Jain
12/9/2014
This is a long, rambling, heavily footnoted novel that doesn't suffer from a lack of editing. Clarke's been compared to Austen (among several other writers), but I'd say she's more like Eliot. Certainly, this book reminded me a great deal of Middlemarch: the complex yet clear writing style; the wide cast of characters; the diverse plot threads that all came together in the end to form a single, coherent narrative. Not a quick read by any means, but a very pleasurable one.