Volume 12, Number 8 · April 24, 1969
Women's Work
By John Wain
The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford
by Jean Stafford
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 463 pp., $10.00
Bruno's Dream
by Iris Murdoch
Viking, 320 pp., $5.75
A Compass Error
by Sybille Bedford
Knopf, 288 pp., $5.95
Jean Stafford's stories have a wide social and geographical range; they are linked together by two strong threads—the presiding sensibility is always a woman's and the attitudes are unmistakably American—but, beyond that, one has no idea what to expect. She writes about people whom loneliness has driven slightly mad, but also about people who are secure and comforted; she explores childhood and old age, poverty and wealth, tragedy and comedy. The comedy is usually wry, sometimes sour, but often moves one to laughter. Above all, Miss Stafford will not be hurried. Confronted with a scene or a situation, she moves forward deliberately, possessing it with her eyes and her mind, taking in all its details, the meanings it offers, and the meanings it holds back. Here she is in the women's ward in the poorhouse:
Review, 2735 words
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