Volume 4, Number 10 · June 17, 1965
Domestic Manners
By Christopher Ricks
The Man Who Loved Children
by Christina Stead, Introduction by Randall Jarrell
Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 527 pp., $5.95
The Fetish and Other Stories
by Alberto Moravia, translated by Angus Davidson
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 285 pp., $4.95
'An Unread Book' is Randall Jarrell's title for his first-rate Introduction to Christina Stead's The Man Who Loved Children—so it seems that none of us needs to feel personally ashamed of somehow never quite having heard of the book. The literary world as a whole, though, ought to be ashamed. A few critics, most notably Elizabeth Hardwick, stood up to be counted—on the fingers of one hand. But even now, twenty-five years after its first publication, one can't help thinking that there is probably as much good luck as good management in its reissue and acclaim. Our grateful excitement at discovering a marvelous neglected novel oughtn't to relax us into all's well that ends well. The Man Who Loved Children must now be safely home, but it only scraped there. Who can now be so sure that achievement is bound to win in the end? The history of this one book is a piercing accusation against that part of the literary world which is bemused by modernisms and insatiably demands not that books be kept alive but that more books be born. Et dona ferentes…Continue to beware of publishers even when they come bearing gift-horses.
Review, 1698 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |