Volume 46, Number 11 · June 24, 1999
Tight Little Island
By Michael Wood
The Spell
by Alan Hollinghurst
Viking, 257 pp., $24.95
England, England
by Julian Barnes
Knopf, 275 pp., $23.00
Rural England, even the real thing, often looks like a parody of itself. You visit someone in the village, and before you have downed your first gin and tonic they're talking about bell-ringing and cricket and who got a blue for what at Cambridge. You go for a walk, and pheasants whirr up in front of you as if practicing for their future life on coasters and place mats. I take these instances from the new novels by Alan Hollinghurst and Julian Barnes, but I could also have taken them from almost anyone's actual experience.
Review, 4462 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. |