Although the religious framework of Voss is obviously subsidiary to its interest as a novel, it does throw light on one difficult subject, White's pessimism and the limits of that pessimism; the curious vision in the book of a bleak, yet in a sense self-curing world…. The continued irony and even distaste shown about the social world and 'the flesh', even after they have been embraced, makes it doubtful that coming to terms with the physical, or social salvation, are really what Voss is about. However, the problem of Voss is clearly not its quality of disgust. (pp. 119-20)

The oddity about Voss is that the gloomy landscape is not accompanied by the almost inevitable corollary, the insistence that human life must be penetrated from outside by divine Grace to have any meaning. The encounter between Voss and Laura takes place within the dark world. It is not...