Anne Chisholm
Past Master
Last Stories
By William Trevor
Viking 213pp £14.99
William Trevor, the much-admired writer of more than thirty novels and collections of short stories, died in 2016. He would have been ninety this year, and to remember and celebrate him this collection of ten last stories has been published, a final tribute to one of the acknowledged masters of the form for over half a century. They are perhaps not all his strongest, but they nevertheless are a reminder of how very good he was, and how, while writing quietly of modest, often damaged lives in undramatic settings, he explored the most powerful and darkest emotions: goodness and wickedness, joy and grief.
There is pure pleasure, too, to be found in his limpid prose and narrative skill. He makes springing a surprise seem easy, as when, in ‘The Piano Teacher’s Pupil’, the apparently perfect child prodigy who brings new happiness to a solitary, ageing piano teacher turns out to be a kleptomaniac. Unable and unwilling to risk confrontation with the boy, when he suddenly disappears she finds herself questioning the father who, earlier in life, indulged her and the lover who let her down. ‘Had her father’s chocolates been an inducement to remain with him in his house, a selfishness dressed up? Had the man who’d deceived his wife deceived his mistress too, since deception was a part of him?’ Trevor does not go in for explanations or neat happy endings; years later the boy reappears, but the mystery of his behaviour, as well as her reaction, remains.
With this story, Trevor conveys a truth that runs through all his work: art, including writing, may be vital, even consoling, but beauty cannot mask, let alone resolve, human failure and cruelty. In his fictional worlds, apparently well-intentioned people living quiet lives in respectable surroundings do each other great
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
Knowledge of Sufism increased markedly with the publication in 1964 of The Sufis, by Idries Shah. Nowadays his writings, much like his father’s, are dismissed for their Orientalism and inaccuracy.
@fitzmorrissey investigates who the Shahs really were.
Fitzroy Morrissey - Sufism Goes West
Fitzroy Morrissey: Sufism Goes West - Empire’s Son, Empire’s Orphan: The Fantastical Lives of Ikbal and Idries Shah by Nile Green
literaryreview.co.uk
Rats have plagued cities for centuries. But in Baltimore, researchers alighted on one surprising solution to the problem of rat infestation: more rats.
@WillWiles looks at what lessons can be learned from rat ecosystems – for both rats and humans.
Will Wiles - Puss Gets the Boot
Will Wiles: Puss Gets the Boot - Rat City: Overcrowding and Urban Derangement in the Rodent Universes of John B ...
literaryreview.co.uk
Twisters features destructive tempests and blockbuster action sequences.
@JonathanRomney asks what the real danger is in Lee Isaac Chung's disaster movie.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/eyes-of-the-storm