THE uncanny resemblance between Cormac McCarthy's recent novel, “The Road”, and Jim Crace's new book, “The Pesthouse”, does not mean Mr Crace is an imitator.
Loss of habitat is to blame, specifically, the lack of the pocket of air between snow and ground called the “subnivean space.” There lemmings winter and give birth to prodigious litters of young.
The striking development is not that the veracity of some is open to doubt, but that this forgivingly collusive arrangement has now broken down: not the fact of lying, but the naming of it.
But whatever the variation, it is always noted that not only does this Mauler have an amazing amount of magic coursing through it, but that it is the only Mauler ever known to have been enchanted.