Rating: 
Summary: Writing From Another Time of Another Time
Review: The world is the less for the death of William Maxwell at age 91 last year. His prose is restrained and precise. He knows the use of silence on the page; his dialogue convinces both in the words and the spaces between the words. I read in a profile of Maxwell in the New Yorker that he wrote this novel's numerous short chapters by deciding which characters hadn't talked together for a while in the story, and getting them together. I liked that thought. Whether true or not, in reading this novel one enters two different times -- 1948 when Maxwell wrote it and the 1912 Midwest he recreates. I can't imagine something this quiet and directed being written in these frenetic times. It is a wander through memory, but -- thanks to Maxwell's careful rendering -- better than memory for it is sharp, accurate and sure. Still, I can't give this novel a five star rating. As much as I like Maxwell, his writing and the obvious care he took to get the language exactly right, a craftsman at work, the key characters don't really convince me. Nora is much too shallow to captivate, confuse or immobilize someone like Austin. Meanwhile, Austin himself is, in some parts of the novel, too smart, too dogged in the flashback of his pursuit of Martha, to also be as easily duped or unfeeling as he is drawn in others. Here's a final recommendation, though -- when the final scene arrives for each character, and they pass through the novel for the last time, one cares about each one and what happens in the unknown next that extends beyond the last page.
Rating: 
Summary: Time will darken it
Review: This was so not at all what I was expecting and its pace was excruitatingly slow. Perhaps I wasn't in the right frame of mind when I read this, but I couldn't force myself past the first chapter, which was frustrating. I let the book sit and tried again a month later and I still simply couldn't embrace the world created here.
Rating: 
Summary: A beautiful, memorable landscape
Review: This was truly one of the most beautiful novels I've ever read. The title is taken from a excerpt from an art textbook describing techniques of landscape painting and, that is exactly what the novel is: a richly, landscaped view of life. Maxwell's imagery leaves the reader feeling such a part of the world of Elm Street that it is truly heartbreaking to leave it and return to the present. His use of light and shadow is outstanding. The images and emotions evoked in the novel live on in the imagination.
Rating:
Summary: A beautiful, memorable landscape
Review: This was truly one of the most beautiful novels I've ever read. The title is taken from a excerpt from an art textbook describing techniques of landscape painting and, that is exactly what the novel is: a richly, landscaped view of life. Maxwell's imagery leaves the reader feeling such a part of the world of Elm Street that it is truly heartbreaking to leave it and return to the present. His use of light and shadow is outstanding. The images and emotions evoked in the novel live on in the imagination.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful, graceful and profound
Review: What a remarkably sad little book this is. Maxwell's characters, so pure of heart and full of good intentions, nonetheless find themselves alone, or pining after loves that can never be, or bound up in marriages of profound, unspoken, disappointment. There are, certainly, moments of hope: the tender bond between Martha and her young daughter Abbey; the sweet story of Dr. Danforth's love affair in his autumn years; the unrequited puppy love between Randolph and Mary Caroline. But Maxwell's concern here seems largely to be with illusion and unfulfilled dreams. These are not novel literary themes, and yet he manages to put a fresh twist on them. The novel sweeps gracefully through time; the prose is as lucid and evocative as any writer's I've read, and Maxwell occasionally offers up such piercing insights into human nature that the reader is forced to go back and read passages a second, and even a third time. Time Will Darken It is a sweet, thoughtful and beautiful novel and I would highly recommend it to anyone. It is a shame that William Maxwell's name is not more prominent on the frequently-cited list of great American writers.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful, graceful and profound
Review: What a remarkably sad little book this is. Maxwell's characters, so pure of heart and full of good intentions, nonetheless find themselves alone, or pining after loves that can never be, or bound up in marriages of profound, unspoken, disappointment. There are, certainly, moments of hope: the tender bond between Martha and her young daughter Abbey; the sweet story of Dr. Danforth's love affair in his autumn years; the unrequited puppy love between Randolph and Mary Caroline. But Maxwell's concern here seems largely to be with illusion and unfulfilled dreams. These are not novel literary themes, and yet he manages to put a fresh twist on them. The novel sweeps gracefully through time; the prose is as lucid and evocative as any writer's I've read, and Maxwell occasionally offers up such piercing insights into human nature that the reader is forced to go back and read passages a second, and even a third time. Time Will Darken It is a sweet, thoughtful and beautiful novel and I would highly recommend it to anyone. It is a shame that William Maxwell's name is not more prominent on the frequently-cited list of great American writers.
Rating:
Summary: One of my favorite books of all times
Review: Whenever I read Maxwell, I am struck by how white the pages seem in my mind, how clean the words. I do not think I have read another author who embodies the midwest like Maxwell -- especially in the time period when he wrote. This book is simply wonderful.
|
