A review by artemisia_vulgaris
The Betrayals by Bridget Collins

4.0

This is a book about growing up, what a vocation might feel like, the perils and joys of institutions, creeping fascism, guilt, injustice, and love. 

Inspired by The Glass Bead Game, the novel revolves around a never-quite imaginable art form and the place it’s taught, and around four people, each of whom both belongs there and doesn’t.

It’s not appropriate to use a review to insult other reviewers, but muses, it’s tempting - almost no-one seems to have understood the book’s ambition. Me, I think she could have gone further - like The Binding, which is less daring and less complex,this novel is too keen to wrap everything in the love story. Collins is a hugely skilled writer, and all I want is for her to widen her scope even more. If her next book is as much deeper than this as this is than it’s predecessor, she could blow us all away