Word: austen
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Like Jane Austen, Elizabeth Jane Howard (Mrs. Kingsley Amis) constructs her novel by pairing off her people with a series of outsiders and observing the consequences-in this case, a miscarriage, a Riviera love affair and a slow poisoning. Like Evelyn Waugh, the author believes that fate has the blind staggers. She takes peculiar delight in showing that there is no justice in the distribution of misery and joy, no allowance made for innocence or effort. Alice, for example, succeeds in escaping her father's house-but ends up unhappily married in a "luxury bungalow with Spanish-style touches...