Julian Symons Critical Essay | Critical Essay by The New Yorker

Critical Essay by The New Yorker

Mr. Symons has always given full measure. That is to say, he has never chosen to stand by ingenuity of plot alone; he also gives his attention to character, setting, and tone. In his new novel [The Name of Annabel Lee]—about a stiff British professor of English literature at a New England college who loses his habitual poise and balance in the arms of a transient English girl named Annabel Lee Fetherby—those qualities are present in abundance: in, unfortunately, an overabundance. The story is a good one—why Annabel Lee appeared and why she disappeared. But Mr. Symons has let his abundance run into irrelevancies—about the professor's former fiancée, now married to his father; about an old school friend and his trendy life and adulterous wife; about a dismal place of orgy called the House of Usher—and these, though not uninteresting, become annoying when they are discovered to have nothing to...
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