[In The Go-Between,] the story of a young lad exploited by two passionate clandestine lovers, Hartley intends us to see an extra dimension, the pattern of this century: a self-deceiving idealism that denies human reality, the exploitation of people and feelings for ulterior ends, a willingness to indulge in irrationality, that all combine to produce disaster….

The novel deals with the repression of true feeling, and its consequences. It is—like its protagonist—very selfconscious, and is elaborately wrought. The reader needs not only to come to terms with the social codes of the turn of the century, to recognise the social and sexual blinkering of the middle-class young of the time, and to respond sympathetically to the introverted and unworldly young protagonist, Leo Colston, but also to appreciate the sophisticated and even knowing use of various literary devices, especially irony, allusion and symbolism.

These last features are...