Francis Ebejer - his novels : part two

Abstract

And yet, though Joseph is a man, it is surely the feminine side of his nature - the Lucija, the Rosie in him - that is trying to come out: this time though, out and back into the old Malta where he can truly find, or recover his identity. It is a choice that he accepts fully . His tragic end - perhaps tragic to our eyes, but not to him - is also a matter of choice, of self-assertion. One supposes that had he continued with his medical studies, a true figure of the establishment, a pillar of society, and oblivious of the wreckage around him, he might have turned out to be quite a good doctor, but, as a man on level terms with himself, a walking disaster, a zombie. Are there more or fewer such men about these days?