Rating: 
Summary: A Brilliant Novel - Not for the Pat Booth Crowd
Review: The Transit of Venus is the only novel I return to again and again through the years. When Shirley Hazzard writes the line, "Although the dissolution of love creates no heroes, the process itself requires heroism," it speaks not to the mind trying to follow a plot line, but to the depths of the heart and soul. Early on in the book there is a scene, that serves no essential purpose for advancing the plot. The two would-be lovers are on a bus. The bus doesn't lurch and they are not thrown together in an embrace. Not moved by fate, their orbits take them in different directions. It's a very subtle interaction, one that will surely be lost on the Harlequin crowd. This novel took seven years to write. It is one of the finest, most delicately constructed works of art, you will ever read.
Rating:
Summary: A stunning accomplishment
Review: This almost unbearably exquisite novel features shimmering, lapidary language; minutely observed, palpably real characters; joy and suffering in their purest, most elemental forms; and the mother of all revelations, about three-quarters of the way through. Hazzard's prose demands the complete concentration of even the most erudite reader, but it is a rewarding and even sensual experience to savor her sentences and paragraphs one by one.
Rating: 
Summary: Women of a certain age will enjoy this book
Review: This book follows the lives of two sisters from their early twenties into and past middle age. The story is about the changes that occur in their lives -- the undercurrent is the change in their perspectives as they grow older. I thoroughly enjoyed this read. Ms. Hazzard's sentence structure takes some getting used to, but once I did it lended texture to the story. Would recommend to women who are past adolescence -- don't know if younger women would be able to appreciate it.
Rating:
Summary: A remarkable reading experience
Review: This is a beautifully written novel - when I finished reading it, I had to start over again. The first time I rushed through it, intrigued by the plot. The second time to relish the language.It is a series of pleasures, combining an acuity of observation of human behaviour delivered with surprising, sometimes startling, similes and metaphors. While the content is not light-hearted, there is a warmth, humour and intelligence which comes through, so that the overall effect is positive. I haven't enjoyed a read like that in a very long time.
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