It is an unusual Yorkshire household that A. S. Byatt describes in ["Shadow of a Sun"] …, a countrified, genius-oriented universe in which parental permissiveness is more a matter of default than intention. The author goes to great lengths of prolixity to define her characters, but fails to breathe life into them. Between Anna and her problems there always intrudes an ornamental rhetoric, substituting exposition for the revelation that should come out of a clash of characters. (pp. 32-3)

Martin Levin, "Reader's Report," in The New York Times Book Review (© 1964 by The New York Times Company; reprinted by permission), July 26, 1964, pp. 32-3.∗