Reviewed by Richard Todd
(5/31/00)

Richard Adams will doubtless always be best remembered for his first novel, Watership Down. More than any of his other works, it has won the affection and enthusiastic respect of readers of all kinds since it appeared in 1972. Although it seems at first glance a simple, albeit engrossing, story of some rabbits seeking a new home in the face of impending disaster, it has a deeper resonance. It is a gentle yet forceful reflection of the way human societies work, and is replete with acts of courage, wisdom and nobility along with those of terror and treachery.

None of his other novels has quite caught the public imagination in the manner of that first one, though his animal novels, The Plague Dogs and Tales from Watership Down are highly regarded by genre enthusiasts and his proto-historical fantasies, Shardik and Maia are remarkable in their own ways. Indeed, in a recent interview, Adams declared Shardik his best book.

But he is mistaken. His masterpiece, though it is very different indeed from anything else he's published, is The Girl in a Swing of 1980. This novel, not even mentioned in the interview, was billed on the cover of the first paperback edition as "a haunting and erotic story of the supernatural." It is that and more, though I'm sure that the description must have repelled many potential readers to whom neither erotica nor supernatural thrillers appeal. And among those who have read it, often because they had liked Watership Down, some have been unable accept the grave moral perplexity, or moral absurdity as they might have it, upon which the plot, if not the essence, of the novel turns.

Yet those who have passed the book by on account of its being an erotic story of the supernatural and those who reject it because of their moral difficulties with it, have rejected a work of the greatest depth and power. It contains among other things, some of the most achingly beautiful prose in modern English literature.

One of the things that sets The Girl in a Swing apart from the Adams's other work is that it involves human characters from our time in a setting we can readily recognize. The action takes place in Copenhagen, in a small English town and, briefly, in London and Florida. The chief protagonists are Alan Deslands, a young, learned and earnest dealer in porcelain and china and Karin (or Käthe in some editions), a beautiful and prodigiously talented German woman he meets on a business trip to Denmark.

Since Alan is the narrator, and a skillful one, the reader readily forgives a certain priggishness in him, perhaps even enjoying it a bit. He is clearly a person to admire and, despite his manner, to like. He is conservative in many ways, as one would expect of someone in his profession, but broad-minded and generous of spirit. In his adolescence he acquired a kind of second sight, or rather a capricious ability to see the meta-reality of troubling circumstances, particularly in the presence of strong sexual energy. The resulting visions, though usually unwelcome, have not seemed of great importance to him before the events of the novel. As the story unfolds, he experiences them more often, but is not always able to separate them out from the more mundane realities of his life. Nor should he, as we eventually discover.

Karin, whose beauty is almost unearthly, is well educated and very cultured. She possesses every brilliance and talent one could wish. But when we meet her, she is rather poor, earning her living as a multilingual stenographer. At first she cannot quite believe that the distinguished and desirable Alan would be interested in her and, for that matter, he dares scarcely hope that a woman as beautiful and seemingly perfect as Karin would be interested in him. They nearly go their separate ways as a result.

They do connect, though. They get married and their union seems better than perfect in every way. Yet there is no perfection in this world and it becomes clear that Karin, who has not told Alan anything of her past, has a secret which imperils their happiness. In time, between her abiding fear and Alan's psychic visions, the reader becomes aware of what the secret is.

Karin has committed the most appalling crime imaginable in order to be with Alan, an act "unnatural out of all course of kind" as he describes it in the last moments of his mesmerizing narrative. And to compensate, she undertakes to be a perfect wife and, in every other way, a good person. She is successful in the means, but not in the ends. She cannot forgive herself.

These are the bare bones of the plot, but they do not suggest the richness of understanding that informs every page of the book. It is an extended meditation on the nature of beauty, the beauty of sexual love for one thing, but even on the very act of finding and creating beauty in a finite and corruptible world. It is a study in unconditional and transcendent love, white hot in its eroticism, without really containing much explicit sex. And the horror in it is all the more affecting for never being gratuitous or overstated.

Masterfully written, The Girl in a Swing rewards attentive reading handsomely. Although it is full of literary allusions, the author is always able to convey their significance to the uninitiated without any condescension. On the other hand, it is a veritable feast for the well-read, and particularly those with a smattering of German.

The book is currently out of print, except in a large-type edition. One does not often hear of it, even in discussions which involve most of the author's other work. In preparing this review, I haven't been able to find out much about Adams other than what's in the two sources already cited. And it's true that the interview in question was conducted by a rabbit lover who would be more interested in Watership Down and the other animal stories than in this challenging work.

It's entirely likely that Adams is proud of what he achieved here, as well he should be. But I'm going to suppose the opposite for just a moment. Is it not possible that he, or at least his publicists, now find it an embarrassment?

Adams was 60 when the book was published, which means that he was roughly my age when he conceived and wrote it. Could it be that he was in the throws of the infamous "mid-life crisis" we hear so much about? Might it be that his imagination was inflamed with an unrequitable love for a real woman? Perhaps, for a novelist, a tale of a perfect but ultimately impossible love was the inevitable result.

One can imagine that Adams might, in his late 70s, wish to distance himself from the searing emotions of the novel, though I hope that is not the case; and it is not hard to imagine that those who like to associate him with the cuddly heros of his first novel might find the searing emotions of The Girl in a Swing less than congenial.

Yet, however Adams or his associates may feel about it, he has given us nothing less than a masterpiece.