William Trevor Critical Essay | Critical Review by Julia O'Faolain

Critical Review by Julia O'Faolain

SOURCE: O'Faolain, Julia. “The Saving Touch of Fantasy.” Times Literary Supplement (31 May 1991): 21.

In the following mixed review of Two Lives, O'Faolain claims that Trevor “is not here at the top of his form.”

William Trevor's fictions swing between realism and the escape-hatch of fantasy and the process is symbiotic, for it is his characters' plausibility which earns credence for their excesses. Like real people, they can commit cartoonish follies without becoming cartoonish. Reality dogs them. Realism delivers them up to scrutiny and we, like Peeping Toms, may even feel an uneasy shiver at its verisimilitude. Humour rarely distances his subjects for long. Just as we settle to the release of laughter, a twitch of the plot hauls them back in for another shock of recognition. They are apt to be close to the end of their tether and are often very like ourselves. Trevor's empathy finds poignancy...
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