FICTION OF THE WEEK
 

THE CLIMATE OF BELIEF
by Jennifer Lash
Gollancz, 16s.
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A Review by Julian Mitchell
Sunday Times
2 September 1962
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        STRANGE THINGS do not happen abroad:  Jennifer Lash is twenty-two and has had the intrepidity to set The Climate of Belief largely in a monastery.  Dom Lucius Trehearne, a cold intellect (though his intellect has to be taken on trust) attracts the "love" of three very different people -- a friend's wife, his old abbot, and a young novice.  But Dom Lucius is not capable of love, for God or man, and people suffer from loving him; they are disappointed, deceived, like the novice, who commits suicide.

            This is a large theme, and at times Miss Lash's writing shows signs of strain, resorting to religious references which may not carry the same emotional charge for her readers as they do for her.  But some of her characters are drawn with considerable insight, and the novice's relationship with his mother is a horrifyingly accurate piece of observation.  Miss Lash has been extremely ambitious in this her first novel:  it is a pleasure to record that "The Climate of Belief" justified the risks she has taken.