Tarnished idols
By: Marie Warder.
Series: Stories from South Africa
Publisher: Dromedaris Books
Published: 2004
Place of publication: [Abbotsford, B.C.]
Language: eng
Number of pages: 240
First sentence: The den in Jeanne deVilliers’ Johannesburg home virtually overflows with books.  Two entire walls of the spacious, panelled room are lined with bookshelves which attest to the paradoxically methodical side of her nature.  Every writer is represented in the correct category—Peter Cheney and Edgar Wallace; Schopenhauer and Kant; Keats and Shelley.  All are in alphabetical order … all of them carefully arranged according to the nature of the work.
Beside each comfortable armchair she has placed a low stool piled high with magazines of all descriptions, also divided into groups.  Some have been selected to please the colour-loving feminine eye; other reading matter to appeal to the stronger sex.  Whenever Jeanne is absent from the room, her waiting guests may browse with interest through the stimulating fare provided for their enjoyment.
But on the wide shelf of the gracious fireplace, between a pair of rare bookends, six books now stand conspicuously alone, differing one from the other as night from day, yet each in itself a symbol. The bookends are worthy of closer examination—a pair of magnificent springbok, carved by a master carver out of the satiny wood of the precious, stinkwood tree, Ocotea bullata, which is found in other rainforests of South Africa, but, as far as I know, grows best in the Knysna forest of the Cape Province. 
It is to the books themselves, however, that I invariably gravitate, for those six volumes mean more to Jeanne than do all her others put together; and of those six, one small, green, leather-bound book more than all the rest. I no longer question Jeanne about that one for I am by now better acquainted with its history and significance than even Nick, who is her husband.—Not that that says very much, because he knows none of it!




 





Tarnished Idols
Part one
CHAPTER ONE

The den in Jeanne deVilliers’ Johannesburg home virtually overflows with books.  Two entire walls of the spacious, panelled room are lined with bookshelves which attest to the paradoxically methodical side of her nature.  Every writer is represented in the correct category—Peter Cheney and Edgar Wallace; Schopenhauer and Kant; Keats and Shelley.  All are in alphabetical order … all of them carefully arranged according to the nature of the work.
Beside each comfortable armchair she has placed a low stool piled high with magazines of all descriptions, also divided into groups.  Some have been selected to please the colour-loving feminine eye; other reading matter to appeal to the stronger sex.  Whenever Jeanne is absent from the room, her waiting guests may browse with interest through the stimulating fare provided for their enjoyment.
But on the wide shelf of the gracious fireplace, between a pair of rare bookends, six books now stand conspicuously alone, differing one from the other as night from day, yet each in itself a symbol. The bookends are worthy of closer examination—a pair of magnificent springbok, carved by a master carver out of the satiny wood of the precious, stinkwood tree, Ocotea bullata, which is found in other rainforests of South Africa, but, as far as I know, grows best in the Knysna forest of the Cape Province. 
It is to the books themselves, however, that I invariably gravitate, for those six volumes mean more to Jeanne than do all her others put together; and of those six, one small, green, leather-bound book more than all the rest. I no longer question Jeanne about that one for I am by now better acquainted with its history and significance than even Nick, who is her husband.—Not that that says very much, because he knows none of it!
Description: “No mortal is perfect enough to be idolized.” Around this proven adage, Marie Warder has woven a gripping tale—a story in which pure love and flaming passion are interchanged with venomous envy and bitter hatred.

       In convincing manner, the writer relates the story from the point of view of Paul Jansen, the man who sincerely loved the beautiful Jeanne, but could never be more than a brother to her. The reason? Jeanne already worships another man— an idol with “feet of clay”. Her initial adoration and later struggle against this “idol” make for an intensely moving story, sensitively recorded.

       Marie Warder has a deep knowledge of mankind with all its urges and weaknesses, and her characters are always convincingly portrayed. Here we meet people as we all know them—we see constant misunderstandings that undermine marital happiness, and jealousy that estranges friends. In short: You have in your hand a book you will find difficult to put down.

                                                                                                   Publisher's Review