This section contains 480 words (approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page) |
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[In Treasures of Time, Lively] reveals a gift for highlighting character-types, picking out revealing details of social behaviour, manner and conversation, and a certain ability to hit a nail ironically on the head. She is technically inventive and assured, and her book reads a little like the work of Elizabeth Jane Howard—a compliment indeed. Yet I do not think she has yet proved that she possesses a talent for writing adult fiction of anything like the high order of her children's books.
Treasures of Time is enjoyable, perceptive, shrewd, but it collapses badly, and scurries towards a rather arbitrary conclusion, as though she had lost interest or run out of steam—grown bored, long before her readers. Having created a completely convincing social world, with past and present filled in intrinsic detail, she fails to exploit its full potential…. (p. 22)
Her novel concerns the family of a...
This section contains 480 words (approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page) |
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