A philosophic-cum-romantic novel in which a young writer becomes involved with the wife of an influential publisher and ends-up paying the price, as does a certain philosopher friend of his, whose double-dealing in connection with a mutual girlfriend proves more difficult to manage than he had at first suspected, putting him at cross-purposes with them both, to their mutual disadvantage!
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By John O'Loughlin
Aug 4, 2011
"Concerning CROSS-PURPOSES" This novel moves beyond the largely autobiographical concerns of John O'Loughlin's earlier experiments in the genre, like 'Changing Worlds', towards a more fictional integrity which led him by the nose, so to speak, into contexts and settings largely outside the domain of his personal experience. To be sure, the subjectivity of his previous novel, 'Fixed Limits', is in some degree still present (witness the opening chapter ... with its highly philosophical considerations), but it is now subordinate to the unfolding narrative ... as we follow the fortunes of James Kelly, a self-styled philosopher, through successive love-affairs which clash with his loyalties to friends and benefactors alike, culminating in deception and tragedy for all concerned. One would think that CROSS-PURPOSES was a philosophical-novel-turned-romance, and so, up to a point, it is. But it is also a tribute, in no small measure, to both Lawrence Durrell and Henry Miller, two of... More > the author's favourite writers whose influence is unmistakable; though one might be forgiven for detecting a radical departure from Miller in Chapter 7, set in Paris, where Kelly's attitude to sexual promiscuity is concerned!< Less
