Review
With nods to Evelyn Waugh and Donna
Tartt, 24-year-old Ivo Stourton arrives on the
literary scene with
The Night Climbers, set
against the extremely scenic backdrop of Cambridge
University. Ten years after leaving Cambridge,
events cause James Walker to revisit his time at the
University in the 1990s, where, as a wide-eyed,
social-climbing undergraduate he fell into a
glamorous and tightly knit group who, to the outside
world, lived an enchanted life of high living,
black-tie dances, private drinking clubs and
daredevil escapades. However, their existence is not
nearly as charmed as it appears to outsiders and it
is not long before young James learns that those who
fly too close to the sun tend to find themselves
plummeting to the ground with...
Beyond the Book
Cambridge,
the second oldest university in
the English-speaking world, is
located in the East of England.
It is said that it was
established by a group of
scholars in the early 13th
century who left Oxford (which
was established in the 11th
century) after two of their
number were accused of murdering
a local and hung by town
authorities. Today, Cambridge
consists of 31 colleges, of
which three are all-female; the
last all-male college, Magdalene
(pronounced maudlin), started to
admit women in 1988. In 2007 the
influential...
