Life in the West
Brian Aldiss
The first volume in the acclaimed Squire Quartet., available for the first time on ebook.Thomas C. Squire, popular presenter of television documentaries, one time secret agent, a hedonist whose worldly success and self-confidence overshadow the lives of his family and friends, faces a mid-life crisis which undermines the stability of his ancient house. This brilliant and sometimes violent novel moves from England to Sicily, Singapore and Jugoslavia.Brian says: ‘A complex and argumentative drama built about the axes of Thomas Squire’s attendance at an imaginary contemporary ARTS symposium in Sicily, his extramarital and marital relationships, and his past as a secret agent in Jugoslavia, a land caught between East and West. Includes several humorous portraits of national types.’First published in 1980 and unavailable for some time.
Life in the West
THE SQUIRE QUARTET
Brian Aldiss, OBE, is a fiction and science fiction writer, poet, playwright, critic, memoirist and artist. He was born in Norfolk in 1925. After leaving the army, Aldiss worked as a bookseller, which provided the setting for his first book, The Brightfount Diaries (1955). His first published science fiction work was the story ‘Criminal Record’, which appeared in Science Fantasy in 1954. Since then he has written nearly 100 books and over 300 short stories, many of which are being reissued as part of The Brian Aldiss Collection.
Several of Aldiss’ books have been adapted for the cinema; his story ‘Supertoys Last All Summer Long’ was adapted and released as the film AI in 2001. Besides his own writing, Brian has edited numerous anthologies of science fiction and fantasy stories, as well as the magazine SF Horizons.
Aldiss is a vice-president of the international H. G. Wells Society and in 2000 was given the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award by the Science Fiction Writers of America. Aldiss was awarded the OBE for services to literature in 2005. He now lives in Oxford, the city in which his bookselling career began in 1947.
Brian Aldiss
Life in the West
Dedication
Life in the West is dedicated to other
Distinguished Persons
Chen, David, Iris, Maysie, and Michael
by no means forgetting Felix, Elena, Derek, and Janet
to show them what one of their number was up to
before we sampled life in the East
and walked the Great Wall together
Contents
Cover (#u6b23d01e-9212-5110-9377-920361a68424)
Life in the West
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Introduction
Prelude
1 The International Congress
2 Flattery and Higher Foolishness
3 A View from the Beach
4 Conversation with ‘Drina’s’
5 She’s Only a Sex Symbol
6 Putting our Socialist Friends to Rights
7 Land Full of Strange Gods
8 Sublimated Coin Warfare
9 How to Get to Ostrow Lomelsky
10 Slatko
11 ‘The Strong Act as They Have Power to Act’
12 Tribal Customs
13 Illegal Currency Charges
14 An Ideological Decision
Acknowledgments
THE SQUIRE QUARTET
Copyright
About the Publisher
Epigraph
I walked beside a sea aflame,
An animal of land. The fire
Of stars knocked at my earthbound frame:
East of grapples West, man maid, hope Fate;
All oppositions emanate
From constellations of desire.
