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The New Suffolk Hymnbook

by Ben Oswest

• This review of my novel by Jacqui L’Ange was originally published in the 7 July 2006 Cape Times.
• Purchase The New Suffolk Hymnbook.

Your perceptions of meaning and self will be challenged by this read

A lot of books wrestle with the idea of meaning, the eternal quest to understand. Ben Oswest’s book may well be one of them. But I’m not entirely sure.

This is the challenge and the delight of the book, the paradox that it plays with inside its covers (I think), delivered amidst a most blindingly dazzling display of wordsmithery. Who cares what he is saying, when he says it so brilliantly?

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Today’s Cape Times published an excerpt from my novel in its Review section, running the first few pages of Chapter One (”Jonah“). The Review ’s headline, “Fascinating novel takes look at scholastic life”, is somewhat off-target, given a conventional reading of the term “scholastic” - but I clearly can’t have any quibbles with the phrase’s other adjective.

The Review is unfortunately not online, so can’t be linked to. The newspaper paper had three excerpts to choose from; here is one of the two that weren’t published:

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