Word: sylvia
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...Sylvia is a puzzle to her husband-to-be, Peter Lawford. She lives in a luxury neighborhood, grows prize roses, displays carefree décolletage, has no visible means of support except for a slim volume of her published poems entitled Moon Without Light. After scanning the verse (Oh preacher, I got these awful blues and a bellyful of sin), Lawford hires Private Eye George Maharis to find out: Who is Sylvia...
BELL CALL by Sylvia Ashton-Warner. 317 pages. Simon & Schuster...
...Glorious Spoilt Children. This third novel by Sylvia Ashton-Warner, the greatly gifted New Zealand teacher and writer, displays all the qualities of style, feeling and subject matter that made her earlier books (Spinster, Incense to Idols, and the autobiographical Teacher) unforgettable. Except that this time she has pushed these qualities to an unbearable extreme, to create what is finally a fascinating and disturbing book, but a failure...
...Sylvia tries to help during family collisions but is rebuffed. She feels sorry and confused and so does the reader. Then, with nearly 200 pages turned, comes the sermon. It is a fine sermon, delivered by a wise old Scots preacher. on the folly of hoping to win God's grace by heaping up worldly goods or worldly good works. "Aye, Annie," the preacher mimics, "I've been aye doing so muckle guid, I've noe had time to set me down and mind...
...modern reader is attuned instantly; a search for identity is in progress. But it is a disappointing search. Sylvia's identity is not very interesting, even to herself. Another hundred pages of collisions and rebuffs is got through before Sylvia (her identity evidently found) shrugs and decides to move out. The reader feels like giving a cheer...