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In this third book of the ‘Jonathan
Three’, the experiences conveyed by the
protagonist’s stream-of-consciousness
place the reader in the mind of the
young man who eventually finds real love
and meaning in a fulfilling
relationship.
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JOURNEY TOWARDS
HIMSELF
Book Description The only job Jonty can get after graduating is in a women’s Domestic Science College where the students are training to become teachers – a job for which he is quite unsuited and in which he has no experience. He finds the atmosphere suffocating, and his colleagues overwhelmingly stuffy. He seduces one of the students with whom he falls completely in love. Her sanity and verve are life-giving. She falls pregnant, and a daughter is born to them. The experience gives him meaning and purpose. His Jewish friend – for whom he has great admiration – turns up with proposals that give him joy. This is the third part of a trilogy where the main themes are the frailty of love (and of loyalty), and the durability of betrayal. Or to express it differently – the mortality of love and the immortality of betrayal. In the face of the gigantic and intricate mystery of the Universe, the last great act of celebration is to believe, and the last great act of belief is to celebrate.
Roy Holland was born in Birmingham. He went to Africa in 1966 to teach in the universities of the Boleswa countries. In 1971 he went to Greece for three years. He and his family lived on the island of Levkas for six months, the Gulf of Corinth for a similar period, and in Corfu for a little over two years. He wrote full-time until 1974, when he returned to the U.K. and worked on a research project until returning to Africa in 1977. Thereafter he lived in Southern Africa and worked in universities in Zimbabwe, Lebowa and Venda. He was Professor of English at the University of the North, the University of Venda, as well as Dean of the Faculty of Arts in the later 80's. He retired early to write full-time, and now lives in Ledbury, Herefordshire.
Other works by Roy Holland:
A young man in Birmingham, in the sixties, escapes the
humdrum mundanity of life through fantasies, tries to find
himself, and finally escapes his dead-end lifestyle by
gaining a place at a university.
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Roy
Holland
9780955974120