GUESSED THATWILD SEXUAL FULFILMENT WAS UNLIKELY TO


S “IN TRUTH I HOULD HAVE


BE FOUND ON ANY MODERN BUILDING PROJECT AND THAT CASUAL


BACKGROUND TO AWORKING LIFE


PREJUDICEWAS A MUCH MORE REALISTIC


”


of the characters living in a cottage at one end. They will also be familiar with the idea that the temporary work required for the building of a colossal spire on to the crossing of such a church would necessarily be destructive to the spaces below, and, in the novel, the east end becomes virtually separated fromthe nave. The imaginative power of all this is very well created, but it is the background rather than the centre of the story. I have now read the novel three times. The first


time, the scene of sexual relations in the site hut high in the tower between Roger Mason, architect/master builder, and Goody Pangal, red-haired temptress, was an abidingmemory for one setting out on a career in building conservation and wanting to be persuaded that this was indeed an exciting world to be in (and, I thought, almost as exciting as themodernist fantasies of “The Fountainhead” by Ayn Rand). I was not quite so impressed with the workforce's collective scapegoating of Pangal, Goody’s crippled husband, and by what appears to be hismurder and burial in the new foundations, apparently to ensure the good luck of the spire building enterprise. But perhaps I simply ignored all this. In truth I should have guessed that wild sexual


fulfilment was unlikely to be found on anymodern building project, and that casual prejudice, leaving aside themurder, was amuchmore realistic


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