Glamorous Powers
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About this ebook
The author’s most famous and well-loved work, the Starbridge series, six self-contained yet interconnected novels that explore the history of the Church of England through the 20th century.
Jon Darrow, a man with psychic powers, is a man who has played many parts: a shady faith-healer; a naval chaplain, a passionate husband, an awkward father, an Anglo-Catholic monk.
In 1940 Darrow returns to the world he once renounced, but faced with many unforeseen temptations he fails to control his psychic, most glamorous powers. Corruption lies in wait for him, and threatens not only his future as a priest but his happiness with Anne, the young woman he has come to love.
Susan Howatch
Susan Howatch was born in Surrey in 1940. After taking a degree in law she emigrated to America where she married, had a daughter and embarked on her career as a writer. When she eventually left the states, she lived in the Republic of Ireland for four years before returning to England. She spent time in Salisbury – the inspiration for her Starbridge sequence of novels – and now lives in London.
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Reviews for Glamorous Powers
108 ratings5 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5If I could I would have given this book 2.5 stars. The second book in the Strabridge sereies it takes one of the characters from the first story and tells us his story.
Jon Darrow is an Anglican monk who comes to the realisation that it's time to leave the monastery and go into the world. It then tells of his trials and tribulations and his problems with reconciling his faith with what he finds there.
Although I enjoyed this book I think in many ways it would be enjoyed better by a non-Christian as a pure story rather than myself as a Christian who found some of it very hard to accept as portraying Christianity in any real way.
My main problem is Jon Darrow's use of his glamorous powers which seem to consist of such things as hypnotism and his belief that he alone can heal people. This is totally contrary to the bible and in fact hypnotism is specifically forbidden. It seems strange that someone so senior in the church would be led astray in this way.
I was also very uncomfortable with the whole Catholic input. I was aware of High Anglicans but not to the extent featured in the book and it seems very wrong for him to impose such alien practices into the small village church.
All in all a good book and I look forward to reading the next in the series. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Second in the Starbridge series about the Church of England.
Another brilliant psychological novel featuring Jon Darrow as he leaves the monastic life and tries to follow God's will in the world. His insecurities and hangups gradually come to light, as he begin to allow healing.
Utterly enthralling, with totally believable people, situations and conversation. Wonderful. - Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5e time is 1940. Jonathan Darrow is an Anglican priest when he receives a shattering vision and knows he must leave the monastery that has been his home for seventeen years. As he plunges into the temptations of the real world, a crisis sends him into the labyrinth of his past to pluck out the buried truth beneath the deceptions he has been living through.
When I picked this up, I thought that there would be a certain approach taken on the narrator's psychic powers, and the initial scene, where he has a vision, added to my belief. How wrong I was!
The main character is a 60 year old widow and father of two who has spent the last 17 years in religious order. The first quarter of the book covers 2 months of discussions with his superior as he tries to leave the order. When he finally does, he travels around a bit, alienates his daughter and (let's face it) homosexual alcoholic son, then gets married to a woman half his age he's only known for 2 months, and gets set up as a local curate.
This book is very heavy on the Christian church process, very wordy, sometimes very heavy. Sometimes his very "deep" discources (e.g. on the afterworld/grief) appear more of a lecture to the reader, and makes his listener (in the above case, his wife), appear to be rather stupid.
I dont believe I completed it, as I struggled to get beyond halfway - Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A mystical blend of psychology and theology wraps this novel of Darrow's transition from Monk back to Pastor and beyond. This is the second in Howatch's Church of England series. The first is a wonderful mystery and introduction into the power of spiritual direction. The second in the series is a journey into the intersection of spirituality and psychology. The book follows five transition points - leaving the cloister; reuniting with his children; marriage; pastoral ministry and beyond. I gave it a three because Susan explores very well the first and next to last but highly neglects and even rushes too quickly the middle two. There are moments the dialogue seems fairly heavy against Darrow, but hang on because some intense therapy is going on.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This was the first one I read in the series (yes, out of order, of course.) The story gave me new tools to approach God. Howatch makes mysticism practical, and approachable.