This is a novel of many elements and themes: Ignorance and knowledge; sexual lust and love; conditions of political safety and of danger; the need for culture and the need to escape personal loneliness; the complexity of philosophical ideas and also of personal sensibilities. Though the setting is over 40 years ago, the book conveys the kinds of inspiration, difficulty and dilemma which are still germane to the experience of intelligent young people in modern English society.
