idiosyncratic nature of Langley's writing. Some see it as "flowery and sometimes overwritten prose ... punctuated with passages of verse with which the narrator, Steve, is obsessed". Others, though, describe her writing as charming, original, ironic and complex. Maxwell, for example, comments that it contains "racy narrative", satiric comments" and moving lyricism". Arkin suggests that there is an element of the picaresque in the novel and argues this genre suits what she sees as the "transvestism" theme in the novel, as the "picaresque novel is about a rogue or delinquent" who contravenes "moral and civil laws". Maxwell, though, is more literal in her reading of the term and argues that "picaresque" is "not accurate. Steve and Blue are young women in search of adventure, not rogues as the Spanish word picaro would imply". While describing the book as a "dense and erratic narrative", Ellis argues that "what is striking about this novel is the way the narrative strives for a sense of connection to the land". She sees Langley attempting to achieve this through a "classical understanding", that is, by using "other languages, other cultures and ultimately other histories to voice her sense of connection to the Australian nation". An example she gives of this is Langley's poetic style and her use of a foreign tongue in: "'O Patria Mia! Patria Mia!' and my naked brown feet kissed the dear earth of my Australia and my soul was pure with love of her". Critical response Spender comments on the fact that Langley was criticised at the time for having her heroines in The Pea-Pickers and White Topee wear trousers, despite the fact that trousers "permitted freedom of movement" and enhanced personal safety by letting a woman "pass as a man". She says: "but if Eve Langley knew the benefit of trousers, her critics did not: it is distressing to find that sometimes there is more comment about her eccentricities as a person than about the strengths of her writing". Ellis, on the other hand, writes that "it is almost impossible to side-step the biographical data that often obscures discussion of her work whether it be the eccentricities of her life -- including her transgender wardrobe and her decision to change her name by deed poll to Oscar Wilde -- or her lonely and somewhat grisly death. As a result, commentators of The Pea-Pickers have been fascinated with its presentation of