Literary reviews by Tim Love.
Warning: Rather than reviews, these are often notes in preparation for reviews that were never finished, or pleas for help with understanding pieces. See Litref Reviews - a rationale for details.

Tuesday, 22 August 2006

"Felicia's Journey" by William Trevor (Viking, 1994)

It's a while since I've read Trevor. I left with the impression that too often he was writing-by-numbers, a trait most evident in his novels. There's less of it here than I'd expected. Even so, on p.102 he breaks in with a passage about the homeless. In small doses it's ok - "Some have crawled up scaffolding to find a corner beneath the tarpaulin that protects an untiled expanse.", but the rest of the passage sounds like left-over research that doesn't match the pace or PoVs of the novel. I like the way he does stream-of-consciousness (chapter 19, for example) - I wonder if he's written some non-mainstream stuff.

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