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wathohuc 's review for:
Years of Grace
by Margaret Ayer Barnes
This book was an adequate and enjoyable read. Like the character of Jane, the protagonist, the writing itself is admirable and competent, but not exceptional nor all that very creative. Is it worthy of a Pulitzer? Hard to say, because it seems to fit a type that certainly was preferred by society and by the Pulitzer committee during the period of its publication in 1930 and its selection in 1931. But when you realize that Faulkner's "As I Lay Dying" was also published in the same year, you begin to think that the Pulitzer selection committee didn't know what the hell they were doing picking this book over Faulkner. But despite its lack of literary brilliance, I confess to enjoying it and would recommend it to others.
What I most enjoyed about the book is its rather philosophically complex attempt to deal with human passion, love, happiness, and the passage of time. Although it pretends to project a kind of conservative preference for Victorian understandings of commitment, fidelity, morality, "gracefulness," etc., it does push the envelope and question the certainty of what "should" be considered proper and moral in love and marriage. The main character, Jane Ward (later Mrs. Stephen Carver), is a very complex character. And many of the other female characters in the novel were also much more on the complex side. One would not expect this of a best seller (at least not one of today's best selling novels). Props to Barnes for her success as an author in this regard.
What I didn't find all that impressive about the book was its very limited vocabulary and expressiveness. If she didn't use the word "twinkling" to describe a certain cleverly endearing look in the eyes more than 100 times, I'd be shocked. And that's just one of the more egregious examples of this limited descriptive capability. The novel is full of them. I also didn't find a lot of Jane's naivete about certain things to be really believable. A major failing of the book, though, is that Barnes just simply didn't manage to pass off the Jane/Jimmy love affair as believable. Not only did it seem forced and disingenuous; but it also seemed sordid and infantile.
But perhaps the biggest flaw in the book is Barnes's utter inability to capture anything real and complex about any of the male characters in the story. She just couldn't pull it off. All the men in the novel were either one of two types: (1) the charming, dispassionate, good guy and steady/true husband and wise father -- albeit a bit clueless about love and passion, and always cuckolded --; and (2) the sneaky, handsome, rogue lady-killer and marriage-destroying gigolo doing the cuckolding. Yet the good guys, boring though they were, endured. The bad guys, as much as Barnes tried to humanize them, came off as caricatures and all came to tragic ends, getting their karmic comeuppance. I honestly didn't really like any of the men in the novel and thought that they were all portrayed simplistically in one of the two extremes. Had some of the male characters been written as complex people like the women were, the book would maybe have risen towards a higher plane of literary greatness. But Barnes just didn't have it in her, even though she tried.
The final comment I'll make is that it is extremely difficult to find a copy of this book in the marketplace (at least for any decent price). It just hasn't captured the attention of any publishers to keep it in print. If you want to read this book, but don't want to spend $40 and up for an old, used copy from a second-hand dealer through Amazon.com or the online Barnes and Noble stores; you will be stuck searching for yellowed, dusty, and musty copies of it in College libraries. But make the effort to hunt one down, if for no other reason than to get a glimpse at another example of what passed for best-selling and critically-received (in its day) literature.
What I most enjoyed about the book is its rather philosophically complex attempt to deal with human passion, love, happiness, and the passage of time. Although it pretends to project a kind of conservative preference for Victorian understandings of commitment, fidelity, morality, "gracefulness," etc., it does push the envelope and question the certainty of what "should" be considered proper and moral in love and marriage. The main character, Jane Ward (later Mrs. Stephen Carver), is a very complex character. And many of the other female characters in the novel were also much more on the complex side. One would not expect this of a best seller (at least not one of today's best selling novels). Props to Barnes for her success as an author in this regard.
What I didn't find all that impressive about the book was its very limited vocabulary and expressiveness. If she didn't use the word "twinkling" to describe a certain cleverly endearing look in the eyes more than 100 times, I'd be shocked. And that's just one of the more egregious examples of this limited descriptive capability. The novel is full of them. I also didn't find a lot of Jane's naivete about certain things to be really believable. A major failing of the book, though, is that Barnes just simply didn't manage to pass off the Jane/Jimmy love affair as believable. Not only did it seem forced and disingenuous; but it also seemed sordid and infantile.
But perhaps the biggest flaw in the book is Barnes's utter inability to capture anything real and complex about any of the male characters in the story. She just couldn't pull it off. All the men in the novel were either one of two types: (1) the charming, dispassionate, good guy and steady/true husband and wise father -- albeit a bit clueless about love and passion, and always cuckolded --; and (2) the sneaky, handsome, rogue lady-killer and marriage-destroying gigolo doing the cuckolding. Yet the good guys, boring though they were, endured. The bad guys, as much as Barnes tried to humanize them, came off as caricatures and all came to tragic ends, getting their karmic comeuppance. I honestly didn't really like any of the men in the novel and thought that they were all portrayed simplistically in one of the two extremes. Had some of the male characters been written as complex people like the women were, the book would maybe have risen towards a higher plane of literary greatness. But Barnes just didn't have it in her, even though she tried.
The final comment I'll make is that it is extremely difficult to find a copy of this book in the marketplace (at least for any decent price). It just hasn't captured the attention of any publishers to keep it in print. If you want to read this book, but don't want to spend $40 and up for an old, used copy from a second-hand dealer through Amazon.com or the online Barnes and Noble stores; you will be stuck searching for yellowed, dusty, and musty copies of it in College libraries. But make the effort to hunt one down, if for no other reason than to get a glimpse at another example of what passed for best-selling and critically-received (in its day) literature.