"Earthly Possessions" … is just another one of those slightly stale, wry books that so many women writers seem to be turning out: A heroine who is a rueful optimist or cheerful pessimist, takes us on a long walk through the world in order to point out its incongruities. A Michelin guide to desolate panoramas, dismal accommodations, poor fare. A woman laughing out of the other side of her mouth….
Charlotte is the nearest thing to a character in "Earthly Possessions," yet she is only a hope chest of negatives, a woman on the run from boredom toward an empty ambiguity. Her mother and father are the caricatures we have come to expect from contemporary fiction, what E. M. Forster called "flat characters." Her father silently takes old-fashioned formal pictures of the people in his small town and her mother is merely fat, as if she could make up in quantity what she lacks in quality. There is nobody in the book for Charlotte to bounce off and so she merely rolls around until she stops. (p. 12)
Anatole Broyard, in The New York Times Book Review (© 1977 by The New York Times Company; reprinted by permission), May 8, 1977.
This is a free excerpt of 200 words. There are 204 words (approx.
1 page at 300 words per page) in the full critical essay.
Read the rest of this Criticism with our Tyler, Anne 1941–: Critical Essay by Anatole Broyard Access Pass.
