具体描述
When Mungo Lockhart begins his first
year at Oxford, he finds that his roommate
is Ian Cardower, member of an aristo-
cratic, if not wealthy, Scottish family,
whose name, while vaguely familiar to
Mungo, appears shrouded in some kind of
mystery. Mungo, too, is Scottish, but he is
the product of a simpler, more austere
childhood, having been orphaned and then
raised and mostly educated by an aunt.
Mungo sees Ian as the embodiment of the
perfect Oxford student--popular, secure,
superior, experienced with women----every-
thing Mungo isn t.
However, they become close friends and
Mungo meets Ian s family: his father, Lord
Robert, a very social, but unsuccessful,
diplomat; his elderly grandfather, Lord
Auldearn, a landowner; and his homo-
sexual uncle David, who lives in seclusion
with a once-prominent writer. Mungo,
having only some vague knowledge of his
own heritage, becomes interested in Ian s
heritage, particularly in another uncle,
Douglas, who had been involved in a
scandal and had died some years earlier.
As Mungo delves deeper into Ian s family
history, questions arise concerning his own
parentage and his relationship to the
Cardower family, and he attempts to
discover who he is.
J. I. M. Stewart writes perceptively
about a young man who, as he searches for
his identity, achieves the self-confidence
and sense of security necessary for truly
indeoendent existence.
