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This is a remarkable novel. Normally, I love a book with a well-wrought plot and this story concerns nothing more than a community performing a play written by the local celebrity poet, Stanhope. But into this apparently innocuous framework Williams introduces a suicide and a doppelgänger. Further, the various characters involved in the play soon reveal various jealousies, motives and rivalries.
As usual, Williams is adroit in creating believable and sympathetic women. Margaret and Pauline Anstruher are examples. Margaret is Pauline's dying grandmother and is a beautifully drawn character. She gives me an idea of what Sybil of "The Greater Trumps" might have become. Pauline is a deeply tormented person and through her relationship with Stanhope we learn of the law of "substituted love", an aspect of Williams' theological concept of Co-inherence.
Finally, there is the strange, ambiguous figure of the historian, Wentworth. Much of the novel focuses on his choices and he is the character that gives the novel its name.
"Descent Into Hell" weaves a brilliant tapestry of symbolism, mysticism, philosophy, spirituality, life, death and intensely powerful psychological characterisation. It is a novel that goes to the roots of being and combines the visions of the eagle and the worm. It is frightening and consoling.
It is unforgettable.
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