A Conspiracy of Women
By Aubrey Menen
1965
First Published
4.00
Average Rating
244
Number of Pages
Are you still wondering what made Alexander great and what finally turned his armies back from India, ending his days of conquest? The answer is Woman, Not Trojan, but the girls in the back tent, the campfollowers who organized the first labor union to agitate against Alexander's woman-inspired decree that their men marry Persians to ensure peace between lands. The leading lady is Berenice, whose town is sacked by the Greeks, and then gets sacked herself. The leading man, Alexander, is really two men since he gave up the sceptre long ago and became a mystic, If this all sounds like soft-shoe, it may not be too far from Menen's intention; but his achievement is a little less than sustained entertainment. Only his satire of the Indian Academy, when the Greeks visit the oldest university in the world, merits the length of the routine. Soft-shoe is light dancing, easily followed, easily forgotten, and sometimes fascinating while in motion.
Avg Rating
4.00
Number of Ratings
23
5 STARS
30%
4 STARS
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3 STARS
17%
2 STARS
0%
1 STARS
4%
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Author
Aubrey Menen
Author · 4 books
Salvator Aubrey Clarence Menen was born in 1912 in London, of Irish and Indian parents. After attending University College, London he worked as a drama critic and a stage director. When World War II broke out, he was in India, where he organized pro-Allied radio broadcasts and edited film scripts for the Indian government. After the war ended, he returned to London to work with an advertising agency's film department, but the success of his first novel, The Prevalence of Witches (1947), induced him to take up writing full-time. Aubrey Menen’s writings, often satirical, explore the nature of nationalism and the cultural contrast between his own Irish–Indian ancestry and his traditional British upbringing. Apart from his novels and non-fiction works Menen wrote two autobiographies titled Dead Man in the Silver Market (1953) and The Space within the Heart (1970). He died in 1989 in Thiruvananthapuram.
