, where his natural dedication is lost in the inability to have any real compassion or understanding. Others in his life, though he remains clearly unaware of this and, indeed, capable of believing he has a remarkable and favourable role, are "prizes" which he creates for his own benefit.The bizarre love match of Neville and Dido will keep anyone with interests in psychology or odd relationships pondering its aspects. However, Susan does not disappoint those used to her excellent spiritual and theological insights. Some of her other "clergy," for all of their failings, remain great men. Neville, by contrast, is one who has genuinely good qualities that show his ever unrecognised potential to be in that category as well, but this can never be achieved. He can see the truth and wisdom in concepts such as Aidan and Jonathan present, or the ideals of his modernist heroes, yet can never get past his inability to accept his own weakness, any need for others beyond their being his prizes, nor his tendency towards deceit in the garb of theological integrity.With vivid characters and an intriguing, if rather bizarre, plot, even those readers who do not wish to be inspired can be assured they'll never be bored.

Probably none of these are going to be quite as perfect for me as the first book in the series, "Glittering Images," because I am now familiar with this Anglican Church world and the characters who people it. Nevertheless, Neville Aysgarth, the protagonist in this novel, an archdeacon in the Church, tells a compelling story which involves himself always being after winning the big prizes in life, whether they be the perfect career, wife or children. This leads him to a breakdown and his spiritual battle back, this time with the counseling help of two other Anglican ministers, one of whom is Jon Darrow again. Aysgarth has some unlikable characteristics, along with likable ones, but some readers may be put off from him. He also picks a lulu of a second wife, Dido, who is supposed to be grating and abrasive. She succeeds well in this role. I've already started Book #4, "Scandalous Risks," so I am obviously hooked on the whole six book series.