singham’s payroll and perhaps refusednhis orders, with the result that hisnservice and life were terminated.nThe plot of Entered From the Sunnturns upon Marlowe’s death. Thenleading characters of the novel —nJoseph Hunnyman, a minor player innthe theater and a petty confidencenman, and Captain William Barfoot, annadventurer and soldier—are hired bynrival shadowy organizations to investigatenMarlowe’s death and to seek newnevidence and determine what was involvednbeyond an apparent tavernnbrawl among drunken acquaintances.nThe engine driving the action ofnEntered From the Sun is one of thenoldest in literature — the detective plot.nThink of Hamlet, Bleak House, Crimenand Punishment, and many anothernclassic in which the action is powerednby the reader’s wanting to know thensimple — and yet endlessly complicated—nfacts of a dazzling crime (often,nas in this instance, murder). It is andramatic situation fraught with possibilitynand worthy of our fascinatednscrutiny.nThis plot leads the reader into thenrich world of the Tudors, a worldnpreviously dramatized to such goodneffect by only one other novelist—FordnMadox Ford (in his Fifth Queen trilogy,nwhich deals with Henry’s reign andnconcerns intrigue in all its guises). Inmention Ford for several reasons:nGarrett has Ford’s easy command of thenidioms of the time and his same abilitynnot to fall into mimicry or buriesque orn28/CHRONICLESnLIBERAL ARTSnEMMA LAZARUS, GO HOMEnarchaism while forging a style appropriatento the period and at once modern —ncontemporaneous, not contemporary,nwe might say. Garrett also has Ford’snsingular ability to use real people asnleading characters, but he creates anwider range of fictitious characters tonpeople and move his action. The principalnhistorical figure is, of course, Raleigh,nwho appears in a brilliant scenentoward the end of the new novel — andnon the eve of Barfoot’s departure for ancampaign in Ireland. It is there that wenlast see Barfoot: he is surrounded bynIrish irregulars and fighting for his life.nIn contrast Hunnyman, who in termsnof simple poetic justice has much lessnright to a long life than Barfoot (whonhas survived many a scrape during hisnhonorable service), lives to be an oldnman. Such are the whims of the world,nthe chances of Dame Fortune (or thenturns of Mutability), Garrett is saying —nbut not in his own voice. The action isnfiltered through the consciousness ofnBarfoot, Hunnyman, and still others; itnis presented pictorially and scenicallynand through invented letters, actualnquotations, and still other means thatnonly a skilled writer who is saturated innthe history (social, cultural, popular) ofnthe times could possibly bring to bearnwith any substantial degree of authenticity.nIt is this authenticity that has beennpraised by such literary historians asnSamuel Schoenbaum and O.B. Hardison,nJr., as well as by such critics asnMonroe Spears and Walter Sullivan.nThe reader of any of these threennovels—which do not depend uponnLike the Israelis protesting the influx of Soviet Jews, and thenfollowers of Le Pen upset over the Islamization of Frenchnculture, Swedes have joined the growing chorus of citizensncalling for immigration control.nLast summer a major study revealed that six out of tennSwedes believe that their country is taking in far too manynimmigrants. As reported in Nordstjerna, only 35 percent ofnSwedish citizens thought immigration was a problem inn1989; this figure has now risen to 61 percent. According tonthe survey, two of every three Swedes believe new laws arenneeded to control immigration, and one-third no longer seenpolitical asylum as a legitimate reason for justifying entrancento their country.nnnone another but which together constitutenan impressive whole — immediatelynenters the world of everyday life innTudor and Stuart England. You get ankeen sense of how the mundane worldnimpinged upon the ordinary Englishmannwho was struggling to make a lifenfor himself and his wife and childrennand who might find himself caught in anweb of intrigue involving religion ornpolitics or both. In such a web Mariowenwas caught, as was his erstwhile roommatenand fellow dramatist, ThomasnKyd; and many another artist foundnhimself faced with the loss of limb or lifenfor sins real and imagined against thenstate.nGhristopher Marlowe, whose poetrynwas generated by a fine madness andnwas often “all air and fire,” as MichaelnDrayton observed, remains a splendidnpoet and playwright. During this summernand last my wife and I have seennsuperb productions of Faustus andnEdward II mounted and performed bynthe Royal Shakespeare Company innStratford. It is little wonder that variousnpeople from Marlowe’s time to oursnhave argued that he did not die in thenbrawl at the tavern in Deptford butnlived on to write Shakespeare’s plays.nGarrett is too shrewd to suggest such anthing, but he catches the essentialnmystery of the man’s life and death innthis novel, which finally is only incidentallynabout the Muses’ dading andnwhich ultimately celebrates the mysteriesnof the very uncertain life during thisntime of woe and wonder.nGeorge Garrett has been contemplatingnthis world for most of his maturenlife, and he nearly wrote a dissertationnon it while a graduate student atnPrinceton. He did not, thank God,nspend himself on such a puny assignmentnbut instead wrote these fascinatingnnovels and in the process recreatednthe Elizabethan world, the most complexnand various by a large measurenthat English civilization has witnessednduring its mighty history. Anyone seekingnto understand that world — to experiencenthe impulses that ran hot andncold in the blood and marrow of Englishmenngreat and small — will learnnmore of it from these novels than anynsource or book in history. This is historynwith a profoundly human dimension,nfiction fortified by history — thenworld of the past coming to life in thenpresent. <§>n