[To] blame Snow's style for lacking virtues which are not only irrelevant but would be completely out of place in the character of his work is … inadequate. Lawrence Durrell can patch his pretentious productions with prose poetry to hide the joints, but for Snow the style is the work and his sparse prose has an organic function in the structure of the novels. He does not force his significances on us but lets them emerge naturally from the surrounding circumstances. The style is intentionally flat, recording every detail as the story proceeds through a level series of short chapters, each preoccupied with a single incident, some significant, others not. There is no emphasis on one more than another. As in real life, climaxes occur almost unrecognized in the steady procession of existence, and Snow never raises his voice. Each occasion is recorded in isolation so that casual relationship...