At the centre of Stuart Evans' ambitious and enthralling novel is Michael Caradock, a well-known writer whose life has ended violently on an isolated Welsh island. The circumstances of his death are mysterious, but then his whole life and work are subjects of controversy. Are his work and death connected, and if so, on what level? In The Caves of Alienation, first published in 1977, Stuart Evans, displays the accomplished hand of a master craftsman in verse and prose, but also makes clear the startling ambition to produce a Welsh novel whose technical brilliance and intellectual power would allow it to take its place, unashamedly, in the ranks of European 20th Century fiction. He succeeded. The challenge for writers and readers is to catch up with him. The Caves of Alienation is multi-layered in its dazzling demonstration of virtuosity of style and narrative perspective---literally different novels within the novel...; that it is easy to underplay the thread that links fictive reviews to screenplay to cod biographies and the ventriloquism of reminiscence. For its story, constant and disturbing, is the touching and intriguing account of Michael Caradock, the alienated boy who lives his life as a man and a writer by soaring imaginatively away only to be forever and fatally tied down by the past.
Presents the story of Michael Caradock, a writer whose life has ended violently on an isolated Welsh island. This book follows his protected Welsh childhood, his crucial first encounters with sex, his literary success in London and his final withdrawal to Wales.
PRODUCT INFORMATION
Summary
At the centre of Stuart Evans' ambitious and enthralling novel is Michael Caradock, a well-known writer whose life has ended violently on an isolated Welsh island. The circumstances of his death are mysterious, but then his whole life and work are subjects of controversy. Are his work and death connected, and if so, on what level? In The Caves of Alienation, first published in 1977, Stuart Evans, displays the accomplished hand of a master craftsman in verse and prose, but also makes clear the startling ambition to produce a Welsh novel whose technical brilliance and intellectual power would allow it to take its place, unashamedly, in the ranks of European 20th Century fiction. He succeeded. The challenge for writers and readers is to catch up with him. The Caves of Alienation is multi-layered in its dazzling demonstration of virtuosity of style and narrative perspective---literally different novels within the novel...; that it is easy to underplay the thread that links fictive reviews to screenplay to cod biographies and the ventriloquism of reminiscence. For its story, constant and disturbing, is the touching and intriguing account of Michael Caradock, the alienated boy who lives his life as a man and a writer by soaring imaginatively away only to be forever and fatally tied down by the past.
Presents the story of Michael Caradock, a writer whose life has ended violently on an isolated Welsh island. This book follows his protected Welsh childhood, his crucial first encounters with sex, his literary success in London and his final withdrawal to Wales.
Description
"The Caves of Alienation" is a story of unfolding revelation about the difficult, fascinating character of Caradock. His family made their fortune from the industry of Wales, but his cosseted childhood in the Welsh valleys only fueled his desire to leave, and his efforts to escape are explored through the multi-voiced narrative. Then there are his crucial first encounters with sex, his literary success in London and his final withdrawal to Wales. But it is the riveting manner of the telling which gives "The Caves of Alienation" its virtuosity. It is told from a variety of viewpoints, some conflicting, all interrelated. Friends and enemies, literary rivals, lovers, critics, the 'official biography', even television and radio documentaries jostle each other in the narrative with their own (sometimes feigning) fragments of truth. Caradock's own novels and essays play a vital part in the story. All this makes for an exhilarating, kaleidoscopic read, funny and profound by turns, yet never flinching in its portrayal of Caradock and his deepest preoccupations. The phrase tour de force is a tired one, but it has seldom been more justified than in the case of this exceptional novel.
About the Author
Stuart Evans was born in Swansea in 1934 and brought up at Ystalyfera in Glamorgan. He read English at Jesus College, Oxford. After service in the Royal Navy, he taught at Brunel College of Advanced Technology and, from the mid 1960's, worked for BBC Radio in London as a producer in the Schools Broadcasting Department. It was as a novelist that he established his reputation, with eight long, technically complex novels which are more inclined to the philosophical than is usual in English fiction. They include Meritocrats (1974), The Gardens of the Casino (1976), The Caves of Alienation (1977), and a quintet known as The Windmill Hill Sequence. He also published two volumes of verse, Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads (1972) and The Function of the Foal (1997). He died in 1994.
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