The central character is Emery Jago, an ambitious young man with a ferocious desire to escape from poverty. He feels that he is special, and this leads him to the occult. Gibbs does a very good job of presenting this character, who uses fraud quite blatantly yet clings to a belief that he genuinely possess special powers. What counts most against him is that he is constantly associated with deluding those who were bereaved in the war. (As a skilled photographer, for example, he easily mocks up “spirit photographs” of fallen soldiers happy in the hereafter). […] Jago is able to deceive others because he deceives himself. His power increases until the melodramatic climax, when he over-reaches. Always scrupulously fair, Gibbs achieves a good ambiguous ending – is the final revelation a genuine manifestation of the unknown, or just another proof of the power of the imagination? the reader has to decide.
Gibbs was always a good reporter, and I can believe in his picture of the medium’s seedy origins, and of the uneasy relationship between the superstitious society folk and the cunning exploiters. Recommended. --George Simmers
- Autor: Philip Gibbs
- Kategoria: literatura piękna
- Język: angielski
- ISBN: 000-00-0000-00-0
- Data wydania: 1929-01-01
- Liczba stron: 298
- Ocena: 0,0
