[The Chateau] is likely to be even more disappointing than Maxwell's previous books to readers looking for fleshly characters who undergo things, as well as to those who wait for novels that come in the shape of chinese boxes. It is really an anti-novel; and if you understand that there is no massive esthetic theory involved and that Maxwell isn't angry or on fire or jaded, you might appreciate and enjoy the kind of anti-novel it is.

The kind it isn't is that of Robbe-Grillet or Nathalie Sarraute…. What Maxwell does is something much less ambitious on the one hand and less embittered on the other, though it stems from quite the same weariness with the novels that give answers, artificially jack up our morale or our comprehension, recharge our emotions or provide us with vicarious selves.

"When you explain a mystery, all you do is make room...