Susan Hill Critical Essay | Critical Essay by K. R. Ireland

SOURCE: "Rite at the Center: Narrative Duplication in Susan Hill's In the Springtime of the Year," in The Journal of Narrative Technique, Vol. 13, No. 3, Fall, 1983, pp. 172-80.

Below, Ireland identifies the scene at Helm Bottom as the mise en abyme of In the Springtime of the Year, emphasizing its primary relation to the themes and structure of the novel.

It is almost a decade since Susan Hill's last novel appeared. Similar to E. M. Forster in one respect at least, that of having written a handful of mature novels before giving up the form, she paradoxically invites, by her novelistic silence, a retrospective consideration of her work. Much-read but little analyzed, her work has a fluency and economy soon taken for granted, a simplicity of surface that is deceptive. In the Springtime of the Year (1974), her sixth and arguably most accomplished novel, received critical acclaim when...
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