Word: reader
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...tight house in a tight town where night has the depth of caves and daylight has no arch." It is written in a stream of harsh-sounding consonants, and its dialogue is a succession of jagged-edged monosyllables. Altogether, it is a novel calculated not to warm the reader but to awe him-a familiar feat for British Novelist James Hanley, 61, whose past novels have won him critical, but not popular, acclaim for their cold fury. Herbert Read has called Hanley a "great realist." and C. P. Snow writes that for "sheer power he is not surpassed...
Armpits & Armageddon. All this may seem trivial and inconsequential, like a parlor game in which people amuse themselves by swapping anecdotes about what they were doing when they got the news of Pearl Harbor. But the reader, seduced by the perfectly tailored prose and the quiet delight of well-mannered comedy, may be led to overlook the muscular structure of Powell's art. Nick Jenkins is no Prince Hamlet, but as an attendant lord he misses nothing; his eyebrows are often raised, never his voice. Human action, Powell seems to be saying, is of primary importance in itself...
...years younger announces that his own novel is to be published-Brendan finds a solution. He imports his dear old mother from Belfast to look after the two children, puts his wife to work, quits the magazine, and dusts off his old manuscript. The novel goes well (the reader is never told what it is about, and it may, indeed, be about a writer), but nothing else does. Mother Tierney cannot understand Brendan's wife, and is shocked by the paganism of his household; she baptizes the children in the bathroom. The wife resents everything-Mother Tierney, the novel...
...really? Novelist Moore obviously thinks so. But to the reader, Brendan seems unpleasant but no monster of iniquity; his wife, on the other hand, is a certifiable bitch, and her bitchery has very little to do with her husband's occupation. Without much question, Moore has got hold of the wrong villain, something an artist of his skill would not do if his topic had not blurred his vision...
...does not take the reader long to realize that he is in the hands of a Brazilian Boccaccio (whose book is marred now and then by his translators' foolish fondness for gringo slang). It is no surprise, therefore, when Gabriela appears-the laughing, barefoot, round-rumped omnamorata who turns up in the bawdy literature of every language. Who is Gabriela's husband? Naturally he is fat Nacib, the saloonkeeper. Who crawls in Nacib's window when Nacib is tending bar? No one but oily Tonico, the seducer. Will Tonico succeed in getting back out when Nacib comes...