Navigator, The

Here once again is a young hero of comparatively modest means and ability suddenly chosen to save the world after getting involved in a long-term fight between two forces in a country previously invisible to him. And save it he does, after a catalogue of fighting, kidnapping, near-death and constant disaster. Written competently enough, and with an interesting conceit about a universe where it is possible to make time travel backwards, there is still the question of why this experienced Irish author decided to write this book in the first place. Its emphasis on violence and equally violent counter-measures might have made sense at the time of Beowulf, but there are better ways of deciding disputes now. It is also weird to go for such stage black and white characters at a time when this way of thinking about political opponents has come to seem wastefully self-indulgent, not least in contemporary Ireland itself. The author’s language becomes increasingly tired as his novel progresses, what with ‘sickening jolts’, ‘shuddering to a halt’ and that old standby ‘a vicious kick to the ribs’. All a bit of a waste of time from someone who surely could do so much better had he decided to write something genuinely new. NT