Word: sansom
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1940-1949
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...BODY (215 pp.)-William Sansom-Harcourt, Brace...
This sad and ridiculous situation is the starting point of William Sansom's smoothly joined and brightly told study of middle-aged delusional jealousy. Henry Bishop yearned for the days when people gently chased butterflies with nets; by contrast, he found modern life crude and vulgar. Until Diver's appearance, his 20 years of marriage with Madge had been plain, placid and passionless. Diver was all energy and heartiness. To Madge's amusement, he thrust trick gadgets at Henry-a golden dog whose eyes lit up, a dinner plate that leaped up convulsively...
This seemingly overworked situation has been used by Author Sansom with both sympathy and artistic guile. Readers naturally feel superior to Henry; they may also have an uneasy feeling that Henry's kind of foolishness is pretty common...
...father's wife, Miss Amy, proceeds to hit the bluejay with a poker. This proves to be an appropriate introduction to the household. Other inmates are the languid and effeminate Cousin Randolph, Jesus Fever's granddaughter Zoo Fever, and Joel's father, Mr. Sansom, who is mysteriously sick and invisible. Joel begins to think maybe he doesn't exist. But in the evening a red tennis ball bumps down the stairs as if it had a life of its own, and rolls into the parlor. That is how he learns that his father is lying upstairs...
...been blitzed, and Anna Kavan's Face of My People, a pathos-laden account of a neurotic veteran's resistance to psychoanalytical probing ("They've taken everything; let them not take my silence") are good, solid if not world-shaking stories. Also worth watching is William Sansom, who can't yet create characters but who has a captivating way with machinery...