Negative Positive
Title: reads like an unedited first draft
Review: This is the very last thing that Godden published, and it is not a well-written book.Instead of her delicate and deliberate prose, you will find repetitive and sketchy phrasing. Her wonderfully nuanced characters are missing the depth her readers expect; instead, she has left markers, as often as not, that seem to be quick notes for later revisions that never happened.The painter John Currin once said that he learned more from studying the second-rate painters than he did the masters. This book might be interesting for that reason; Godden's fine polish was never applied, and another writer might discern the armature underneath the surface.If you are reading purely for pleasure, this one won't bring the kind of joy that so very many of her works can bring. But for me, it was an illumination; even the finest of novels begin with a first draft.
Is the review positive or negative? 