I did enjoy this book, especially its evocation of the prairies — and the small prairie town — during the Great Depression. In fact, the landscape is the only ‘character’ of the book that is unambiguous and stark in its reality. But even in that there is a possibility that the reader is being shown a facade (just like the “false-fronted towns” Mrs Bentley refers to); after all, the town is called Horizon — a place that can never be reached no matter how far one travels. There’s just so much to think about and discuss with this novel: how reliable is Mrs Bentley’s narration? is she or is Philip the main character? what is going on in the weeks that are omitted? There’s the role that art plays in the novel, the lost son, the replacement son in Steve, and the half-son Philip at the end of the book. There’s the theme of religion and lack of religious feeling. And a lot of hypocrisy on many levels to analyse. It’s a very short book and the whole thing takes place in only about a year, but there’s so much crammed in here. An excellent book by Sinclair Ross.
A friend on BookCrossing gave this review:
Got about 10 pages to go.
I want to recommend this relatively little-known gem, so I'll tell you something about it - albeit there is NO SPOILER; please read on.
If you were to read the back of this book, you'd think it was going to be dull, but it's captivating. It's a short book, very introspective, full of thought provoking similes and lovely imagery, so that you feel like you're there with the characters. The story is about the deep and killing strain in a relationship between a married couple who are at heart complete strangers to one another. In a sense, they live on opposite sides of a freezing cold island in the middle of an arctic sea. For a number of reasons they are emotionally crippled and pitted against one another. The marriage is quite plainly foundering badly on the rocks - in fact I'd call it a nightmare of mental abuse - but it is being held together by the wife purely by her need to keep up appearances and her determined hope for the future. Given the time of writing (1930s small prairie town), the wife's virtual entrapment is believable. The extreme distance between the couple despite their necessary closeness keeps building and building, until the reader is ready to scream!! I've no idea how this one can end.
Of particular interest is that the book is told from the POV of a woman but was written by a man. Recommended!!
A friend on BookCrossing gave this review: