Product Description

It is the 1930s, and Charles Ashworth is dispatched by the Archbishop of Canterbury to learn the truth about the flamboyant Bishop of Starbridge, Adam Alexander Jardine, and his mousy wife. Do Jardine's outspoken denouncements of the Anglican Church's strict divorce laws have a personal motive? When he meets the cool and beautiful Lyle Christie, Mrs. Jardine's companion, Ashworth believes they do. But as he struggles to understand the strange relationships in the household, Ashworth ceases to be an innocent, objective observer. Slowly, he too is drawn into the secret drama that is being played out in the shadow of the cathedral, a drama that he could never have foreseen.

The first in Susan Howatch's acclaimed novels centering on the glorious Cathedral of Starbridge, Glittering Images is a masterful depiction of spiritual hubris, the seductions of power, and the moral dilemmas of England between the wars.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #118874 in Books
• Published on: 1995-01-17
• Released on: 1995-01-17
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 448 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Howatch's outstanding gifts as a storyteller (Wheel of Fortune) are combined here with a new seriousness of theme; the result is a superior novel with bestselling potential. The "glittering images" of the title are those we present with pride to the world; in this case, the cherished images of charismatic, successful churchmen, elegant in their clerical robes, whose congregations are moved by their sermons. These are not the TV evangelists of the '80s, however, but clergymen of the 1930s, whose King has had to choose between his throne and marriage with a divorcee. A controversial speech on divorce reform in the House of Lords by the outspoken Bishop of Starbridge (a character based on Herbert Henson, Bishop of Hereford) provokes the Archbishop of Canterbury to dispatch his protege, Charles Ashworth, Doctor of Divinity, to look for any skeletons in the Bishop's closetor in his bedthat the gutter press could use to smear the Bishop and, by extension, the Church. Ashworth, a debonair widower, is immediately attracted to Lyle Christie, paid companion to Carrie Jardine, the Bishop's wife. Lyle first responds to, then flees from, Ashworth's admittedly forward embraces. When he discovers the reasons for her behavior he is hurled into a moral and spiritual crisis. There's no doubt that sex and religion can make exciting bedfellows; add mysteries within mysteries, scenes of charismatic spiritual healing and a deft creation of a middle-class milieu that disappeared with WW II, and you have an engrossing novel that challenges the reader's sense of the fine points of morality. Howatch succeeds in making the subtle and complex theological points of a spiritual transformation both credible and exciting in a narrative whose dramatic tension never abates. BOMC alternate.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
When brilliant young theologian Charles Ashworth is sent by his mentor the Archbishop of Canterbury to investigate the possibly scandalous conduct of Alex Jardine, the bishop who criticized his superior's position on Edward VII's marriage, he little expects to embark on an investigation of his own. His cathartic encounter with the hypnotically enigmatic Jardine and his unusual household forces Charles and the reader on an agonizing exploration of the psyche behind the seemingly flat character of a superficial clergyman. Howatch's psychoanalytical study may conclude more quickly and neatly than real life, but that does not detract from its brilliance or impact. Highly recommended. Cynthia Johnson Wheal ler, Cary Memorial Lib., Lexington, Mass.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
"A Terrific Story...Glittering Images is driven by passion, emotional and spiritual, and its spiritual antagonists are brilliant characters."

-- San Jose Mercury News

"She May Well Be The Anthony Trollope Of The 20th Century."

-- Andrew Greeley, The Washington Post

"A Superior Novel."

-- Publishers Weekly -- Review

Customer Reviews

Intriguing characters and brilliant insight
In this and many of Susan Howatch's novels, the reader's challenge is to get past a plot which often crosses the boundaries into melodrama. Her insight, generally expressed more in her characters' dialogue (whether with others or interiorly), is superb, and she shows herself to be actually a very fine theologian, with an uncanny understanding of the conflicts in the spiritual life. My caveat to new readers of her work is that the story lines, clearly complicated with bizarre developments in order to explore new spiritual insights, can not only be diverting (in this work, one bizarre melodrama would have been sufficient without adding another), but can lead the lovers of mystery and romance genres to miss the insight which is Susan's strongest point.

The main character, Charles Ashworth, from whose point of view the novel is presented, is a brilliant study in genuine faith and conviction struggling with the conflicts of personal dilemma. Bishop Jardine, a great man in many ways, shows the capacity which deception has for leading the best of the clergy off the path. These are but two examples of the totally intriguing characterisations which Susan employs to captivate readers - and present theological truth in a fashion one may not even recognise, but which one shall ponder later.

Susan's being a master of the novelist's craft is shown, as one example, in how she depicts a sexual encounter, which in the wrong hands could have become lascivious or meaningless, into a keen expression of a turning point in Charles's life. It is not in any way offensive, because it has a tragic, desperate element, and brings his total confusion, heretherto sheltered well in an academic's tidy intellectuallism, to a point where recognition and redemption are possible.

With elements that would appeal to those with an interest in mystery, romance, Jungian psychology, or the spiritual life, this volume will fit well on many and diverse readers' shelves.

In great Howatch tradition
Just as Howatch's family sagas were written in a multi-person first-person narrator format, so was the Starbridge series, but this time each narrator gets a whole book instead of only a section of one.
Glittering Images is the first book in the series. I had already read all five of the family sagas before I had the courage to start on Starbridge; I was afraid that a whole series of books set in the Church of England could not help but be stuffy and priggish. But this of course is Susan Howatch, a master storyteller. And these books are considered by many to be an enormous development fromthe sagas.
In fact, I found the depth of character found in all the Starbridge even more impressive than in the sagas. She shows not only an extraordinarily deep understanding of the human condition, she also shows great compassion and warmth for all her characters so that even if they have weaknesses and make mistakes, we can nevertheless forgive and love them.
IN the first trilogy of books, set in the 1930's and 1940's, each of the three narrators is stripped down and turned inside out, so that the reader knows all there is to know about them.
In this first book we first meet Charles Ashworth, who will be a major player in the series. Charles has conservative leanings and a Middle Way churchmanship. As ever, Howatch succeeds in giving us an in-depth portrait of a very likeable and sincere man, and sets him in the middle of a story that simply pulls you through, unravelling secret after secret. A wonderful book, which made me immediately want to start on the next one in the series - Glamorous Powers!

First of an excellent series of Church novels
1937: Charles Ashworth, young charming former Chaplain to Archbishop of Canterbury, Cosmo Lang, is asked to discreetly investigate the private life of the Bishop of Starbridge, Alex Jardine, an aggressive liberal. What he finds seems to horrifingly mirror what lurks in his own private life of hurt, tragedy, and guilt all hidden behind Ashworth's carefully crafted 'Glittering Image'. A brilliant novel about pastoral care and fundamental morality and Christ's grace and redemption.