Customer Reviews

The Custom of the Country (Globe Quartos)

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A "potboiler" (c.f. Wharton's phrase about the masterpieces of literature) that is disguised only by occasional, powerful strokes. Undine is one of the great heroines--and one you can believe in. But its "potboiler" origin manifests itself in the rather "cheap" suicide of Ralph (perhaps I am sore because I love him). More importantly, the shifting-perspective narration, which could have made this a great novel, instead exposes a lack of unity (when for instance Ralph is erased, and so with him a good half of the novel's characters--never to return. Ah, but I dwell...). Too many of the players, therefor, seem like tools. Here is a lightweight James plus Howells, and perhaps prefigures Fitzgerald. Still, a great read and splendid prose.