Other People’s Worlds - William Trevor
The main character in this novel is a charming psychopath named Francis; he sees people as objects he can use to fulfill his needs. In his wake he leaves a trail of misery. But Francis isn’t simply an evil person. Trevor shows how, in his youth, this victimizer was the victim of prolonged sexual abuse. Francis lives in a distorted world; his actions are responses to compulsive emotions, always carefully hidden behind a smile. The book focuses on three people who fall under his influence. Doris, with whom he had a child, cannot see things as they are; like him, she distorts reality – with the aid of copious amounts of alcohol – to suit her illusions. Their twelve-year-old child is inappropriately named Joy. Julia, a middle-aged widow, is easy prey for Francis. On their wedding night (one without sex) she becomes aware of the ugliness and cruelty that she’s been sheltered from all her life. But Julia, unlike Francis’s other victims, has emotional resources. She realizes that her world – which has been blessed with niceness – can have a purpose. On the last pages she imagines a tranquil scene in which four people are gathered under a tree; one is a child. Yet she sees the scene mistily. Why is this life-affirming ending presented so nebulously? If Julia is to rescue Joy, why doesn’t it happen? The scenes of Doris’s descent into alcoholism and rage-filled madness are frightening, and to enter the mind of Francis is a creepily disturbing experience. Trevor should be given credit for making me respond viscerally to his exploration of the depths, but more than a glimmer of hope was needed to offset the bleakness.

Four Plays - Eugene Ionesco (French)
To do it justice, a play should be seen performed on stage. Despite that, I read these plays (or parts of two), so I’ll dutifully review them. “The Bald Soprano” makes no sense. This was intentional; what goes on is meant to be absurd. I found it somewhat amusing and thought it could, if done with brio by actors, be very funny. “The Lesson” is more structured; things progress in a logical (albeit maniacal) fashion. I liked its wildness and thought it was the best of the four. “Jack or the Submission” was not at all funny; I quit halfway through, in a disgruntled mood. I also made it halfway through “The Chairs.” It was absurd to waste any more of my time on it. The Theater of the Absurd had a point to make about life, but it was a limited one. Okay, we live in a nonsensical world. But nonsense, if not presented in a funny or intriguing way, can be boring. All these plays have boring stretches, but in the two I abandoned the boredom was stupefying.

The Barbary Light - P. H. Newby
I was interested in the main characters (a man, his wife, and the woman he’s having an affair with), but Newby imposes so much baggage on their story – obfuscation, false leads, about-faces, ruminations over matters such as identity – that he detracts from what’s good in the novel. We constantly get dead-end sentences like these: “What mattered was what you did. And how did you know what you did?” The person thinking these thoughts is Owen. I could never get a grip on what his problem was (for one thing, it keeps changing); instead of being enigmatic, he winds up seeming improbable. I also couldn’t understand how two attractive and intelligent women could be deeply in love with him. The flat-as-a-pancake ending, which provides no insight or resolution to all the complexities, suggests that the author was in as much of a quandary as Owen. When events are presented in a straightforward way, the characters and scenes have freshness and vitality. But in this book Newby thinks too much, to no good purpose.

Three Plays - Harold Pinter
These early Pinter plays feature elements that he would use again and again. In a “A Slight Ache” the three characters (one never speaks a word) act oddly – odd enough to create mystery and an atmosphere of menace. A husband and wife talk to each other but don’t communicate; their disjointed dialogue makes no sense. The play ends with the oddest plot twist of all. In “The Collection” the characters communicate, but it’s not clear who’s telling the truth and who’s engaging in elaborate lies (no reason is provided for why anyone may be lying). As soon as things seem to be resolved one way or another a character does something to muddy the waters. There’s a liberal sprinkling of menace and an inconclusive ending. In “The Dwarfs” Pinter ramps up the oddity to the point where the characters are lunatics; they go into long, senseless monologues filled with violent imagery. So there they are, the three elements which would become Pinter trademarks. Each has appeal for an audience. Oddity fascinates, menace titillates, and not making sense creates the impression that there’s hidden meaning to be unearthed. Did Pinter produce good work using this bag of tricks? Yes, but in these plays it all smacks of gimmickry.