This is my review of Cassandra at the Wedding (New York Review Books Classics) by Dorothy Baker.

How do you react when your identical twin sister announces her intention to get married? Particularly if you have spent your entire childhood in the self-contained bubble of a rural backwater, with an academic philosopher for a father, encouraging you to dissect every thought, and a novelist mother to feed your preoccupation with words? What if your parents have laboured to make you different in superficial matters, overlooking the fact that you differ in the deep sense that one twin wishes to share the same life forever whilst the other wishes to break free into adulthood?

This recipe for high drama is a gripping page turner. I could not wait to get to the end, knowing that I would need to go back later to milk Baker's keen prose for the full sense of all her sharp and original observations. It often reads like the plays for which the author was well-known, with the advantage that a novel gives scope for the deeper introspection and exploration of the characters' inner thoughts.

The book is written from the alternating viewpoints of the two sisters: Cassandra and Judith, which gives you in time their very different takes on the same situations. Cassandra is neurotic, manipulative, a keen observer of others, with a biting wit, but an utterly unreliable narrator who lacks a sense of proportion, a source of huge irritation but also great sympathy to the reader. This is a tragi-comedy with many moments of great humour, and a light touch which adds to the pathos of the sadder events without making them too heavily dreary or depressing. Unlike some reviewers (including Lowri Turner in the introduction to my copy, which was a total spoiler so I am glad I did not read it beforehand), I did not find the ending disappointing – rather neat yet also satisfyingly ambiguous in some ways.

It is surprising that such a modern-seeming novel should have been written fifty years ago by someone born in 1907. It does not seek to shock, because it does not need to do so to stand out, with its subtle and distinctive approach. I am sure that, if written today, it would be on all the major prize shortlists.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5 Stars

This is my review of Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder by Evelyn Waugh.

Vivid and original descriptions, sparkling streams of consciousness with perfect grammar and impeccable punctuation, telling observation of character, sharp dialogue, and high comedy mixed with bitter irony – all the evidence for Waugh's reputation as one of England's greatest novelists is here. I can appreciate his nostalgia for a no doubt rose-tinted view of a past way of feudal life and the novel also provides some intriguing social history of the lives of a privileged few between two World Wars, as when an Oxford undergraduate casually expects a friend's drunken vomit from the night before to be cleaned up by a servant.

On the other hand, the snobbishness, treatment of "the lower classes" as a lesser breed, and frequent racist and chauvinist comments which seem to be a product of his own prejudice prevent Waugh from seeming a great novelist in terms of vision.

The most interesting aspect of the novel for me is the parallels to be found with Waugh's own life, despite his attempts to deny them. The bored Captain Charles Ryder doing his war service is Waugh stuck in England on petty exercises rather than seeing real action. Ryder's infatuation with Brideshead and the Marchmain family is Waugh's with Madresfield and the Lygons. Sebastian Flyte is partly the captivating, alcoholic drifter Hugh, and Julia is modelled on his beautiful sister Maimie, denied the opportunity to marry royalty because of a family scandal. Julia's fiancé Mottram's comical attempts to convert to Catholicism at any price are reminiscent of Waugh's own rather bizarre exchanges with the priest he had to satisfy to achieve his own conversion. The flamboyantly gay, precociously effete Anthony Blanche is, on Waugh's own admission, two-thirds Brian Howard and one-third Harold Acton, reciting poetry through a megaphone.

A weakness in the plot seems to me to be the scandal of the Earl's flight to Venice with his mistress Carla – his offence does not seem "bad" enough to justify the blight on the Marchmains. In this, truth was more dramatic than fiction: Earl Beauchamp (William Lygon), a major Whig politician, was forced into exile to avoid an Oscar Wilde-type humiliating trial when his officious brother-in-law threatened to make public his rampant homosexuality.

The part I find hardest to understand is Waugh's treatment of Catholicism which he saw as crucial to the work. He suggests to me that Hugh and Julia are "screwed up" by a religion that tortures them with a sense of guilt over the "sins" they are too self-indulgent to deny themselves. Using Ryder as mouthpiece, Waugh does a pretty good job in sending up Catholicism, exposing the confusion and illogicality of its practice. Yet, he clearly implies that, like him, Ryder converts to this faith, but Waugh does not supply a clear explanation as to why and how this occurred.

Whilst being a compelling read, this is one of those novels which need to be revisited to appreciate it fully. It is also ideal for a book group, since there is so much to discuss about style, structure, plot, characters and aim, plus it is likely to divide opinion quite sharply.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

This is my review of The Flight Of The Falcon (Virago Modern Classics) by Daphne Du Maurier.

Armino Fabbio, a competent but jaded tour guide, feels responsible for the death of someone perhaps recognised from his childhood. This takes him back to Ruffano, the quaint Italian hill town of his birth, which revives memories not only of the destructive effects of World War 2 on his family but also of his domination by Aldo, the charismatic elder brother shot down as a pilot.

Despite a promising beginning and my huge admiration for gripping psychological dramas like "Rebecca" or "My Cousin Rachel", I was sufficiently unengaged by this novel to notice with disappointment the flaws: two-dimensional characters, stilted dialogues, unlikely coincidences, some rather tedious surfeit of detail. Yet many passages are brilliant, apparently effortless in their clarity and striking impact. I was also tantalised by my inability to grasp the geography of the place, and would have liked a streetmap.

Published in 1965, twenty-seven years after Rebecca, this novel may be a bit dated, the work of a popular novelist still spinning yarns in the style of earlier decades, without any further development as a writer. In spite of my reluctant reservations, although I guessed the key twists in advance, and some of the plot is a bit ludicrous, I was gripped eventually – I think by the idea of Fabbio being able to pass himself off as a stranger in familiar territory, even with people he once knew. This intriguing aspect of "false identity" is often employed by Du Maurier.

I found Fabbio an emotionally cold character, which could be attributed to his dysfunctional childhood, but was interested to read that Du Maurier herself often seemed rather chilly and remote.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars