The Caves of Alienation

by Stuart Evans, Duncan Bush (Foreword)

A story of unfolding revelation, this multi-voiced narrative examines the difficult, fascinating character of Caradock, whose family made its fortune from the industry of Wales, but whose childhood in the Welsh valleys only fueled his desire to leave. Chronicling his efforts to escape, the novel recalls his crucial first encounters with sex, his literary success in London, and his final withdrawal to Wales. Told from a variety of viewpoints—some conflicting, all interrelated—the narrative shifts from friends and enemies, literary rivals, and lovers to critics and even television and radio documentaries, all of which juggle fragments of truth. Caradock's own novels and essays play a vital part in the story. All this makes for an exhilarating, kaleidoscopic read, funny and profound by turns, yet never flinching in its portrayal of Caradock and his deepest preoccupations.

Genres: Fiction

592 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

aka Hugh Tracy.

Stuart Evans was born in Swansea in 1934 and brought up at Ystalyfera in Glamorgan. It was as a novelist that he established his reputation, with eight long, technically complex novels which are more inclined to the philosophical than is usual in English fiction. They include Meritocrats (1974), The Gardens of the Casino (1976), The Caves of Alienation (1977), and a quintet known as The Windmill Hill Sequence. He also published two volumes of verse, Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads (1972) and The Function of the Fool (1997). He died in 1994.

Reviews

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an extraordinarily ambitious novel. It attempts to create a portrait of fictional writer Michael Caradock using lengthy extracts from his novels and essays interwoven with excerpts from his official biography, academic studies of his life and work, and radio and television interviews with people who knew him. Faced with dozens of different and often contradictory viewpoints, it is up to the reader to find some way through to the man himself, knowing at the same time that – as in the real world – this is an impossible task.

The unusual construction works surprisingly well. Unfortunately, I had rather more problems with the content. The chief difficulty for Stuart Evans is that Michael Caradock is supposed to be a successful and celebrated writer – with critics clashing over the interpretation of his works and BBC programmes devoted to his life – but of course his writings can never exceed those of his creator. Is this authorial arrogance or authorial innocence? The writings of Caradock (there is even a Tolkien-like fictional bibliography of his fictional works as an appendix) are readable but hardly compelling.

Then there is the character of Michael Caradock himself. Privileged, elitist, misanthropic, full of irritating classical allusions, philosophical musings, and old-fashioned modernist prescriptions about the art of the novel – he is not an engaging personality. He denies his Welsh roots and feels threatened by the ignorance and violence he suspects and fears in the working classes. I felt socialist hackles rising that I didn’t even know I possessed. The novel’s construction allows plenty of viewpoints that say as much – condemning him and his work – but, as a reader, if you are not enamored of either, then the novel becomes a biography that you wouldn’t read if its subject were real . Very peculiar.

Despite all this, I rather liked The Caves of Alienation (a portentous title that comes from the Henry Reed poem “Philoctetes” – another damn classical allusion), but more for its ambitious scope and style than, finally, for its achievement.

[Marina Sofia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this is a very interesting concept - yes, perhaps the joke is taken too far and starts to drag a bit, but it works and describes the tension between Welsh background and English elite very well.