Get Into Reading Group Diary #8: The Rescue Man by Anthony Quinn

Baines seeks refuge in the diaries of Peter Eames – the Victorian architect who has captivated Baines’ imagination.

After a restless night Baines woke and spotted Eames’ diary, which he felt brought somehow a slight shimmer of life like Miss Havisham’s wedding cake. This remark brought a few chuckles as our group has not long finished Great Expectations and quite often Dickens seems to be following us like a distant shadow!

He picked up the diary and like a trip in Dr Who’s Tardis we were transported back to 1864. Eames was now married with a child on the way, is living in a nice area and thirdly his building Janus House has opened although the press do not speak kindly of it. Although people’s reviews perhaps should not be taken too seriously as it is just one person’s feelings and thoughts – just like with The Rescue Man – you can read it and think something completely different from someone else in the group but thankfully we live in a free country and as the saying says, ‘Everyone is entitled to their opinion.’

There was one admirer though, so one star was shining to provide a touch of light as Eames noticed a young man taking sketches, who introduces himself and pays Eames the compliment of being a ‘Poet of Architecture’. A beautiful building could be compared to a poem by Milton. Art comes in many forms – paintings, words, music. The passages led to a discussion – about how people having different interests is what makes the human race interesting. All my life I have only really been interested in words and anything other than words is frankly incomprehensible to me!

All this praise however luckily did not enlarge Eames’ head as he realised his building only represented ‘a sonnet’ and not a ‘full-blown epic like Paradise Lost.’