AS IF BY MAGIC

Hamo Langmuir flies westwards round the world to examine the effects of his miraculous high-yielding rice, leaving a bleak and impotent existence behind him. His god-daughter, Alexandra Grant, travels with her magic of myths and mysticism along the hippy trail to the East. With a wry wit Angus Wilson brings into focus their separate adventures (Quixotic in Hamo's case, dreamlike in Alexandra's) until the tragic denouement when they meet in Goa. 'Enough thought, comedy, wit, excitement and pathos to keep a dozen less profligate and inventive novelists busy for years.' Francis King, Observer