Too Late the Phalarope invites us to think of Alan Paton more simply as a novelist than as a kind of Christian plenipotentiary to South Africa. Not that Cry the Beloved Country is a religious tract, or natural accident—but the literary qualities of the first book, which seem to have sprung from the very ground, seem in the second imported. Though Too Late the Phalarope is no patchwork, its relative limitations can be detected. I think, squarely in the midst of its new 'literary' features.
Similarity to Paton's first book only emphasizes the defects. (p. 152)
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