J. L. Carr
Penelope Fitzgerald's The Beginning of Spring (Collins, £10.95) suited me perfect- ly. I like a novel with a comprehensible shape and this is a believably entertaining story about 1914 Moscow, told gracefully and wittily. Its people linger. I still remem- ber them, speculate on their futures. But then, of course, I could say just the same about her previous novel, the Tuscan one, Innocence.
I'm a Cadfael addict and bought Ellis Peter's (Edith Pargeter) The Confessions of Brother Haluin (Headline, £9.95). Like the 14 or 15 others in this series, it is set in Shrewsbury during the Stephen-Matilda civil uproars. No, it's not in the `quoth/ prithee' genre. She is a very professional writer and they are very, very good stories.
When all else failed, I fell back upon Conrad's Nostromo and, for the fourth or fifth time re-read Anthony Powell's Music of Time novels. It's the inconsiderable characters I enjoy most — Uncle Giles, that old drunken groucher Smith, seedy Mr Deacon, poor Mercy the housemaid. Every two or three years I like meeting them again.
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