A masterly novel that explores public and private forms of violence with persistence and sensitivity.
But the difference between the two, Hagedorn implies in this slippery, masterly novel, is a riddle better savored than solved.
This is a "masterly first novel," Judith Grossman said here last year.
He declared it to be "among recent novels, masterly and superior" and, as a book of ideas, "splendid and engrossing."
"I am sure it is a wonderful movie," said Mr. Spencer, referring to Anthony Hopkins's portrayal of Stevens in the film version of Kazuo Ishiguro's masterly novel.
But he does recognize Ralph Ellison for his masterly novel, "Invisible Man," which he ranks with "Native Son" as the major fiction thus far written by a black novelist.
Margaret Mayfield, a bookish Missourian coming of age around the turn of the twentieth century, is the center of this masterly novel.
After years of unemployed vagrancy, when everyone has given up on him, he writes masterly novels that earn him little money.
Deserving of all its praise, this is a masterly first novel - and a nightmarish story that will haunt Oyeyemi's readers for months to come.
"Norwegian Wood" is no idle choice for a title: it creates a subliminal background, both aural and symbolic, for a masterly novel of late-60's love.