Angus Wilson Critical Essay | John Bayley

John Bayley

SOURCE: "Last Words," in London Review of Books, Vol. 10, No. 1, January 7, 1988, p. 16.

An English poet, novelist, and critic, Bayley is best known for his critical studies of Thomas Hardy, Alexander Pushkin, and Leo Tolstoy. In this review, Wilson's stories are compared to the work of English authors D. H. Lawrence and Rudyard Kipling, though Bayley finds that Wilson's early stories, in particular, are "in a class of their own. "

There is certainly a hint of [D. H.] Lawrence in Wilson's verbal exuberance and zest, and in his ruthless geniality, although the Wilson world is all his own. Lawrence, like [Rudyard] Kipling, makes extensive use of what might be termed the ambiguous event, or non-event, and Wilson does it too, in his own masterly way. In 'The Captain's Doll' and 'The Fox' things happen—a wife's defenestration and a lesbian lady's execution by a falling tree—which...
(read more)