Volume 21, Number 20 · December 12, 1974
Enigma Variations
By Irvin Ehrenpreis
Long Distance
by Penelope Mortimer
Doubleday, 204 pp., $6.95
Tatlin!
by Guy Davenport
Scribner's, 261 pp., $7.95
Penelope Mortimer's new novel is so witty you think it's a comedy, and so troubling you think it's a confession. I suppose the best description is an allegorical romance drawn from elements of the author's life. But the meaning—translucent at best—is never narrow, for it touches the ocean floor of sexuality. Whoever remembers The Pumpkin Eater remembers Mrs. Mortimer's detached scenes of absurd but revealing dialogue, with ominous hints dropped among the bright inanities. He also remembers the luminous, tragic ending, with the mother, in flight from her own guilelessness, captured inside a tower retreat by her ignorant children and calculating husband—a mother triply betrayed, and drained of forgiveness.
Review, 2577 words
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