Hutchinson Heineman, 2026, 364 p including 2 p Author’s Note.

“‘We see the world once only,’ she said. ‘In childhood. The rest is remembering.’” So says Mrs Graveney, the headteacher of Witchelm, the school in which Philip Deval, having recently left the army after service in the Second World War and in the dying days of the Palestine Mandate, is to take up teaching. Farewell to Eden is the novelistic expression of protagonist Deval’s life, which before the war was a kind of aimless drifting through University and a relationship with Alice Western which is to end in tragedy and leave him reticent to expose himself to further possible grief.

At Witchelm he strikes up a companionable friendship with music teacher Frances Darwood, a woman with haunted memories of her own from recent times. In their conversations they eventually come to tell each other about their previous lives. The main body of the book, though, is concerned with Deval’s experiences in Palestine and its ramifications for his later life.

During the exercise of his duties Deval comes upon the aftermath of the bombing of the King David Hotel by the Irgun and Faulks does not flinch from describing its gruesome detail. There are episodes of cloak and dagger in a kind of colloquy with the militants and a pervading sense of imminent danger. One of Deval’s army colleagues habitually refers to the Jewish activists as Bagels. I suspect – and indeed Faulks makes reference to it in his Author’s Note – any such word used would have been much more offensive.

Deval’s encounters with Arab Palestinians portray them – despite the pre-war Arab revolt – as unprepared for the adversity which would shortly befall them.

In one of his conversations Deval’s company chaplain reflects on the Jewish origins of Christianity. “‘Life would have been easier, certainly,’ said Matthew. ‘If He had come from nowhere. If He’d been untouched by previous gods and tribal wars. If He’d been less … specific. But we can’t question it.’

‘Can’t we?’ said Philip.

‘No. It’s too late.’”

That last sentence may also be a comment on the present situation in those troubled lands. Faulks has here examined the turbulence amid which the state of Israel was founded; the genesis of what is an enduring tragedy.

Pedant’s corner:- “in Hebrew Gethsemane meant ‘oil press’.” (Well, no. It means ‘oil press’ in English. In Hebrew it means Gethsemane,) “the lowest point on the earth’s crust” (in the text this is the Dead Sea, but there are many lower points in the earth’s crust than that. The Dead Sea is merely the lowest point on a continental surface.)

Hutchinson, 2001, 345 p.

Love, sex, and death, again. Literary fiction doesn’t seem to stray far from those. Though I suppose there isn’t that much sex here, and death is mostly off-stage. Set in the late 1950s as they turn to the 60s, the love is that between Mary van der Linden, sojourning in Washington DC with her diplomat husband Charlie (whose career has stalled somewhat, perhaps because he is too fond of the bottle) and journalist Frank Renzo who is making a slow return after disfavour in the McCarthy years.

The book does describe the progress of what I assume is supposed to be a great love affair but unlike in Penelope Lively’s Moon Tiger I didn’t really feel it, was never convinced. When Mary states her feelings for Frank they more or less come out of the blue as far as the reader is concerned. (His affections – or perhaps I should say intentions – were discernible from the outset.)

To add a bit of colour incidents from the characters’ earlier lives are incorporated into the narrative – Mary’s first lover, who died in the Second World War, Frank and Charlie’s almost forgotten meeting at Dien Bien Phu – as are contemporary events, particularly the first Kennedy-Nixon TV debate and Charlie’s breakdown on a visit to Moscow which sharpens the tale with a dose of Cold Wear paranoia. And everybody smokes like a lum.

I remember the author’s earlier novel Birdsong with some affection. On Green Dolphin Street, while readable enough, is no Birdsong

I did though learn that there is a Dumbarton Street in Washington DC!

Pedant’s corner:- USian usages – fender, hat-check girl, laundromat, elevator, the fall, bake sale, sidewalk etc – but aluminium not aluminum and railways [sic] sleepers not railroad ties. Otherwise; Commonweath war cemetery (at the time it would have been an Imperial war cemetery,) “sluiced it down” (twice in the space of a page or so is once too many,) croci (crocus isn’t from Latin, so crocuses,) “under the instructions of a man with a crew-cut called Don Hewitt” (why does his hair-do have a name? A minor edit would have got rid of this,) “which even in this light she could see where shot with blood” (were shot,) on to (onto,) railways sleepers (railway sleepers,) sprung (sprang.)