by John Fowles
If the title of this original, imaginative novel is explained, one of its major surprises will be destroyed (it has nothing to do with larvae, anyway). The tale begins in the early 1700s in England when a man and his uncle, with a deaf-mute servant, a guard and a lady's maid, appear at an inn. Gradually it is revealed that these people are not altogether what they first appeared to be. The "uncle" is an actor from a London company; his "nephew" is an unnamed son of a great lord; the lady's maid is a notorious prostitute. When the deaf-mute is found hanged in a remote area of Devon and the nobleman's son disappears, an investigation is begun. The questioning of the survivors of another strange, singular event takes up most of this novel, which provides surprise after surprise and an ending that is truly astonishing. Fowles, the author of The Magus and The French Lieutenant's Woman, has written most of the book in a question and answer dialogue conducted by an attorney. Fowles is never merely content with just telling a rousing story, though. The characters speak a curious English that lies somewhere between Shakespeare's and the contemporary, and they are concerned with the profound: "We might imagine this great Author of all as such and such, in our own image, sometimes cruel, sometimes merciful, as we do our kings." Elsewhere, the attorney says to a witness, "There are two truths, mistress, one that a person believes is truth; and one that is truth incontestible." In this novel, Fowles' truths create shimmering, indelible images. (Little, Brown, $19.95)
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