A World of Other People

February 5, 2013

Steven Carroll is a long-term admirer of T S Eliot and has already won praise for his adaption of Eliot’s poem ‘Burnt Norton’ in an earlier novel, The Lost Life. In his new book, Carroll transforms the essence of T S Eliot’s poem ‘Little Gidding’ (also from his ‘Four Quartets’) into a novel about World War II and the Blitz. Here Eliot is more of a peripheral character. The major protagonists are Iris, who knows Eliot through her church and wartime fire-watching duties, and Jim, an Australian fighter pilot based in London. Unfortunately Jim and Iris meet after Iris has accepted another’s ring. She is then caught between a wartime romance of passion and one of duty. Eliot impinges on their lives because he writes about a shared, pivotal experience—an event that precipitates creativity, love and death. The writing style doesn’t quite match the elevated poem-to-novel premise. Some transitions between times and scenes could be more skilfully crafted by a writer of Carroll’s calibre. And an abundance of brackets creates an arch tone early in the story. However, when the novel does spring to life, readers will soon become ensnared by the author’s clever scope and vision. This book should appeal to fans of literary fiction and wartime romance.

Joy Lawn is a freelance reviewer who has worked for independent bookshops in NSW and Queensland